Destination: Alexandria, Buenos Aires, Constantinople; "White Slavers" in Late Imperial Austria

Abstract

f e w f o r m s o f s o c i a l l y d e v i a n t b e h av i o r received so much attention in the sexually saturated Austrian fin de siecle as Madchenhandel, or trafficking in girls, also called white slave trafficking. Trafficking in women and girls had not been unknown in preindustrial Cisleithania, but the discourse from the turn of the century embodied concerns about the need for social control in increasingly anonymous, modernizing, urbanizing, and capitalist society. Certainly, Madchenhandel was in many ways a modern crime, a crime associated particularly with Jews, who were popularly believed to supply white, unwilling girls to serve as prostitutes in brothels worldwide. ever-expanding and improving communication and transportation