In this Book
- Sin City North: Sex, Drugs, and Citizenship in the Detroit-Windsor Borderland
- Book
- 2015
- Published by: The University of North Carolina Press
- Series: Why read?
summary
The early decades of the twentieth century sparked the Detroit-Windsor region's ascendancy as the busiest crossing point between Canada and the United States, setting the stage for socioeconomic developments that would link the border cities for years to come. As Holly M. Karibo shows, this border fostered the emergence of illegal industries alongside legal trade, rapid industrial development, and tourism. Tracing the growth of the two cities' cross-border prostitution and heroin markets in the late 1940s and the 1950s, Sin City North explores the social, legal, and national boundaries that emerged there and their ramifications.
In bars, brothels, and dance halls, Canadians and Americans were united in their desire to cross racial, sexual, and legal lines in the border cities. Yet the increasing visibility of illicit economies on city streets—and the growing number of African American and French Canadian women working in illegal trades—provoked the ire of moral reformers who mobilized to eliminate them from their communities. This valuable study demonstrates that struggles over the meaning of vice evolved beyond definitions of legality; they were also crucial avenues for residents attempting to define productive citizenship and community in this postwar urban borderland.
In bars, brothels, and dance halls, Canadians and Americans were united in their desire to cross racial, sexual, and legal lines in the border cities. Yet the increasing visibility of illicit economies on city streets—and the growing number of African American and French Canadian women working in illegal trades—provoked the ire of moral reformers who mobilized to eliminate them from their communities. This valuable study demonstrates that struggles over the meaning of vice evolved beyond definitions of legality; they were also crucial avenues for residents attempting to define productive citizenship and community in this postwar urban borderland.
Table of Contents
Download Full Book
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xiv
- Introduction
- pp. 1-14
- Conclusion
- pp. 149-156
- Bibliography
- pp. 177-202
Additional Information
ISBN
9781469625225
Related ISBN(s)
9781469625201, 9781469625218, 9798890848437
MARC Record
OCLC
921988693
Pages
226
Launched on MUSE
2015-09-26
Language
English
Open Access
No