The History of Prostitution

During his second seven years’ tenure of the office of resident physician at Blackwell’s Island, William W. Sanger was asked by the New York City alderman to look into the motives of prostitutes. He oversaw police interviews of 2000 women at Blackwell’s Island. The results of his study he embodied in a work characterized by laborious research and comprehensive classification of the facts that he obtained, entitled the History of Prostitution.