In 1913, during the waning years of the White Slave Panic, Lou Field's theater in New York City debuted a spectacular new movie.

It was called Traffic in Souls and told the story of two young Swedish immigrant women who are ensnared by the manipulations of white slavers who conspired to trap them into a life of prostitution.

The silent film was six reels long as opposed to the typical length of four reels. It featured groundbreaking cinematography from Henry Elder Leach.

There are multiple stylized shots of New York City locations. In one scene, a camera pans from man standing on the shore to two immigrants leaving a ferry in a single carefully choreographed shot.

Near the end of the film, there's a long-panning shot of people behind bars in the prison to show that the villains are safely captured.

The film was a hit, earning $450,000 on its S-made $25,000 budget, and help make universal pictures into a major player among film studios.

In 2006, the film was selected for preservation of the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

The subject matter of traffic in Souls is very much of its time. Most historians say that the end of the White Slave Panic was in 1914 or 1915.

While fewer people were worried about gangs of white slavers snatching innocent girls off the street, that didn't change the fact that the White Slave traffic act was passed in 1910.

And the very young bureau of investigation was eager to prove its worth by enforcing this new law.

So while the panic might have died down, the most significant consequences of the White Slave narratives were just beginning.

I'm Travis Fu and this is Trickle Down, a podcast about what happens when bad ideas flow from the top, with me Ardulyan Field and Jake Rockatansky.

Episode 5 White Slavery Part Fully

When we left off the last episode, Stanley Finch, the first director of the Bureau of Investigation, appointed himself as a special commissioner for the suppression of the White Slave traffic, Alva Field Office in Baltimore.

So now it fell on Finch to investigate violations of this new law. His initial idea was to employ local part-time officers in cities where the manact might be violated.

These local officers were usually lawyers who already had full-time employment.

Cities were selected by sending letters to city postmasters and chiefs of police and asking if there was a local house of prostitution.

In 1912, brothels were often still operating openly with the knowledge of the local police force. When a city was selected, a Bureau agent visited the city and attempted to find an attorney willing to act as a local White Slave agent.

After a White Slave agent was selected, the two then went to the local chief police to ask for the assistance of a police officer.

So now they had a three-man team and once this was assembled, they visited every local brothel. The madam of each brothel was instructed that they had to cooperate with the federal agents or else the local police would shut them down.

The agents then posted notices for the prostitutes to read, which contained information about the manact and other federal laws pertaining to obstruction of justice and kidnapping.

Additionally, they counted and documented the sex workers in residence. The Bureau agent collected information about each prostitute including age, her parents' country of origin, and each previous brothel where she worked.

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