The Social Evil : with Special Reference to Conditions Existing in the City of New York : A report prepared under the direction of The Committee of Fifteen

New York: G P Putnam's Sons. Good with no dust jacket. 1902. First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Library stamps/marks/labels/pocket/slip, rear hinge started, light edgewear, otherwise light wear. Still serviceable and solid hardcover.; Report of The Committee of Fifteen, formed by the New York City Chamber of Commerce in 1900 to investigate prostitution and recommend corrective measures, legislation, and promotion of wholesome moral and living conditions. This work was part of the Reform movement that overthrew Tammany Hall control of the city. "all public, obtrusive manifestations of prostitution shall be sternly repressed. Not prostitution itself, when withdrawn from the public eye so as to be noticeable only to those who deliberately go in search of it ... but all such manifestations of it as belong under the head of public nuisance. The result of the adoption of this policy will be, indeed, the continued existence of houses of ill-fame ... and these will remain undisurbed under the condition that they remain unobtrusive. ... Recognizing, then, that prostitution, although it ought not to exist, does and will for an indefinable time continue to exist among us, we are bound, as men advising for the moral welfare of our great city in the immediate future, to point out that form of the evil which, all things considered, will work the least harm. The better housing for the poor, purer forms of amusement, the raising of conditions of labor, especially of femal labor, better education, minors more and more withdrawn from the clutches of vice by means of reformatories, the spread of contagion checked by more adequate hospital accomodations, the evil itself unceasingly condemned by public opinion as a sin against morality, and punished as a crime with stringent penalties whenever it takes the form of a public nuisance: - these are the methods of dealing with it upon which the members of the Committee have united and from which they hope for the abatement of some of the worst of the consequences at present, and for the slow and gradual restriction of its scope in the future." - Recommendations of the Committee, pages 178-179. Fascinating Progressive Era document that captures how the Reform Movement used social science research to promote solutions to urban problems that attempted to address root causes rather than law enforcement only. ; Ex-Library; xiii, 188 pages .