A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil

E-264: MacMillan Company. Very Good. 1912. Hardcover. Hardcover. 8vo. Published by Macmillan, New York, 1912. Xi, 219 pgs. First Edition/First Printing. Bound in cloth boards with titles present to the spine and front board. Boards have light shelf-wear present to the extremities. Previous owner's name present to the FFEP. Text is clean and free of marks. Binding tight and solid. Published in 1912 on the heels of Twenty Years at Hull-House and at the height of Jane Addams's popularity, "A New Conscience and an Ancient Evil" assesses the vulnerability of the rural and immigrant working-class girls who moved to Chicago and fell prey to the sexual bartering of what was known as the white slave trade. Addams offers lurid accounts--drawn from the records of Chicago's Juvenile Protection Association--of young women coerced into lives of prostitution by men who lurked outside hotels and sweatshops. Because they lacked funds for proper recreation, Addams argues, poor and socially marginalized women were susceptible to sexual slavery, and without radical social change they would perhaps be "almost as free" as young men. In addition to promoting higher wages and better living conditions, Addams suggests that a longer period of public education for young women would deter them from the dangers of city life. EB .