Their Sisters' Keepers "nsd0e6657"

1. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 29-30.

2. NYMS, First Annual Report , 7.

3. Transcript quoted in Advocate of Moral Reform , August 1835.

4. For the 1840s, see [Smith], Madam Restell , 29; for the 1850s, see the distribution of houses in Sanger's survey, History of Prostitution , 580-81, also 652, and 1897 edition, Appendix, 677-78; for the 1860s, see Ellington, Women of New York , 196-97.

5. In "City of Eros," his study of prostitution from 1790 to 1920, Tim Gilfoyle divides the era into three periods—before 1820, 1820 to 1870, and after 1870—and argues that the middle period offered the greatest freedom in sexual commerce. In the Appendix to the 1897 edition of his History of Prostitution , Sanger also notes a change in the post-Civil War period.

6. Weinbaum, Mobs and Demagogues , 134, 137-39. Weinbaum uses the New York State censuses of 1825 and 1855 for his calculations. In 1825, 23.9 percent of the immigrant population would have had to relocate in other wards for each ward to have had the same proportion of the city's total immigrant population; in 1855, only 12.6 percent would have had to relocate.

For more information on immigrant populations see Ernst, Immigrant Life , 187, 192-96. The Irish represented nearly half of the population of wards 1, 4, and 6, while Germans were primarily concentrated in wards 10, 11, and 17. See also Bridges, City in the Republic , 43.

7. Weinbaum, Mobs and Demagogues , 140-41; Groneman-Pernicorn, "Bloody Ould Sixth," 35; U.S., Census, 1860.

8. Bridges, City in the Republic , 43; Berg, Remembered Gate , 43; Hone, Diary , 785 (entry for 29 January 1847); Spann, New Metropolis , 148.

9. Bridges, City in the Republic , 44; Weinbaum, Mobs and Demagogues , 134. See also Betsy Blackmar, "Rewalking the Walking City," Radical History Review , 131-48.

10. Bridges, City in the Republic , 41; Spann, New Metropolis , 106-9. Central Park was New York's one great triumph of urban planning. Other attempts, such as housing for the poor, either fell far short of needs or were characterized by failure. See Spann, New Metropolis , 139-75.

11. Herald , 1 June 1841.

12. McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 52.

13. See Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," 66-67 and nn. 40-41 on 90-91 for lists of respectable addresses and their proximity to brothels. James Grant Wilson identifies the following upper-class and fashionable streets: Church, College Place, Barclay, Murray, Park Place, Chambers, Warren, Franklin, and White ( The Memorial History of the City of New York , vol. 3, 356, 359). Strong also identifies prostitution streets in the same area ( Diary , vol. 3, 565-66, entry for 18 March 1865).

14. Lockwood, Manhattan Moves Uptown, 294. Martin [McCabe], writing in the 1860s, noted that first-class houses of prostitution, often unknown to their immediate neighbors, operated in the best city neighborhoods ( Secrets of the Great City , 208-9, 285-88).

15. McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 697.

16. Lockwood, in Manhattan Moves Uptown , 111, attributes the description to the Courier and Enquirer , Spann uses the same description, attributing it to the Tribune , 7 February 1853 ( The New Metropolis , 146, 464). See also Hart, The New Yorkers , 107.

17. George G. Foster, New York by Gas-Light: With Here and There a Streak of Sunshine , 54.

18. N.Y., Census, 1855, Ward 8. For other examples, see CGS, People v. Strong , 9 October 1843; People v. Bodell , 8 March 1847.

19. Lockwood, Manhattan Moves Uptown , 294.

20. Spann notes that after the development of mass transportation and the growth of suburbs in the last half of the nineteenth century, the character of New York's "mixed neighborhoods" began to change ( New Metropolis , 148-61).

21. Mobility in and out of cities of the Northeast was as characteristic of nineteenth-century populations as was mobility within them. See Stephen Themstrorn and Peter Knights, "Men in Motion: Some Data and Speculations

About Urban Population Mobility in Nineteenth-Century America," 10, 23; Berg, Remembered Gate , 51.

22. See Chapters 4, 5.

23. New Era , 31 December 1836.

24. Ibid., 11 January 1837. For further discussions of the May Day moving custom, see Sun , 27 January 1840, 3 May 1842; New Era , 31 December 1836; Herald , 1-2 May 1849; Hone, Diary , vol. 1, 157-58 (entry for 30 April 1835), and see also 394 (entry for 1 May 1839); and Strong, Diary , vol. 1, 231 (entry for 1 May 1844); Ellington, Women of New York , 307; Hart, New Yorkers , 52-53.

23. New Era , 31 December 1836.

24. Ibid., 11 January 1837. For further discussions of the May Day moving custom, see Sun , 27 January 1840, 3 May 1842; New Era , 31 December 1836; Herald , 1-2 May 1849; Hone, Diary , vol. 1, 157-58 (entry for 30 April 1835), and see also 394 (entry for 1 May 1839); and Strong, Diary , vol. 1, 231 (entry for 1 May 1844); Ellington, Women of New York , 307; Hart, New Yorkers , 52-53.

