prostitution

Examples of prostitution in the following topics:

• Pioneer Women

  • The most famous were the houses of prostitution found in mining camps.
  • Chinese women, for example, were frequently sold by their families and taken to the camps as prostitutes; they had to send their earnings back to their families in China.
  • In Virginia City, Nevada, a prostitute named Julia Bulette was one of the few who achieved "respectable" status.
  • Gambling and prostitution were central to life in many western towns.
  • Only later―as the female population increased, reformers moved in, and other civilizing influences arrived―did prostitution become less blatant and less common.

• Women in the West

  • The few women who went to these wild outposts were typically prostitutes, and even their numbers were limited.
  • Many Chinese women, for example, came to the western camps as prostitutes to make money to send back home.
  • Some of the “painted ladies” who began as prostitutes eventually owned brothels and became businesswomen in their own right.
  • They fought to remove opportunities for prostitution and other vices they felt threatened their values.
  • Protestant missionaries eventually joined the women in their efforts, and Congress responded by passing both the Comstock Law (named after its chief proponent, anti-obscenity crusader Anthony Comstock) in 1873 to ban the spread of “lewd and lascivious literature” through the mail, and the subsequent Page Act of 1875 to prohibit transportation of women into the United States for employment as prostitutes.

• The Western Frontier

  • Gambling and prostitution were central to life in these western towns, and only later―as the female population increased and reformers moved in―did prostitution become somewhat less common.
  • Abilene, Kansas is one example of a lawless town, replete with prostitutes, gambling, and other vices, that transformed when middle-class women arrived in the 1880s with their husbands.

• Literary Naturalism

  • Naturalistic works exposed the dark harshness of life, including poverty, racism, violence, prejudice, disease, corruption, prostitution, and filth.

• Frances Willard and the Women's Christian Temperance Union

  • The WCTU was very interested in a number of social reform issues, including labor, prostitution, public health, sanitation, and international peace.

• Women and Democracy

  • By the 1830s and 40s, however, the climate began to change when a number of bold, outspoken women championed diverse social reforms of slavery, alcohol, war, prisons, prostitution, and capital punishment.

• Women and Slavery

  • Some female slaves called “fancy maids” were sold at auction into concubinage or prostitution, which was termed the “fancy trade.”

• The Transformation of the West

  • They also disarmed cowboys who violated gun control edicts, tried to prevent dueling, and dealt with flagrant breaches of gambling and prostitution ordinances.

• The Eugenics

  • Since poverty was associated with prostitution and "mental idiocy," women of the lower classes were the first to be deemed "unfit" and "promiscuous. " These women, who were primarily immigrants or women of color, were discouraged from bearing children, and were encouraged to use birth control.

• Gold Fever in the West

  • The gold rush radically changed the California economy and brought in an array of professionals, including precious metal specialists, merchants, doctors, and attorneys, who supplemented the numerous miners, saloonkeepers, gamblers, and prostitutes.