New York Female Moral Reform Society

Last updated

The New York Female Moral Reform Society (NYFMRS) was an American reformism organization based in New York. It was established in 1834 under the leadership of Lydia A. Finney, wife of revivalist Charles Grandison Finney. [1] The NYFMRS was created for the fundamental purpose of preventing prostitution in early 19th century New York. It launched its official organ, Advocate of moral reform (later renamed Advocate and family guardian ) in 1835. [2]

Contents

Sarah R. Ingraham Bennett, editor, Advocate and family guardian Sarah R. Ingraham Bennett (Our Golden Jubilee, 1884).png
Sarah R. Ingraham Bennett, editor, Advocate and family guardian
Margaret Prior, first missionary, New York Female Moral Reform Society Margaret Pryor (Our Golden Jubilee, 1884).png
Margaret Prior, first missionary, New York Female Moral Reform Society
Mary Anne Hawkins, president, American Female Moral Reform Society Mary Anne Hawkins (Our Golden Jubilee, 1884).png
Mary Anne Hawkins, president, American Female Moral Reform Society

In time, the NYFMRS became one of the most well-known moral reform organizations of the period and even expanded its influence to other cities across America. Five years after its establishment, the NYFMRS already had 445 auxiliaries, and thus changed its name in 1839 to the American Female Moral Reform Society in the hopes that membership would expand even further. [3] This name change came just a year after the Boston Female Moral Reform Society became the New England Female Moral Reform Society due to a growing rivalry for support among auxiliary societies in the Northeast. [4]

By 1840, the society's goals evolved and with it came a name change to the American Female Guardian Society. [5]

Goals

Prostitution first became a problem in America between 1810 and 1820, primarily because it was not completely illegal, thus it is estimated that 5 to 10 percent of women were prostitutes. [6] Women soon discovered that prostitution paid more than any other kind of work available to them at the time, and even some kinds of employment were linked to prostitution. A report by the NYFMRS in the 1830s found that servants, chambermaids, and milliners were the most common occupations linked with prostitution. [7] With estimates of more than ten thousand prostitutes in the city it can be understood that some women simply turned to prostitution out of necessity from the strains of their economic and environmental situations. [8]

Moral reform became a prominent issue in the U.S. during the 1830s and 1840s and many organizations were created during this time to eliminate prostitution and the sexual double standard, and to also encourage sexual abstinence. While some organizations tried to reclaim women who had fallen into prostitution, moral reform societies like NYFMRS were convinced that prevention was their primary concern. Women involved in the New York Female Benevolent Society, who tended to be older women, were more willing to help prostitutes out of their situation. [9]

Reform strategies

The NYFMRS attempted many strategies in preventing prostitution from occurring. Some of these strategies included entering brothels and praying for the prostitutes and their clients, lobbying the state to make male solicitation of prostitutes a crime and threatening to publish names in their monthly journal of the men who regularly visited brothels. [1] Through time the NYFMRS took on new missions, primarily by relaxing their focus on prevention and opening up to the idea of homes for the friendless, offering education to those women in need and opening up an employment agency to help some respectable women. [3]

Notable people

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Great Awakening</span> Protestant religious revival in the early 19th-century United States

The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant religious revival during the late 18th to early 19th century in the United States. It spread religion through revivals and emotional preaching and sparked a number of reform movements. Revivals were a key part of the movement and attracted hundreds of converts to new Protestant denominations. The Methodist Church used circuit riders to reach people in frontier locations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prostitution in Nevada</span> Only U.S. state with legal prostitution

Nevada is the only U.S. state where prostitution is legally permitted in some form. Prostitution is legal in 10 of Nevada's 17 counties, although only six allow it in every municipality. Six counties have at least one active brothel, which mainly operate in isolated, rural areas. The state's most populated counties, Clark and Washoe, are among those that do not permit prostitution. It is also illegal in Nevada's capital, Carson City, an independent city.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Grandison Finney</span> American minister and writer (1792–1875)

Charles Grandison Finney was an American Presbyterian minister and leader in the Second Great Awakening in the United States. He has been called the "Father of Old Revivalism". Finney rejected much of traditional Reformed theology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prostitution in Germany</span> Overview of the legality and practice of prostitution in Germany

Prostitution in Germany is legal, as are other aspects of the sex industry, including brothels, advertisement, and job offers through HR companies. Full-service sex work is widespread and regulated by the German government, which levies taxes on it. In 2016, the government adopted a new law, the Prostitutes Protection Act, in an effort to improve the legal situation of sex workers, while also now enacting a legal requirement for registration of prostitution activity and banning prostitution which involves no use of condoms. The social stigmatization of sex work persists and many workers continue to lead a double life. Human rights organizations consider the resulting common exploitation of women from East Germany to be the main problem associated with the profession.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Victorian morality</span> Accepted behaviour and norms in the Victorian era

Victorian morality is a distillation of the moral views of the middle class in 19th-century Britain, the Victorian era.

