Crossing over the Line: Legislating Morality and the Mann Act

Journal of Social History, Spring, 1996 by Beryl Satter

Langum's major point, however, is not to illuminate transformations in sexuality but to demonstrate the dangers of coercive moral laws. On this front the book succeeds beautifully. It is a sobering, convincing, and timely warning on the futility, and the dangers, of legislating morality.

Beryl Satter Rutgers University

ENDNOTE

1. Joanne J. Meyerowitz, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880-1930 (Chicago, 1988), pp. 117-139.