Marcus Braun and “White Slavery”: Shifting Perceptions of People Smuggling and Human Trafficking in America at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

When the history of American abolitionist legislation is assessed—if it gets any consideration at all—the 1910 White Slave Act is often regarded as a flawed overreaction to a largely imagined, or at least exaggerated, problem. However, the law, usually known as the Mann Act, has arguably influenced US trafficking policy more than any other single law since the 13th Amendment. This article examines the career, ambitions and misfortunes of one of the leading figures behind the Act, the immigration investigator Marcus Braun, to show how the concept of slavery was manipulated. It also shows how the problem of trafficking evolved over the opening years of the twentieth century and how the legacy of the Mann Act has continued to affect American attitudes toward sex and morality and their ties to slavery ever since