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2 "A Lady . . . Whom I Should Never Have Suspected" Personal and Collective Portraits of Prostitutes

1. George Templeton Strong, The Diary of George Templeton Strong , vol. l, 15 (entry for 12 April 1836). [BACK]

2. See June 1836 in the Sun, Advocate of Moral Reform, Herald, Commercial Advertiser , and Transcript . For articles at the time of the murder see the same newspapers for 11 April 1836 and the days following. New York City, Court of General Sessions (CGS), File Papers, NYMA, People v. Robinson , 19 April 1836.

Two good sources allow closer glimpses of the lives of prostitutes over time. Documents generated by the most notorious incident involving prostitutes in the era, the Helen Jewett murder case, offer much data about women in the upper levels of prostitution. Case records kept by the House of Refuge provide important facts about some of the more ordinary young prostitutes in New York City. HRCH, 1829-1860. For a collective intake profile for the Houses of Refuge in 1835, see Appendix 1. [BACK]

3. Herald , 12 April 1836.

4. Ibid., 23 June 1836.

5. Ibid., 23, 24 June 1836. [BACK]

3. Herald , 12 April 1836.

4. Ibid., 23 June 1836.

5. Ibid., 23, 24 June 1836. [BACK]

3. Herald , 12 April 1836.

4. Ibid., 23 June 1836.

5. Ibid., 23, 24 June 1836. [BACK]

6. Sun, 21 June 1836. [BACK]

7. Advocate of Moral Reform , 15 June 1836. [BACK]

8. Record of Assessments, 1828-1836, Wd. 5; CGS, People v. Robinson , 19 April 1836; Transcript , 3 June 1836; Advocate of Moral Reform , 15 June 1836; Sun , 3 June 1836; Police Gazette, 4 August 1849. [BACK]

9. Herald , 29 April 1836; Transcript , 22 April 1836. [BACK]

10. According to Edward Pessen, both personal and real property were assessed in the 1830s and 1840s at one-fifth to three-fifths of their actual worth, with the three-fifths evaluation rarely used. By this standard, Townsend's property probably would have been worth $25,000 but possibly as little as $8,300. Pessen also states that it was an "open secret that residents did not reveal the true worth of their possessions in the city." Furthermore, it is not known if Townsend had personal or real property elsewhere in New York, which would not have been listed along with the Thomas Street property in tax records.

To calculate the value of mid-nineteenth-century property in current dollars, a formula can be derived from Pessen's data and indexed for inflation. In light of Pessen's observation that the three-fifths property assessment rate was

seldom used, we might obtain a rough approximation of 1840 property values by using an average of the one-fifth and two-fifths rates, or. 3. (Assessed valuation divided by. 3 = 1840 market value.) Pessen calculated the value of an 1840 dollar as $6.50 in 1970, yielding 1970 values that can be adjusted for inflation since then by multiplying by 2.3 for personal property and 3 for faster-appreciating real property (based on 1989 prices). Thus, the 1836 market value of Townsend's property might be estimated at $16,667 ($17,000), or approximately $250,000 in 1989 dollars. See Edward Pessen, Riches, Class and Power Before the Civil War , 12, 17, 19.

A New York Times editorial on 6 December 1990 stated that according to "historical indices" a 1990 dollar is worth 24.5 times as much as an 1849 dollar, an inflation rate that would yield about a 40 percent greater valuation on the dollar than the above formula. [BACK]

11. Herald , 19 July 1836. [BACK]

12. Sun , 12 August 1836. [BACK]

13. Advocate of Moral Reform, January 1836; Sun , 26 October 1835. Tax records for the mid-1820s mention a Rossana Cisco at 30 Anthony, possibly the mother of Mary (Cisco) Berry. Record of Assessments, 1824-1826, Wd. 6. [BACK]

14. Advocate of Moral Reform , January 1836; Sun , 26 October 1835. [BACK]

15. Herald , 30 June 1834; 2 August 1836; Sun , 21 June 1836. [BACK]

16. Record of Assessments, 1835, Wd. 5. A $2,000 assessment suggests her actual worth at approximately $6,700 in 1835. [BACK]

17. Police Gazette , 24 February 1849. [BACK]

18. "Mary Berry to Helen Jewett," Police Gazette , 5 May 1849. [BACK]

19. Robert Taylor, "Diary," entries for 4 March, 1 August, 20 November 1846; Record of Assessments, 1840, 1845, Wd. 5. [BACK]

