The Traffic in Souls [1913] (Directed by: George Loane Tucker)

• Q1: How does the film relate to the chapter in Foner?

The film Traffic in Souls is the first of many films to point out slavery, but this one, if not the only one, points out slavery of white women. The main characters Lorna and Jane work in a candy store when a gentleman suitor calls on the pretty and young Lorna. When she leaves with the man, she disappears and Jane and her fiance police officer Burke go searching for her, and eventually find her in a brothel, a place for prostitution. The brothel is run by Mr. Trubus, the president of the International Purity and Reform League, who hides this from his wife and daughter. This relates to the chapter in Foner many ways, the first being the corporate greed undermining traditional American values. Mr Trubus, a seemingly innocent but rich corporate leader was the leader in an underground brothel that brought innocent women in to a terrible fate. Another way I saw this movie was as a social commentary on a new feature in the progressive era: a working woman. This showed Lorna, a working woman on her own, being easily taken advantage of in her place of business, and this showed woman were "too naive" to be in charge of themselves. There was also a showing of immigrants from the scene at Ellis Island, and Foner mentioned immigration when he writes "if one thing characterized early-twentieth-century cities, it was their immigrant character" (Foner, 643). But after the scene with carting the two Swedish sisters off to the brothel, there wasn't much more mention of them. This film screamed as a helpful definition to Foner's mention of muckrackers, because this film brought out the worst in American life.

• Q2:What can we learn about American culture during the time period by interpreting the film as a primary historical source?

Many reviews boast that this film is one of a kind, acknowledging that "sex sells" but not int he sense we know it now. The narrative of this film is also unique for it's time in that Jane, the older sister, helped immensely to help save her younger sister, Lorna. This showed women being in control, and Jane was the head of the household (because her father was a cripple) so this showed tremendous new heights for women's rights. Also, this led to audience's believing to be skeptical of women out in the working world as they can led astray. The most obvious learning experience that can take place as a result of this movie is the corporate corruption that took place at the hands of a leader in something that seemed so innocent and good, i.e. the International Purity and Reform League.

• Q3: What does the film reveal about attitudes toward gender, class, and race?

There was nothing in this film said about race, as most, if not all, the characters were white. Pertaining to gender, there was a lot revealed. The fact that in this movie they tricked these women into the brothel so easily, especially Lorna from her place of work, says a lot of what the filmmakers thought of women on their own and thinking for themselves. To me, it says women are too naive to protect themselves from being abducted and getting put into dangerous situations, and definitely shouldn't be out in the workplace. As well as gender, class was in issue revealed in the film. Mr. Trubus, the president of the International Purity and Reform League, was a high class rich man with a wife and daughter. The high class man was the leader of a scandalous ring of brothels that lured in women of lower class, like Lorna and the Swedish twins. This shows that the high class corporates are the ones who are greedy and dishonest.

• Q4: What was the most important scene in the film?

Arguably, the most important scene in Traffic in Souls is the scene where the man in the brothel tries to bribe police officer Burke, Jane's fiance, after he discovers the brothel. Officer Burke kindly gives the money back and breaks the sign over the man's head that lured the two Swedish twins in the brothel in the first place. I thought this was important because the whole movie was based on corruption, and this scene really showed that even though the corporate greed in America was getting bad, we could still count on some people to be good. Officer Burke stood for the good things in America, and him breaking the sign over the brothel owner's head showed that sometimes good can still win.

• Reviews

DVD Savant (Glenn Erickson) dvd review
TCM Review

• My Review

I give this film a 2.5 out of 5. Although I did find the ties to Foner's chapter in the film, it would be extremely difficult to find them if I didn't have to for an assignment. The film was generally hard to follow from a narrative perspective, because even though it was a silent movie, there were very little of the subtitle cards one would normally find in silent films. Because there wasn't a lot of these, the plot was very hard to follow, and so it was hard to draw similarities to Foner's points in his chapter. What I did like in the film, is that in the scene in Ellis Island, they actually filmed it at Ellis Island and used real immigrants. This gave the film a real feeling and gave me, personally, a better look at what it was like immigrating to a new country instead of just seeing still pictures in a history book.