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When prostitution was legal in most of the US, you had a high rate of Syphilis (On the HMS Bounty trip to Tahiti, the Bounty landed at Capetown for provisions and Captain Bligh checked out his crew for Syphilis before he left them ashore, Richard Christian was one of the men he inspected and reported he no longer had Syphilis, i.e. it was in remission) and Gonorrhea (Historians can trace the path of Lewis and Clark Expedition by the existence of Mercury, mercury was used to treat, nor cure, the affect of Syphilis on a man's penis when he pissed). Lincoln was reported by his Law Partner to have had syphilis, attributing some of Lincoln's idiosyncrasies to the Syphilis (Lincoln's son tried to have Lincoln's widow committed in the 1870s for what was considered even then Syphilis insanity, Hitler, Stalin and Lenin are considered by many historians to suffer Syphilis (Sulfa Drugs were usable against Syphilis starting about 1912, but only if treated in the first three months of having the disease, it took that long for Syphilis to penetrate the water barrier around the brain. Once the brain was affected, Syphilis could NOT be cured by Sulfa drugs or even Penicillin and thus was incurable till tetracycline was introduced in the 1950s. Tetracycline could penetrate the water barrier around the brain and kill off any Syphilis in the brain).
Syphilis and Gonorrhea were "common" diseases and various efforts were put into place to control the spread of both diseases. In the mid 1800s it became the practice in most cities to test known prostitutes for both diseases. The problem became what to do with them if they came down with either disease. Most women in that profession are NOT it is because they like it, but they need the money, thus telling the women to get out of the profession did not work. Furthermore how do you test women for the disease if they do NOT want to be tested? In a free society such testing is not possible, just think about AIDS today, do we test people walking down the street? No, people will not co-operate and when they do they still hate the process.
Now, when the push for banning prostitution became the norm in the US, what we would call regulations did not exist. It was a period of self regulation. The Courts were hostile to any regulation deeming regulations as a denial of the right to Contract as guarantee under the US Constitution. The US Supreme Court even ruled it unconstitutional to regulate how long a man should work with out a brake. If a man wanted to work 72 hours straight, he had the Constitutionalism right to do so even if he would endanger others by doing so.
The Court were a little more generous when it came to women and children, the state could do SOME regulations of how long they could work, but not a complete ban (as to Women) and only to a limited degree when it came to children. Furthermore the law permitted parents to "emancipate" their children at almost any age, so it was possible for a 10 year old to be "emancipated" by her parents and sold to a house of prostitution. That ten year old could be forced to stay in that place till her debt was paid (Which was almost never). The Court would say, since prostitution was legal, that was a valid contract and that emancipated child was bound by that contract.
Given this legal background, it quickly became apparent the only good way to regulate prostitution was to make it illegal. Thus ANY contract to perform acts of Prostitution was unenforceable. The Courts did agree that the State and Local Government had the power to make things illegal, even if the courts would enforce contracts for the same acts if the acts were legal.
Furthermore health concern became more and more a concern of Americans, including the spread of disease (The Common Cup, still seen in old western Movies was one of the first thing banned, for it spread disease from one person to another, the paper cup was adopted to prevent such spread of disease, and where glasses were used they had to be washed in hot water between use).
When it came to prostitution, catching people with Syphilis and Gonorrhea quickly became what health providers tired to catch so to stop the spread of both diseases. The problem was the above laws, you could not to the equivalent of getting the City to throw away the common cup and replace it with paper when it came to Syphilis and Gonorrhea. You had to check the people who had each disease, find out who they had sex with and test all of them. The problem was the above concept of "Freedom of Contract", how do you get around the then enforced Constitutional right to contract to do a sex act AND require such a person to be tested for Syphilis and Gonorrhea?
The answer was found, to make prostitution illegal. No one expected prostitution to go away by making it illegal, but you could arrests people who engaged in prostitution and as part of the process for the arrest test them for Syphilis and Gonorrhea. Thus the main thrust of making prostitution illegal was that it permitted the health department ever so often round up the prostitutes for testing using the fact that prostitution was illegal. If the prostitutes tested positive you could declare them a health hazard and put them away in a "hospital" (After the invention of the Sulfa Drugs, give then a dose of Sulfa Drugs).
Now, it soon became clear that such hospitalization was to expensive so cities started to reduce funding for such hospitals and thus releasing the women with a warning NOT to go back into prostitution for they would be spreading the disease they had as while as doing what was illegal. The law was also used to make sure such prostitutes only practice their trade were the least people complained about them. After a while this became the main thrust, for that is what most City Fathers wanted, but the start of the ban and its long life has always been tied in with health concerns.
Now, one thing that pushed for such treatment was that most cities and states had to maintain hospitals for the insane, and one of the main causes of insanity was Syphilis.