25. William Dunlap, Diary of William Dunlap: The Memoirs of a Dramatist, Theatrical Manager, Painter, Novelist, and Historian , ed. Dorothy C. Barck, entry for 1 May 1832.

26. Superior Court, "Forrest v. Forrest," 3 January 1852; Herald , 6 January 1852. Prostitute Sarah Clark also noted in the Gage trial that she had moved to her residence at 158 Duane on May 1 ( Sun , 17 January 1840).

27. Smith, Sunshine and Shadow , 378. In a later period prostitutes were said to change brothels monthly and thus the job was said to be very strenuous (Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," 415). It is more difficult to trace ordinary prostitutes because records list only heads of households.

28. See Chapter 1 and related notes for a profile of Jewett. Contrary to the stereotypical view of prostitutes as "bound" to their house madams through economic obligations or intimidation, mid-nineteenth-century prostitutes appear to have exercised considerable personal freedom in deciding when they would move and where they would live. Even so, in many cases it was the madam who decided that the prostitute should leave, either because she felt the prostitute was not attracting enough business or had become diseased, or because the madam felt the need to display "new stock" fairly often.

29. Albion, Rise of the New York Port, 398. For information on shipping and ship passengers see also Wilson, Memorial History , vol. 3, 335, 445. In 1855, 113 piers extended for thirteen miles of waterfront on both sides of Manhattan on the Hudson and East rivers.

30. Lockwood, Manhattan Moves Uptown , 118.

31. James McCague, The Second Rebellion , 24.

32. McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 582-83; Smith, Sunshine and Shadow , 232-34. The general description of the area comes from Ellington, Women of New York , 172, 192; Children's Aid Society Report quoted in Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," 73, 93 n. 54; Walt Whitman, New York Dissected , ed. Emory Holloway and Ralph Adimari, 6.

33. McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 583.

34. Many people attribute the slang term hooker to Civil War General

Joseph Hooker, whose troops were notorious for patronizing prostitutes. Lexicographer Stuart Berg Flexner says that the term predates the Civil War and was in use in 1845 at the Hook, or Corlears Hook, in New York (New York Times , Westchester, 9 October 1988, p. 3). A number of other cities also take credit for originating the term.

35. [Smith], Madam Restell , 31. See also Citizens Association, Sanitary Conditions of the City of New York , 1866, noted in Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," 106.

36. Thomas Butler Gunn, The Physiology of New York Boarding Houses , 226, 278-80. Also see CGS, People v. Lawrence , 12 December 1831, on aggressiveness of some prostitutes in response to neighbors' complaints.

37. The streets that formed the Five Points were Orange (later Baxter), Anthony (later Worth), Cross (later Park), Mulberry, and Little Water (no longer a street).

38. Foster, New York in Slices , 22-23; Sun , 29 May 1834; 2 May 1840; Groneman-Pernicorn, "Bloody Ould Sixth," 193.

39. Foster, New York in Slices , 23; Brown, Brownstone Fronts , 20; Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," 60.

40. Sun , 27-29 May 1834; Foster, New York by Gaslight , 52-62; idem, New York in Slices , 22-23. On his visit in 1842, Charles Dickens described the Five Points as housing "hideous tenements which take their names from robbery and murder: all that is loathsome, drooping and decayed is here" ( American Notes , 89). See also Wilson, Memorial History , vol. 3, 437.

41. Hone, Diary , vol. 2, 870, 872 (edited general entry for May 1849 and Hone's entry for 28 July 1849).

42. Sun , 27-29 May 1834.

43. Ibid., 29 May 1834.

42. Sun , 27-29 May 1834.

43. Ibid., 29 May 1834.

44. MM, Police Dockets, 1849-1855, Ward 6; Groneman-Pernicorn, "Bloody Ould Sixth," 203-5.

45. Groneman-Pernicorn, "Bloody Ould Sixth," 194-95, 199-203. Wilson's Memorial History , vol. 3, 436-38, notes the role of the Five Points Mission in transforming the area.

46. Monthly Record of the Five Points Mission, 1860, vol. 4, 16, quoted in Groneman-Pernicorn, "Bloody Ould Sixth," 201.

47. McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 398.

48. See Stansell, City of Women , for a discussion of the Bowery culture.

49. Ellington, Women of New York , 310.

50. Ibid.

49. Ellington, Women of New York , 310.

50. Ibid.

51. Spann, New Metropolis , 344.

52. In 1835 the leading hotels hosted nearly 60,000 guests in seven months (Jefferson Williamson, The American Hotel , 193, 29-30). See also McCabe, New York by Sunlight , 52-53, 123-34.

53. For a discussion of Broadway see this chapter, "The Prostitute's Workplace."

54. Eastman, Fast Man's Directory , 15. See also Free Loveyer, Directory to Seraglios . Wilson notes that 1855-60 was a period when the area changed, and the east side of Church Street was filled with haunts that gave the area a reputation almost as evil as that of the Five Points ( Memorial History , vol. 3, 456). The Times , 23 May 1855, described twenty to thirty brothels on Church Street from Reade to Canal as of the most debased and lewd character.

