This project aims to explore the idea of morality in Fairfax, Virginia in the second half of the 19th century by researching and discussing the morality laws that were present in this era. What activities did the morality laws target? How were moral transgressions policed and punished? Were morality laws enforced equally across the community? Through these questions, a picture of late 19th-century Fairfax County morality emerges, and it isn’t pretty. Through prejudiced laws, sensationalism, and unequal enforcement, morality laws themselves were disproportionally damaging to marginalized communities and served as a reflection of the perverse and discriminatory “morality” of Fairfax and the broader Northern Virginia area during the Reconstruction Era.

Created by Alexa Koeckritz