This desire to minimize costs was helped by the introduction of Sulfa Drugs around 1912. Sulfa could cure Syphilis (if caught within three months of getting Syphilis) and Gonorrhea. Thus the push to make Prostitution illegal so every so often the Police could round them up and test them. If the prostitute would test positive after 1912 give them a doze of Sulfa drugs so to minimzie the spread of Gonorrhea and Syphilis.
Lets remember the late 1800s, most people LOST income between 1865 and 1900, it was a great period of deflation. Wages dropped, prices from crop dropped etc. It was a hard time to live, and given the refusal to tax the rich most cities had a problem raising revenue to pay for roads (Most were still dirt even in most cities in 1900) let alone testing for Syphilis and Gonorrhea. Thus the health concern became a secondary concern as opposed to making sure the Prostitutes would stay out of certain neighborhoods, but it always remained for the States and the Federal Government, during and after WWI, tried to reduce the rate of inflection by Syphilis and Gonorrhea.
The coming of WWI, the Army saw a huge jump in the rate of its solders getting Syphilis and Gonorrhea (And the fact it was a Court Marital Offence to get either disease AND a lost of three months pay to pay for the Sulfa Drugs did not seem to have any affect on the rate in infection). Thus the US Government started to put pressure on areas where such disease were common to do something about the spread of such diseases and the best way to reduce the spread was to make prostitution illegal mostly as a cover to test such prosecutes, but after a while just an excuse to remove them from anywhere they could be seen. By 1920 every major city had made prostitution illegal, every state but Nevada (Which at that time had no major Military Bases, but Reno and Las Vegas made prostitution illegal as would any county that wanted a military base in WWII, the US Army and Air Force would NOT build a base in a county where prostitution was "legal"
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That this remain a HEALTH issue can be seen in a story My Father liked telling. In 1941 when he and some of the men in his squad was on maneuvers in Georgia. Their truck broke down and they had to wait for a tow. While waiting a woman came up to them and told them for $10 she have sex with them, $5 for the room in the bar, $5 for her. My Father told me you could see the Syphilis tracks on her and thus he wanted no part of her but he had nothing to do so he started to negotiate over the price. My father said he had heard that she was so known for spreading Syphilis that the whole Third Army was looking for her, she had affected that many men she was a walking health hazard. Now, my Father was a jerk and asked if they could do it out by the tree for $5 and cut out the rent for the room in the Bar/Hotel the truck was broke down by. She kept saying she needed the room so it would be $5 for the Room and $5 for her. He kept saying he only wanted to spend $5 (and had no intention of ever having sex with her). The scary part was at least two of the men from his squad ask him to lend them the $10 so they could have sex with the woman (My father was the only one in the truck that had any money and he was NOT going to waste it on her). He told them NO, and in private told them can you NOT see she is loaded with Syphilis?
Now, this was 1941 and if someone came down with either disease, it was still a court marital and a three month loss of pay (I believed this was changed in 1942). This loss of pay was driven home to the troops in an effort to get them NOT to see the local prostitutes but it had almost no effect.
The main aide affect of that loss of pay was that men who came down with either disease would steal the Sulfa Pills that came in the first aid kit of the time period. Men with either disease would take out the sulfa pills from every man in their unit first aid kits then risk being found to have Syphilis or Gonorrhea (i.e. avoid the three month loss of pay). My Father remember waking up in the field, checking his field gear and seeing the Sulfa Pills gone, and then complaining who came down with the clap.
I bring this up, for Sexually Treatment disease was a problem during the 1800s, less of a problem with the discovery of Sulfa Drugs in 1912 and Penicillin during WWII. With the Sulfa Drugs and later Penicillin a full push was made to eliminate both diseases in the US. Illegality of prostitution permitted testing of anyone in the sex business on a constant basis. Thus once either disease entered either profession it was quickly discovered and suppressed.
The US was on its way to eliminating Syphilis in the late 1950s when the 1958 recession hit (the worse Recession between the Great Depression and Reagan's Recession of 82-82). That recession lead congress to cut back on the funding on the project to eliminate syphilis (Which was compounded by State's Cuts in the same area of public health). This permitted Syphilis to explode, until the 1980s when much of the testing done to detect AIDS would also reveal Syphilis infection and lead to a steady drop in Syphilis cases in the US.
Now Public Health was the main reason prostitution was made illegal, but as you can tell no one expected prostitution to end just because it was illegal, it was deemed the best way to regulate the spread of sexually transmitted disease given the nature of the profession on its lower ends (I am NOT concerned about "high end" call girls, and it should be noted most law and health professionals are not). The Lower end prostitute, the "Crack Whore" is the concern, for such a person will care less about herself AND anyone she has sex with, such a prostitute in only concerned about her drug addition. The problem is how do you regulate these low end professionals if prostitution was legal? These are NOT the type of person who will comply with any requirements for testing or using a condom and any money they get is used to buy the drugs they are addicted to. Sorry, keeping prostitution illegal is the best way to regulate the low end professionals of that profession.
