‘They Are Known to Have Traveled’: The Mann Act, the FBI, and the First Raid of the FLDS

This paper examines for the first time FBI records from its 1944 White Slave Traffic Act investigation of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (FLDS) – a case whose prosecution eventually reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The Bureau used this investigation, with the support of the mainstream LDS Church, to police not only a particular conception of appropriate sexuality but also particular definitions of religion, whiteness, and American citizenship.