2017 Winner: Prostitution at the Border Towns: Moral Reform and Abolition along the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1903-1920

Project Information
Prostitution at the Border Towns: Moral Reform and Abolition along the U.S.-Mexico Border, 1903-1920
Humanities
HIS 195A/B
This paper argues that the hardening of the U.S.-Mexico border came through the changing definitions of prostitution in the United States and Mexico. In doing so, the border became a place that limited the movements of prostitutes due to the changing ideals about morality and hygiene within the United States and Mexico. The close scrutiny and surveillance of both prostitution and the vice industry at the borderlands, prompted the rigid control and militarization of the borderlands later in the twentieth century. Regulation and abolition came through different means in which each country saw prostitution. In addition, this paper is focused on the development of the vice industry in Tijuana to further elucidate the hardening of the border in the early twentieth century.
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Students
  • Miguel Angel Giron (Oakes)
Mentors