Livingston, Rose E., 1885-1948

Variant names

Dates:

Birth 1885

Death 1948

Biographical notes:

Rose E. Livingston was born around 1885. She worked as a prostitute, which led to her being abducted and being forced into sex slavery in New York City's Chinatown. After escaping, she spent much of her life working to free prostitutes and victims of human trafficking and was known as the "Angel of Chinatown." She is known for her work with Harriet Burton Laidlaw to rescue young white and Chinese girls from forced prostitution in Chinatown.

In 1910, she helped pass the Mann Act, which made interstate sex trafficking a federal crime. She attacked while trying to rescue a prostitute in 1912 and left with permanent jaw damage, in 1912. Livingston was also a suffragist, believing that fewer women would work as prostitutes if they could vote and took part in one of the Suffrage Hikes from Manhattan to Albany in 1914. She received a gold medal from the National Institute of Social Science in 1929 and a silver cup from Edith Claire Bryce of the Peace House, 1937. She died in 1948.