20. A brothel directory published in 1839 stated that: "Mother Miller . . . usually dresses in black, with a plaid handkerchief tied round her head to conceal her grey hairs from view." Her actress daughter was supposedly named Miss Josephine Clifton, and the one "who died mysteriously while under the guardianship of Hamblin" was Miss Missouri Miller (Butt Ender, Prostitution Exposed , 5). Other information in U.S., Census, 1830, 1840, 1850; N.Y., Census, 1855; Record of Assessments, 1821-1859, Wards 5 and 6; City Directories, 1830-1860; Taylor, "Diary," entries for 1, 29 August, 16 October, 18, 21-23 November 1846; Advocate of Moral Reform , 1 December 1836; Sun , 22, 29 November 1836, 19 April 1837; CGS, People v. Furman , 13 December 1821, People v. Lozier , 14 June 1831; PCR, Mary Hamilton v. Mary Adams , no. 7441 (1829). [BACK]

21. See n. 20. Miller's addresses included 167 Church Street (1821); 32 Orange Street (1822-1826); 53 Crosby Street (late 1820s-early 1830s); 39 Elm Street and 44 Orange Street (1831); and 44 Orange Street, 133 Reade Street, and Mott Street (1835-1836). [BACK]

22. Advocate of Moral Reform , 1 December 1836; CGS, People v. Lozier , 14 June 1831. [BACK]

23. Sun , 22, 29 November 1836, 19 April 1837; Advocate of Moral Reform , 1 December 1836. [BACK]

24. Ender, Prostitution Exposed , 5; Record of Assessments, 1830s. [BACK]

25. Tribune , 18 July 1842; Herald , 11 September 1845. [BACK]

26. Taylor, "Diary," entries for 1, 29 August, 16 October, 18, 21-23 November 1846; Police Gazette , 3 March, 7 April 1849. [BACK]

27. Record of Assessments, 1855, Ward 5. The $16,500 is under the name Adeline Miller. Another entry lists an Adelaide Miller (William H. Boyd, Boyd's New York City Tax Book; Being a List of Persons, Corporations, and Co-Partnerships Resident and Non-Resident, Who Were Taxed According to the Assessor's Books, 1856 and 1857 ). [BACK]

28. HRCH, nos. 747, 748 (1830). Prior to the admittance of the Utter sisters to the Refuge, a woman named Eunice Utter was tried and convicted for running a disorderly house. The Refuge case history said the Utters' mother was in prison, so it is possible that Eunice Utter was their mother. See CGS, People v. Eunice Utter , 7 July 1830. [BACK]

29. HRCH, nos. 747, 748 (1830). [BACK]

30. See, for example, collective intake data for 1835 in Appendix I. [BACK]

31. HRCH, no. 1596 (1835). [BACK]

32. HRCH, no. 1559 (1835).

33. Ibid. [BACK]

32. HRCH, no. 1559 (1835).

33. Ibid. [BACK]

34. HRCH, no. 867 (1831). [BACK]

35. Abby Meade/Meyer was a well-known New York City madam from the 1820s through the 1850s. Several of the young girls at the House of Refuge had stayed at her house. Her name appeared in newspapers in the 1830s and 1840s half-a-dozen times for pressing charges against others, usually servants who allegedly stole from her. An 1839 source asserted that her house at 134 Duane Street was "decidedly A. No. 1, for respectability . . . [and] the proprietor, Mrs. M, lives principally at her country seat on Long Island" (Ender, Prostitution Exposed , 9). See also HRCH, no. 867 (1831), no. 1613 (1835); Sun , 30 November 1833, 19 September 1835, 30 October 1840; Tribune , 31 August 1842; U.S., Census, 1830, Wd. 8; U.S., Census, 1850, Wd. 5:1; City Directories, 1830-1850. [BACK]

36. HRCH, no. 867 (1831). [BACK]

37. HRCH, no. 1534 (1835). [BACK]

38. All quotes and information are from HRCH, no. 1534 (1835). [BACK]

39. Advocate of Moral Reform, December 1835, 15 June 1836; City Directories, 1830-1850 passim; Record of Assessments, 1830-1859, Wd. 5; U. S., Census, 1830, 1840, Wd. 5. [BACK]