Prostitution is illegal in Russia. The punishment for engagement in prostitution is a fine from 1500 up to 2000 rubles. Moreover, organizing prostitution is punishable by a prison term. Prostitution remains a very serious social issue in Russia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prostitution in the United Kingdom</span>

In Great Britain, the act of engaging in sex as part of an exchange of various sexual services for money is legal, but a number of related activities, including soliciting in a public place, kerb crawling, owning or managing a brothel, pimping and pandering, are illegal. In Northern Ireland, which previously had similar laws, paying for sex became illegal from 1 June 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julia Brown (prostitute)</span> American prostitute and brothel madam

Julia Brown was an American madam and prostitute active in mid-nineteenth century New York City. Brown has been described as "the best-known prostitute in antebellum America". Brown was known for playing the piano in her brothel and for being a guest at functions hosted by the best families in New York. She also had season ticket to two theaters, paid for pews in various churches and contributed generously to local bible societies. She became a popular subject of tourist guidebooks, and her name appears often in diaries from the period.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prostitution in the United States</span> Overview of the legality and practice of prostitution in the U.S.

Prostitution is illegal in the vast majority of the United States as a result of state laws rather than federal laws. It is, however, legal in some rural counties within the state of Nevada. Additionally, it is decriminalized to sell sex in the state of Maine, but illegal to buy sex. Prostitution nevertheless occurs elsewhere in the country.

Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact with the customer. The requirement of physical contact also creates the risk of transferring infections. Prostitution is sometimes described as sexual services, commercial sex or, colloquially, hooking. It is sometimes referred to euphemistically as "the world's oldest profession" in the English-speaking world. A person who works in this field is called a prostitute, and sometimes a sex worker, but the words hooker and whore are also sometimes used to describe those who work as prostitutes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex industry</span> Field of business

The sex industry consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of sex-related services, such as prostitution, strip clubs, host and hostess clubs and sex-related pastimes, such as pornography, sex-oriented men's magazines, women's magazines, sex movies, sex toys and fetish or BDSM paraphernalia. Sex channels for television and pre-paid sex movies for video on demand, are part of the sex industry, as are adult movie theaters, sex shops, peep shows, and strip clubs. The sex industry employs millions of people worldwide, mainly women. These range from the sex worker, also called adult service provider (ASP), who provides sexual services, to a multitude of support personnel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of prostitution</span>

Prostitution has been practiced throughout ancient and modern cultures. Prostitution has been described as "the world's oldest profession"..

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Prostitution law</span> Legality of prostitution

Prostitution laws varies widely from country to country, and between jurisdictions within a country. At one extreme, prostitution or sex work is legal in some places and regarded as a profession, while at the other extreme, it is considered a severe crime punishable by death in some other places. A variety of different legal models exist around the world, including total bans, bans that only target the customer, and laws permitting prostitution but prohibiting organized groups, an example being brothels.

Prostitution in Hawaii is illegal but common. There are about 150 brothels in Oahu alone.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">International Abolitionist Federation</span> Organisation to abolish regulated prostitution and trafficking of women.

The International Abolitionist Federation, founded in Liverpool in 1875, aimed to abolish state regulation of prostitution and fought the international traffic in women in prostitution. It was originally called the British and Continental Federation for the Abolition of Prostitution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of sexual slavery in the United States</span>

The history of sexual slavery in the United States is the history of slavery for the purpose of sexual exploitation as it exists in the United States.

Kathryn (Kitty) Kish Sklar is an American historian, author, and professor. Her work focuses on the history of women's participation in social movements, voluntary organizations, and American public culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eliza Haycraft</span> American brothel owner and philanthropist

Eliza Haycraft (1820-1871), was a wealthy brothel madam and philanthropist, who donated money to the widows and orphans of the American Civil War.

The New England Female Moral Reform Society was originally called the Boston Female Moral Reform Society at the time it was founded in 1835. The group changed their name in 1838 in response to a rivalry with the New York Female Moral Reform Society for support among women in auxiliary societies. The goal of the New England Female Moral Reform Society, as well as the other moral reform societies at the time, was to prevent prostitution and to end the sexual double standard. In 1844 the society opened a home for reformed prostitutes. In the first volume of their semi-monthly periodical, the society asserted that men and women were equally liable for the immoral sexual actions that they performed together.

Lydia Andrews Finney, born Lydia Root, was a social reformer and evangelical revivalist during the Second Great Awakening. She was most notably a founder of the New York Female Moral Reform Society.

References

  1. 1 2 Steven Mintz, Moralists and Modernizers: America’s Pre-Civil War Reformers, (Baltimore: JHU Press, 1995), 69
  2. "Advocate and family guardian (1835-1941)". University of Wisconsin. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
  3. 1 2 "Reform". Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved January 19, 2009.
  4. Introduction. Included in What Was the Appeal of Moral Reform to Antebellum Northern Women, 1835-1841?, by Daniel Wright and Kathryn Kish Sklar. (Binghamton, NY: State University of New York at Binghamton, 1999).
  5. "American Female Guardian Society by William Momberger, designer, engraver Samuel J. Pinkney on James E. Arsenault & Company". James E. Arsenault & Company. Retrieved 11 April 2024.
  6. Steven Mintz, Moralists and Modernizers: America’s Pre-Civil War Reformers, (Baltimore: JHU Press, 1995), 66-67.
  7. Timothy J. Gilfoyle, City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790-1920, (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1992), 60.
  8. Ronald G. Walters, American Reformers 1815-1860 , (HarperCollins, 1997), 179-180.
  9. Daniel S. Wright, Kathryn Kish Sklar, What Was the Appeal of Moral Reform to Antebellum Northern Women, 1835-1841?, (Binghamton, NY: State University of New York at Binghamton, 1999).