page_title: Rose Livingston
section_title: Personal life
hierarchical_section_title: Rose Livingston / Personal life
caption_attribution_description: English: Photograph shows suffrage and labor activist Flora Dodge "Fola" La Follette (1882-1970), social reformer and missionary Rose Livingston and a young striker during a garment strike in New York City in 1913. (Source: Flickr Commons project, 2011)
context_page_description: Rose Livingston, 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.
  As a young girl, she was abducted and turned into a sex slave. She was given drugs so that she became addicted to opium and by the time she was sixteen, she had given birth to two children. Livingston was rescued in 1903 and initially thought that she wanted to work overseas as a missionary. She realized, though, that there was a lot of 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.
context_section_description: In 1914, she participated in one of the Suffrage Hikes from Manhattan to Albany, New York and over the years, she lectured about women's suffrage. In 1914, she conducted lectures throughout 40 counties of Ohio for the Ohio Woman Suffrage Association to explain to girls the dangers of being led into a life as a sexual worker.
  In order to search for girls at night, she slept during the day for about three hours. To protect her safety, only her best friends knew her address. For thirty years, from about the time that Livingston was rescued from slavery, she lived in cold water flats and had a very frugal lifestyle. She lived in a three-room flat on E. 49th Street in New York City for 46 years, beginning about 1929. It was near the East River. By 1928, she wore masculine clothing. In 1934, she was found living in poverty, and a retirement fund was established for her.
  Although she read the Bible and a book on Christian Science, she did not attend church services, unless she had agreed to speak at the church. She did not consider herself a Christian Scientist.
  Although she was quoted as saying that she was still involved helping girls in 1950, she retired after 1937 and received a pension of $100 per month. She was cared for by neighbors who helped her obtain a supplemental Social Security pension and did chores for her. She particularly needed help once she started to lose her sight. She died on December 26, 1975 at 99 years of age. A rabbi conducted a Jewish service for her, and her friend, an Irish-Catholic, arranged for a mass in her memory.
caption: Unidentified 14-year-old striker, Fola La Follette and Rose Livingston in New York City in 1913
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