Social purity as a movement took roots in the mid 1800s in England and was prominently led by an evangelical woman Jane Ellice Hopkins.
She was responsible for a multitude of organised support groups for the movement and became successful in her appeal to male involvement in ways that other social puritists were not.
"[5] The calling to action of the public came in the form of newspaper articles featuring "white slave narratives" that revealed the tragic, and "common", situation that women who left home found themselves in.
[6] Historians have referred to this as a part of a 'moral panic' that was sweeping across the United States during the Progressive Era, as activists and organizations were popping up in all different sections of American life demanding the government intervention on spreading corruption.
These white slave narratives re-enforced assumptions that male sexuality was virtually uncontrollable, to the point of coercing and kidnapping women into prostitution.
The level to which some women were choosing prostitution versus those who were forced into it is unclear, but the numbers that were estimated are overestimated enough to lead scholars to believe much of this panic was ill-informed.