40. HRCH, no. 1641 (1835). [BACK]

41. HRCH, no. 4687 (1850). [BACK]

42. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 450- 548. Parent-Duchatelet found that the average French prostitute was young (overwhelmingly between the ages of 20 and 26), from the laboring class, and poor. If previously employed, she had worked in one of the low-paying employments open to women—as a seamstress, domestic servant, factory worker, or shop girl. William Acton, in his London study, also found that women who practiced prostitution were part of the respectable poor, who had entered the profession when they were young because they had experienced some hardship. These women usually had worked in poorly paid professions where they were "exposed to temptation." Specifically mentioned as likely to become prostitutes were actresses, milliners, shop girls, domestic servants, and women employed in factories or "agriculture gangs." Acton asserted that prostitution was a "transitory state through which an untold number of British women are ever on their passage," and that it was not uncommon for them to marry and become housewives. See: Acton, Prostitution Considered , 44-45, 49, 180-85; Parent-Duchatelet, De la prostitution , quoted in Sanger, 138-54. See Walkowitz, "We Are Not Beasts," 44-97, for a general summary of nineteenth-century writers. [BACK]

43. [Smith], Madam Restell , 27-28. [BACK]

44. Current researchers have also found that youth and a working-class or poor background characterized a majority of nineteenth-century prostitutes. Judith Walkowitz noted that most of the English prostitutes registered in the dock towns were single women born in the area where they worked, and the youngest of them (those under nineteen) still lived in the family household. It is not clear how many had had children, but few had offspring living with them, perhaps because they sent children away to live, though it is also possible that they used abortion and infanticide as methods of birth control. The majority of the women remained very much a part of their lower-class communities.

Ruth Rosen's collective profile of the turn-of-the-century urban prostitute emphasized the role played by a prior economic, family, or social hardship. Most prostitutes were native and were urban-born, and contemporary data indicates that native-born women of foreign parentage were more likely to become prostitutes than foreign-born women.

The women of the American West studied by Anne Butler were poor, uneducated, and drawn from all the racial and ethnic groups living in the area—white, black, Chinese, and Mexican. Many prostitutes were married, and some had children, but their marital and domestic relationships were highly unstable. On the frontier, a prostitute's economic situation was at least as precarious as that of the new settlers in general: jobs were scarce, wages poor, and prices inflated. See Walkowitz, "We Are Not Beasts"; Rosen, Lost Sisterhood ; Butler, Daughters of Joy. [BACK]

45. Using census data for wards five and eight, 310 prostitutes can be

identified in 1850 and 264 in 1855. Police arrest statistics are taken from dockets for the lower wards of Manhattan for the years 1849, 1850, and 1855; U.S., Census, 1850, Wards 5 and 8; N.Y., Census, 1855, Wards 5 and 8; MM, Police Docket, 1849-1855. [BACK]

46. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 452; U.S., Census, 1850, Wards 5 and 8; N.Y., Census, 1855, Wards 5 and 8. [BACK]

47. Calculations are based on data found in the U.S., Census, 1850, Wards 5 and 8; and N.Y., Census, 1855, Wards 5 and 8. Although brothels and prostitutes were researched in the 1870 census, I did not do a full analysis of data for that year comparable to those for 1850 and 1855. Tim Gilfoyle has noted that his study of the 1870 census supports the same general profile of brothel-keepers found in the 1850s. He located three madams over fifty and two under twenty. See Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," 194. [BACK]

48. The exact averages of ages for prostitutes for these years were 23.3 for 1850 and 22.3 for 1855. [BACK]

49. At this time, menarche occurred at approximately fifteen, or possibly even later. See Peter Laslett, The World We Have Lost , 87, 285-86 n. 95. Housing juvenile prostitutes put a brothel at greater risk of legal and social repercussions. Since census data and probably Sanger's data are primarily from brothels, juvenile prostitutes are likely to be underrepresented. Sanger's undercounting of child prostitution is discussed in Chapter 1. [BACK]

50. See HRCH, 1830, 1831, 1835, 1840. [BACK]

51. MM, Police Docket, 17 September 1849. Mangren (or Mangin) also had two of her own daughters working in her prostitution establishment. See Police Court Records (PCR), Box 7953, Pease v. Mangren , 1 August 1855, in NYMA. On Farryall see Advocate of Moral Reform , August 1835. [BACK]

52. [Smith], Madam Restell , 28. [BACK]

53. Advocate of Moral Reform , November 1835. [BACK]

54. Sun , 9 October 1835. Other examples of young girls found in houses of prostitution are: Herald , 22 October 1842 (house at Mott and Cross streets); Sun , 8 March 1843 (house at 138 Church Street). [BACK]

