Research Catalog

Details

Description

1. 462 p. : ill.; 25 cm.

Summary

1. "From the early years of the nineteenth century on, New York saw the development of a new commercialized sexuality, at the center of a world of entertainment, consumer goods, newspapers, and advertising. Deftly blending the experiences of real New Yorkers with pathbreaking demographic research, this illuminating book opens a window into the dark heart of urban American life, showing:" "How the sex industry grew in step with the city itself. New York never had a red-light district; instead, prostitution spread through all its neighborhoods, rich and poor, from the Bowery to Harlem, and prostitution made itself equally at home in the street and the brothel, the tenement flat and the hotel, the music hall and the saloon." "The cultural stereotypes of prostitution. What New Yorkers - purity reformers, journalists, popular novelists, artists, and ordinary citizens of all kinds - thought of the prostitutes and customers in their midst and their perceptions of "fallen woman," "white slave," and "sporting man" reveal shifting American attitudes toward men's and women's roles, from colonial days to the Roaring Twenties." "The economic structure of prostitution. Landowners, including members of such prominent families as the Livingstons and the Lorillards, realized enormous profits from renting housing to prostitutes at inflated rates, and corrupt politicians and police made the payoff a fact of life for prostitutes. For women, prostitution could be a temporary resort in times of economic hardship, an avenue to financial independence when "women's work" in factories, shops, and domestic service was desperately low paid, and even, for some ambitious, entrepreneurial madams, a way of achieving substantial wealth." "The futility of efforts to stamp out commercial sex. Throughout New York's history, resigned municipal toleration of prostitution alternated with frantic efforts to suppress or control it." "The role of race, class, and successive waves of immigration. More than any other urban activity, prostitution brought New Yorkers from different worlds together. And as newcomers reached the city, they moved into the sex industry as both workers and customers." "The rise of the pimp. A decisive shift in the control of prostitution, from women themselves to men, occurred at mid-century. Violence against prostitutes increased dramatically, cresting in a wave of brothel riots, in which out-of-work immigrant and working-class men rampaged through houses of prostitution. In self-defense women turned more and more to pimps, who soon effected a transition from being bodyguards and brothel attendants to managing and controlling organized prostitution." "Above all this book profiles a gallery of New Yorkers whose lives were entwined with prostitution, from the famed preacher William Berrian, who proudly told his elite congregation that he had "not been in a house of ill-fame more than ten times," to the anti-vice reformer Anthony Comstock, and the beautiful prostitute Helen Gad, whose notorious murder by a young man of good family became a paradigmatic case of American attitudes to prostitution. The result is vivid social history that combines a flair for narrative with deep insight into the formation of modern urban life."--BOOK JACKET.

Subject

1. New York City
2. Prostitution > New York (State) > New York > History
3. Sex-oriented businesses > New York (State) > New York > History
4. Sex Work > history