Maryland Vice Commission Reports - Enoch Pratt Free Library

During the early twentieth century, when progressive reformers were attempting to address problems resulting from industrialism and urbanization, Vice Commissions were set up in cities across the country. Their primary concerns were so-called “white slavery,” a term that was used for the practice of organized coercion of unwilling persons into prostitution, and other crimes involving the commercialized sex industry. Historians often point to fears arising from increased numbers of immigrants and increased urbanization as providing the impetus for the establishment of these commissions.

The Maryland Vice Commission was appointed by Maryland Governor Phillips Lee Goldsborough in 1913. It began to report out in 1915. Its main concern was prostitution, whether to keep it segregated in vice districts, where there were disorderly houses, or to break up the vice districts, which could result in streetwalking and pimping. Because investigators discovered such an abundance of vice, the report was controversial and caused official embarrassment, especially in Baltimore. In fact, Baltimore’s mayor called it, “entirely untrue, improper and unfair.” The typewritten, marked-up volumes digitized here are from the Enoch Pratt Free Library's Maryland Department. Only the fifth volume was commercially published.