This dissertation is about the use of undercover investigators by private social reform organizations in New York City from 1900 to 1919. This work is based on the records of five New York City organizations that conducted undercover investigations: the Committee of Fifteen, the Committee of Fourteen, the Colored Auxiliary of the Committee of Fourteen, the People's Institute, and the National Civic Federation. Each chapter in this dissertation is devoted to a particular social problem, as identified by reformers, which required investigators to go undercover. These were gambling, prostitution and sexual immorality, miscegenation, juvenile delinquency, and "subversive" political activities.
In social milieus that ranged from dance halls to anarchist camps, investigators with no specific training produced new forms of social knowledge that became powerful tools for regulating the behavior of others. Public officials delegated unprecedented authority to these private organizations, which prioritized the imposition of their own moral codes. This resulted in unintended consequences--from new forms of de facto segregation in public accommodations and the unexpected corruption of sexually active undercover agents, to encouraging confidence in the "truths" revealed by investigators' activities and defining new forms of social danger.
This study concludes by exploring the ways in which the federal government, during World War I, turned to private reform organizations (and their undercover investigators) to monitor and control domestic political subversion and prostitution. The Bureau of Investigation and the War Department relied on these private organizations (which operated with virtual impunity) and the surveillance techniques developed during the Progressive era in order to pursue an increasingly repressive domestic agenda.
