The Newberry Seminar on Technology, Politics, and Culture, Co-sponsored by University of Illinois at Chicago, Roosevelt University, and Northwestern University:

To the Rescue: The Travelers' Aid Society and the Surveillance of Passengers in Chicago's Rail Station

Laura Milsk, Loyola University
December 13, 2003, 3:30-5:00 pm

The train station occupies a visceral space in America's cultural and physical environment. The six depots in Chicago's downtown served as a transitional zone where newcomers to Chicago were forced to abandon their old customs and come face-to-face with the cultural mores of the modern city. This paper explores the subsequent surveillance in the depots by Travelers' Aid Society agents and procures of vice alike, explains the complicated gender dynamics between women adrift and Progressive matrons, and looks at the perceived and actual dangers modern Chicago offered newcomers.

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