Deviant, deranged, or damsel-in-distress?: missing women and the American press, 1900-1920

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dc.contributor.authorGinter, Cara
dc.contributor.examiningcommitteeElvins, Sarah (History)
dc.contributor.examiningcommitteeGuard, Julie (Labour Studies)
dc.contributor.examiningcommitteeMedoro, Dana (English)
dc.contributor.supervisorChurchill, David
dc.date.accessioned2023-09-11T18:03:22Z
dc.date.available2023-09-11T18:03:22Z
dc.date.issued2023-06-29
dc.date.submitted2023-06-29T14:18:10Zen_US
dc.degree.disciplineHistoryen_US
dc.degree.levelMaster of Arts (M.A.)
dc.description.abstractOn June 20th, 1917, the Buffalo Evening News made the shocking claim that “800 GIRLS DISAPPEAR FROM NEW YORK HOMES." This article, featured on the newspaper's front page, informed readers that more than eight hundred girls had gone missing in the last six months. The article went on to reassure readers that a police inquiry was underway. By 1917, the “missing girl” problem was well-established in American newspapers. Dozens of articles were published in the first two decades of the twentieth century lamenting the crisis and demanding answers. Although many of these “missing girls” had fallen victim to violence, others disappeared in the pursuit of opportunity, freedom, and passion. These disappearances often served as fodder for a hungry press looking for compelling stories that would sell papers. Scandal and sensation featured prominently on the front pages of newspapers as they competed for larger shares of the reading public. Reports of missing women, especially from among the middle and upper classes, were particularly useful in catching and holding the attention of readers. Missing women narratives developed into a genre of their own. Progressive Era journalists generally categorized missing women in one of three ways: deviant, deranged, or a damsel-in-distress. The application of these categorizations and the scope of coverage a story received were determined by a woman's class and race. Whereas both upper and middle-class women received significant coverage, the tone of that coverage varied. While suspicion of deviance almost immediately tainted stories about upper-class women, journalists presented middle-class women as vulnerable to danger due to their presumed respectability. In sharp contrast, working-class women, immigrant women, and women of colour generally received little attention when they went missing. When journalists did pick up the story, they generally portrayed these women as insane or deviant. These stories provide insight into the anxieties of the Progressive Era and demonstrate how journalists used specific missing women narratives to highlight larger social issues of the period.
dc.description.noteOctober 2023
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1993/37634
dc.language.isoeng
dc.rightsopen accessen_US
dc.subjectAmerican History
dc.subjectAmerican Women
dc.subjectMissing Women
dc.subjectMissing American Women
dc.subjectNewspaper History
dc.subjectThe New York Times
dc.subjectThe Evening World
dc.subjectThe Boston Globe
dc.subjectCrime History
dc.subjectViolence Against Women
dc.subjectWomen and Crime
dc.subjectThe Missing Girl Problem
dc.subjectProgressive Era
dc.subjectProgressive Reformers
dc.subjectWhite Slavery Panic
dc.titleDeviant, deranged, or damsel-in-distress?: missing women and the American press, 1900-1920
dc.typemaster thesisen_US
local.subject.manitobano
oaire.awardNumber410-2006-1234
oaire.awardTitleJoseph Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship-Master’s (CGS M)
oaire.awardURIhttp://www.outil.ost.uqam.ca/CRSH/Detail.aspx?Cle=198074&Langue=2
project.funder.identifierhttps://doi.org/10.13039/501100000155
project.funder.nameSocial Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
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