The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A True Story of Sex, Crime and the Meaning of Justice

Monday, Aug. 30, 7-8:30 p.m.

Quidi Vidi Brewery Taproom

Lydia Harvey was meant to disappear. She was young and working class, fatherless and stranded in a foreign country. She’d scrubbed floors and crossed oceans; she’d walked the streets, worked in brothels, and was left with no money of her own. In 1910, politicians, pimps, policemen and moral reformers saw her as invisible and interchangeable, just one among the many ‘girls who disappeared’ in the underworld during the first global panic over ‘sex trafficking’. But when she took the stand to give testimony at the trial of her traffickers, she made one small, defiant and unforgettable mark on history. Join historian Julia Laite, in conversation with Memorial University’s Sonja Boon and Neil Kennedy, to discuss her new global microhistory, The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A True Story of Sex, Crime and the Meaning of Justice.

Presented by Nexus Centre

Event Listing 2021-08-30 19:00:00 2021-08-30 20:30:00 America/St_Johns The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A True Story of Sex, Crime and the Meaning of Justice Lydia Harvey was meant to disappear. She was young and working class, fatherless and stranded in a foreign country. She’d scrubbed floors and crossed oceans; she’d walked the streets, worked in brothels, and was left with no money of her own. In 1910, politicians, pimps, policemen and moral reformers saw her as invisible and interchangeable, just one among the many ‘girls who disappeared’ in the underworld during the first global panic over ‘sex trafficking’. But when she took the stand to give testimony at the trial of her traffickers, she made one small, defiant and unforgettable mark on history. Join historian Julia Laite, in conversation with Memorial University’s Sonja Boon and Neil Kennedy, to discuss her new global microhistory, The Disappearance of Lydia Harvey: A True Story of Sex, Crime and the Meaning of Justice. Quidi Vidi Brewery Taproom Nexus Centre