Rose Livingston (1876 – December 26, 1975), known as the Angel of Chinatown, was a suffragist who worked to free prostitutes and victims of sexual slavery. With financial and social support from Harriet Burton Laidlaw and other noted suffragettes, as well as the Rose Livingston Prudential Committee, she worked in New York City's Chinatown and in other cities to rescue girls from forced prostitution, and helped pass the Mann Act to make interstate sex trafficking a federal crime.
Livingston initially thought that she wanted to work overseas as a missionary. She realized, though, that there was much good that she could do in New York. She referred to herself as a missionary and worked nights looking for pre-teen and teenage girls who were forced into sexual slavery. A small and thin woman, she was beaten and shot, sometimes spending months in the hospital recovering from her injuries. Once she rescued girls, she helped them transition into a life of freedom. She lectured about the dangers of children and young women being forced into sex work. She also advocated for women's right to vote.
Early life
Rose Livingston was born in New York in 1876. Her parents were born in New York. Livingston was reportedly raised in Ohio and Texas in the Methodist faith. Livingston came to New York City at age 12.
Livingston was initially interested in becoming a foreign missionary, but decided she could be an independent missionary in New York City after she saw a drug-crazed girl being rescued.
Life's work
Initially, about 1903, Livingstone worked at Sunshine Settlement, a settlement house on Baxter and at 106 Bayard Street in New York City. Established in 1900, Sunshine Settlement helped mothers and poor children by providing health services, education, and "healthful" visits to the seaside beaches. Gospel services and lectures were performed there. It offered a kindergarten, sewing school, and a library. Clients could request medical and legal advice. It operated through ca. 1911.
Activist
Background
Girls and women became sexual slaves by being physically kidnapped, drugged, or unknowingly lured into the industry with a promise of a job or an adventure. In 1934, the New York City police department statistics showed that 4,000 females disappeared from that city each year, and many more disappeared without being reported missing. Their captors often got the girls addicted to drugs to better contain and control them. Ultimately, some girls were rescued and did well, some were rescued but were so broken they had to be institutionalized, some died early, and others remained as captive sex workers.
Many girls that Livingston rescued said something like, "I met him and he was nice to me. Then he invited me to go for a ride." Then the girls were handed off to another person who would drug, poison, beat, or otherwise mistreat them. Girls were often transported across state lines. Livingston found that there was an auction on the Lower East Side of New York where girls and women were sold.
Rescues
Focusing on girls that were nine to seventeen years of age, Livingston made it her life's work to free thousands of girls and women from sexual slavery beginning on March 4, 1903 or about 1904. Her modus operandi was to follow men that were sexual slavers, figure out what females were held captive, make friends with them, and encourage them to escape. She looked for enslaved girls in opium dens, dance halls, and bars, particularly in New York City's Chinatown and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Sometimes she ventured out of the city to Boston, Newark, Bridgeport, New Haven, and Chicago. In 1907, there were 300 girls younger than 18 in Chinatown that were sex workers, out of a total of 800 white slaves. Six years later, she could not find any girls under age 18 there.
She had a masculine looking face and she wore short hair and men's clothing, which allowed her to blend in at dance calls and other night spots when she went in search of girls to rescue.