55. Sun , 20 April 1837. [BACK]

56. Semi-Annual Report of the Chief of Police , DBA, vol. 17, pt. 1 (1850), 58-59.

57. Ibid., 63. [BACK]

56. Semi-Annual Report of the Chief of Police , DBA, vol. 17, pt. 1 (1850), 58-59.

57. Ibid., 63. [BACK]

58. Pedophilia among Victorian men is discussed in Ronald Pearsall, The Worm in the Bud: The World of Victorian Sexuality , 350-63. Stansell has an excellent discussion of child prostitution in New York City at mid-century and notes its relationship to working-class culture, family-reform movements, and Victorian pedophilia (City of Women , 180-85). Tim Gilfoyle also emphasizes the juvenile aspect of New York's prostitution as one feature that distinguishes

sexual commerce in this period from that in the preceding and succeeding centuries (Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," chap. 4).

Both Stansell and Gilfoyle have done studies of rape cases and found a significant percentage of child victims. Stansell notes that of a random sampling of 101 rape cases between 1820 and 1860 in New York's Court of General Sessions, 26 (also 26 percent) involved complainants who were under 16 years of age. Of these, 19 were under 12 years old (the youngest was 4), 5 were between the ages of 12 and 16, and 2 were of unknown age (Stansell, City of Women , 278 n. 33). Gilfoyle found that of 259 rape eases between 1830 and 1870, 98 victims (38 percent) were between 12 and 16 years of age, and 80 (31 percent) were under 12. See Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," Table XIII, 180. Rapes of children actually may not have represented such a high percentage of total rapes; such eases were more likely than others to be prosecuted because the courts would accept more readily the likelihood of "unwillingness" of girls 12 and under.

Child prostitution is discussed further in Chapter 6. [BACK]

59. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 460; Times , 10 November 1858. In 1861, Samuel Halliday stated that many of New York's prostitutes were immigrants ( The Little Street Sweeper : or Life Among the Poor, 235-36). [BACK]

60. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 459. See also: Evening Tattler , 17 August 1839, and Protestant Vindication , 17 June 1835. [BACK]

61. Report from Mayor Fernando Wood to Board of Aldermen, DBA, 5 (1855), 18. [BACK]

62. Ernst, Immigrant Life , 187-88; Smith-Rosenberg, Religion and the Rise , 173; Albion, Rise of the New York Port , 418-419; U.S., Census, 1850; N.Y., Census, 1845, 1855. [BACK]

63. The daily entries in the lower Manhattan docket for 1849 and 1850 indicate that the overwhelming majority of those arrested for vagrancy/ prostitution had Irish names. The same is true of the 220 streetwalkers arrested on five evenings in the spring of 1855, and of New York City prison commitments for all crimes in the 1850s. There were more than three times as many foreigners as native-born persons committed to prison from 1850 to 1858, and the Irish accounted for 76 percent of the foreigners, or more than 50 percent of the total number arrested. MM, Police Docket, 1849-1850; Times , March-May 1855; Report of the Warden of the City Prison, Annual Report of The Governor of the Almshouse, quoted in Ernst, Immigrant Life , 202-204.

One other arrest statistic that appears to support Wood's association of prostitution and "crime" was for panel-house arrests. A study analyzing panel-house prostitution from 1840 to 1869 has found that of 68 women prosecuted, 65 percent were foreign, and 39 percent of the total were from Ireland. Again, however, court officials' biases could have meant that foreign women were pursued more aggressively (Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," 193 n. 18). [BACK]

64. Some professions were dominated by the foreign-born. The 1855 census lists 29,470 of the 31,749 domestic servants in New York City as foreign-born. Carol Groneman-Pernicorn states that Irish and German women were preferred as domestics, but some newspaper ads for domestic help in this period reflect a different attitude with statements such as, ''Irish need not apply." As I argue in Chapter 3, domestic work was among the lowest paid of women's occupations. Ads are from Truth Teller , 28 December 1833, and Daily Sun , 11 May 1853, quoted in Ernst, ImmigrantLife , 67. See also Ernst, 215; Carol Groneman-Pernicorn, "The 'Bloody Ould Sixth': A Social Analysis of a New York City Working Class Community in the Mid-Nineteeth Century," 155. Hasia Diner takes a contrasting point of view, arguing that Irish women in American cities seldom turned to prostitution ( Erin's Daughters in America: Irish Immigrant Women in the Nineteenth Century , 106-7, 114-18). [BACK]

