It pulsates with dramatic power' : white slavery, popular culture and modernity in Australia in 1913

The play The Warning opened on 22 November 1913 at the Little Theatre on Sydney's Castlereagh Street. Written by Australian playwright 'Henry Basnell', its subject matter — white slavery, or the trade in women for sexual purposes — was sensational. 'It pulsates with dramatic power', declared an advertisement in the Sydney Morning Herald.' Two days later on the other side of the world, a feature length film also dealing with white slavery, Traffic in Souls, premiered at Joe Weber's Theatre on the corner of 29th and Broadway in New York City. At first glance it seems to be an uncanny coincidence that simultaneous productions in far-distant cities could share their subject matter so closely. Furthermore, both the Sydney play script and the New York movie2 deal with similar issues: the proper place of women in the public sphere, the need for women's sexuality to be regulated, and the commodification of women. Both exhibit ambivalent attitudes toward modernity and the city. Underlying these discourses, in each production, were attitudes to race, especially whiteness. How could a Sydney play and a New York film be so similar? In fact, their topic and approach were not unique but were found in a plethora of investigations, newspaper articles, pamphlets, conferences and novels produced in an era of world-wide moral panic about white slavery that began around 1880. This article will, firstly, outline the historical context of the white slavery panic and, secondly, examine The Warning and Traffic in Souls in order to explore how the language, images and metaphors connected with white slavery contributed to the discourses of modernity,3 sexuality, gender and whiteness. Finally, because both The Warning and Traffic in Souls are productions of modern, mass entertainment industries, they offer an opportunity to explore how popular culture forged connections between Australia and the phenomenon of global modernity.