55. Quotation and other information from Gentleman's Directory (1870), 21-22; McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 583; Ellington, Women of New York , 206-8, 212, 218-19, 232, 300-303; Lockwood, Manhattan Moves Uptown , 144-46; Warren, Thirty Years' Battle , 109-11; Crapsey, Nether Side of New York , 155-59; Griesinger, Lebende Bilder , 148-56. Gilfoyle stated that Ward 8 housed few blacks in this period, but the 1860 census shows that Ward 8 had the greatest number of blacks in the city. In 1850 it had the second greatest number, though blacks were not a large proportion of the population ("City of Eros," 78).

56. Ellington, Women of New York , 208-9, 211, 231-33; McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 190, 583, 590; Gentleman's Directory ; Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," 372 ff.; Lockwood, Manhattan Moves Uptown , 177-78. The Sanitary Commission's Report of 1866 (discussed in Gilfoyle) noted that few brothels were located north of 34th Street at that time.

57. Ellington, Women of New York , 232-33.

58. Tim Gilfoyle attempted to count the numbers of brothels and assignation houses in this period and was able to locate far more brothels than assignation houses: for 1830-39, 193 brothels and 13 assignation houses; for 1840-49, 100 and 3; for 1850-59, 241 and 16 ("City of Eros," 112).

59. General information on brothels comes from Smith, McCabe, Ellington, Sanger, censuses, and brothel directories. See Chapter 3 for fees paid in brothels.

60. McDowall divided prostitutes' establishments into two types: boarding houses and assignation houses ( McDowall's Journal , May 1833).

61. See Chapter 3 for a discussion of boarding houses and their relationship to brothels.

62. [Smith], Madam Restell , 32; McDowall's Journal , May 1833; Sanger, History of Prostitution , 566-68; McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 587-89; Ellington, Women of New York , ch. 22.

63. The testimony of Caroline Ingersoll at the Forrest divorce trial gives insight into the operations of an assignation house. See Superior Court, "Forrest v. Forrest," 3 January 1852.

64. McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 314; Ellington, Women of New York , 210-11.

65. See n. 16, this chapter. Sanger, Ellington, McCabe, and Smith all noted the public's ''fear" of assignation houses, which they described as the worst form of sex institution because assignations affected the "reputable" sector of the population—meaning reputable women, since so-called reputable men were patronizing brothels. For prostitution proprietors, the fluid structure of the various forms of establishments allowed them to move from a greater involvement in the sex trade to more private and "respectable" positions, for example as assignation or boardinghouse keepers. This meant less management responsibility and risks, an advantage as the women aged (Sanger, History of Prostitution , 566; Ellington, Women of New York , 173; McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 589; [Smith], Madam Restell , 32).

66. See the discussion of panel houses with respect to the Melinda and Alexander Hoag cases in Chapter 4.

67. Lockwood, Manhattan Moves Uptown , 121; Hone, Diary , vol. 1, 13 (entry for 13 April 1829), vol. 2, 746 (entry for 11 October 1845); Strong, Diary , vol. 1, 99 (entry for 5 March 1839); Johnson, "That Guilty Third Tier," 575-84.

68. [Smith], Madam Restell , 33. George Foster said that by 1849, prostitutes were not allowed in the Broadway Theatre ( New York in Slices , 90-92). Wilson noted that the Park Theatre, which opened in 1798 and closed in 1848, was for half a century New York's leading theater and the pride of its citizens ( Memorial History , vol. 3, 146, 370-71).

69. [Smith], Madam Restell , 44.

70. "Mary Berry to Helen Jewett," Police Gazette , 5 May 1849. Claudia Johnson notes that in some theaters higher-class prostitutes sat in other parts of the house with their escorts ("That Guilty Third Tier"), 577.

71. Johnson, "That Guilty Third Tier," 577.

72. Herald , 5 November 1835; Sun , 5 November 1835.

73. Sun , 2 April 1834.

74. Ibid., 25 April, 28 June 1834; Transcript , 30 June 1834.

73. Sun , 2 April 1834.

74. Ibid., 25 April, 28 June 1834; Transcript , 30 June 1834.

75. Sun , 19 September 1835, 17 August 1836, 26 December 1833; New Era , 21 November 1836, 25 February 1837, 25 January 1840. See Chapter 9 for an elaboration of some of these cases.

76. Advocate of Moral Reform , 15 November 1838.

77. Foster, New York in Slices , 90.

78. Johnson, "That Guilty Third Tier," 580-81.

79. Quoted in ibid., 580.

80. Ibid., 580-81.

78. Johnson, "That Guilty Third Tier," 580-81.

79. Quoted in ibid., 580.

80. Ibid., 580-81.

78. Johnson, "That Guilty Third Tier," 580-81.

79. Quoted in ibid., 580.

80. Ibid., 580-81.

81. "W. E. (Bill Easy) to Helen," Police Gazette , 26 May 1849; "W. E. (Bill Easy) to Helen," "Helen to Frank," 12 May 1849; "Wm. Easy to Helen," 2 June 1849.

82. Ibid., see 28 April; 5, 12, 26 May; 2, 9 June 1849, passim.

83. Ibid., "Helen to Richard," 26 May 1849.