Archives West Finding Aid

Before and during World War II, nationwide campaigns mitigated nationwide concerns about sexually transmitted inflections and the health of U.S. soldiers. In 1938, the U.S. government enacted the Venereal Disease Control Act. The purpose of this act was to allocate funds to education and public health related to sexually transmitted infections. The following year, the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, American Social Hygiene Administration, and U.S. Public Health Service formed the Eight Points Agreement which outlined how to prevent and control sexually transmitted infections within the service branches. The Eight Points Agreement also emphasized the desire to repress sex work and specifically the women involved. In 1941, the U.S. Congress passed the May Act giving the federal government the right to take over policing areas surrounding military bases. This act also specified that sex work was a federal offense within a "resonable distance" of military camps/bases. The laws outlined above criminalized sex work, placing the responsibility of sexually transmitted infection prevention on the women involved, not on the soldiers. This collection consists of Walla Walla Police Department photographs and health records of sexually transmitted infection testing of sex workers in Walla Walla. The exact extent of the collaboration between WWPD and city and county health offices is unclear, as is the circumstances under which these records were collected. Despite this uncertainty, these records can viewed within this larger historical context of World War II and sexually transmitted infection prevention in the United States.