Éteindre le Red Light : Les réformateurs et la prostitution à Montréal entre 1865 et 1925

The author points out that the Red Light district in Montreal has long been the object of sporadic efforts, if not to eliminate it, at least to control, regulate or limit it to a definite area of the city. She notes that enquiries on the police in 1905, 1909, and 1924 give us information on the official position of the authorities and the activities of pressure groups concerned with prostitution. Founded in 1917, the Committee of Sixteen, a predominately Anglophone-member organization, for a decade carried the torch of those social reformers eager to eliminate "commercial vice" in Montreal. The Committee was able to count on the support of the Montreal Local Council of Women, another Anglophone organization, which was concerned with the problems of the white slave trade and prostitution. In addition to moral considerations, especially after the Great War, were the concerns raised by veneral diseases. The author found that after years of reformers' agitation neither abolitionism nor regulation triumphed; instead toleration prevailed, accompanied by a watchfulness and control of a sitution that suited a large number of interests linked to business in the Red Light district.

Urban History Review / Revue d'histoire urbaine

Vol. 17

no. 3

191-201

Février 1989

fr