Photo by Inez van Lamsweerde
Guide to 150 NY brothels in the 19th Century: “Only this palm-sized book, published in 1870 and long hidden away at the New-York Historical Society, did not confine its anonymous critique to the quality of wines or the ambience of the 150 establishments listed between its covers. Rather, it defined its role as delivering “insight into the character and doings of people whose deeds are carefully screened from public view.””
“Nineteenth-century middle class reformers were surprised when young women who traded sex for money observed that they only did what wives did, and without having to clean house, too. Elizabeth Clement builds on this connection between marriage and prostitution by focusing on the evolution of “treating” in early twentieth-century New York City. She attempts to discover why and how prostitution and treating came to divide so sharply that we now believe prostitutes and their customers engage in behavior that is outside the bounds of “decency,” while teenage girls who trade sex for a movie are just behaving naturally.”
Addresses of 135 San Francisco brothels in 1937: “The San Francisco Examiner reported in March 1937 that private investigator Edwin Atherton, hired by the city to investigate police graft, delivered a list of 135 long-term brothels, called “resorts,” to the Grand Jury investigation police corruption, finding bordellos in neighborhoods from South of Market to North Beach.”
“And in the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, more and more women have … been looking to professional domination as a possible source of income.”
"Civil Defence" by Ed Weston
52-year-old NY prostitute will soon retire
Prostitution in 19-Century New Orleans: “These “fast females” lived violent, public lives. But underneath it all was a harsh economic reality. “No work, no money, no home,” one prostitute said, describing the choices she had.” Storyville opened in NOLA as a “segregated district of legal prostitution.” More here.
FORA.tv – Porn, Peep Shows and Public Space. What is the relationship between public and private within evolving urban and commercial environments?