65. See Chapter 4 for more on immigrant arrests. [BACK]

66. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 460. [BACK]

67. Ernst, Immigrant Life , 193; U.S., Census, 1850, Wards 5 and 8; N.Y., Census, 1855, Wards 5 and 8. [BACK]

68. Ernst, Immigrant Life , 193; U.S., Census, 1850, Wards 5 and 8; N.Y., Census, 1855, Wards 5 and 8; U.S., Census, 1860. [BACK]

69. Theodor Griesinger, Lebende Bilder aus Amerika (Stuttgart, 1858), 148-56. Barbara Hobson has found in her study of Boston prostitutes that brothel-keepers who were immigrants were overrepresented in the prostitute population. Forty percent of the brothel-keepers in the Boston House of Correction were immigrants. It is also possible that a high foreign percentage indicates police bias in arrests and incarcerations of foreign brothel-keepers (Hobson, Uneasy Virtue , 44-45). [BACK]

70. In 1844, the Herald estimated there were 9,000 prostitutes in New York City and 4,000, or almost half, were said to be African-American. This number was determined by the writer's "many years observation of crime," and there is no other data to support the estimate. In fact, 4,000 black prostitutes would have represented over 60 percent of all black females in the city at that time. Herald , 4, 9 January 1844. An 1839 brothel directory estimated there were 1,970 black prostitutes. Black prostitutes were listed separately from the 9,291 full-time prostitutes—again, a number that seems exaggerated (Butt Ender, Prostitution Exposed ). [BACK]

71. Black women faced the same population imbalance as did Irish women. In 1860, they outnumbered black men in New York by one-third, a statistic that probably reduced their chances for marriage. See Spann, The New Metropolis , 27; Paul O. Weinbaum, Mobs and Demagogues: The New York Response to Collective Violence in the Early Nineteeth Century , 140-42; Ernst, Immigrant Life , 40-41, 67, 104-5, 173, 217; U.S., Census, 1860. [BACK]

72. There were probably more black prostitutes than records indicate, but they operated discreetly in an effort to avoid incidents of racism and/or legal harassment. Case histories from the House of Refuge illustrate that black women chose prostitution for the same reasons as white women, and that their histories and family backgrounds are comparable. HRCH, no. 1641 (1835), no. 2629 (1840), no. 4895 (1850). [BACK]

73. H.D. Eastman, Fast Man's Directory and Lover's Guide to the Ladies of Fashion and Houses of Pleasure in New York and Other Large Cities , 15. [BACK]

74. U.S., Census, 1850, Ward 8:31. Nineteenth-century censuses use mulatto as a description of race, and I have followed this terminology in discussing census data. [BACK]

75. Free Loveyer [ sic ], Directory to the Seraglios in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and All the Principal Cities in the Union , 20, 24, 27.

76. Ibid., 20-21. [BACK]

75. Free Loveyer [ sic ], Directory to the Seraglios in New York, Philadelphia, Boston and All the Principal Cities in the Union , 20, 24, 27.

76. Ibid., 20-21. [BACK]

77. The fact that Sweet is not found in the 1855 census does not mean she had moved. There is no index to this census, and names can be found only by skimming ward listings. Because she is at the same address in the 1854-55 city directory and in the 1859 brothel directory, her name was probably overlooked. U.S., Census, 1850, Wards 5 and 8; N.Y., Census, 1855, Wards 5 and 8. [BACK]

78. MM, Police Docket, 1849-1850. [BACK]

79. Eastman, Fast Man's Directory , 12, 10.

80. Ibid., 17. [BACK]

79. Eastman, Fast Man's Directory , 12, 10.

80. Ibid., 17. [BACK]

81. Herald , 17 January 1846. [BACK]

82. Newspaper articles repeatedly noted contemporaries' opposition to interfacial sex and their blatant expressions of racism. For references to black and white brothels see New Era and American Courier (New York), 28 March 1837; Sun , 4 June 1834, 27 March, 7 October 1835, 25 May 1836, 4 May, 27 February 1840; Tribune , 7 March 1842; Herald , 10 June 1836. For additional sources, see discussion of racism and prostitution in Chapter 8 and notes there. [BACK]

83. Sun , 5 October 1840.

84. Ibid., 26 February 1840. [BACK]

83. Sun , 5 October 1840.

84. Ibid., 26 February 1840. [BACK]

85. U.S., Census, 1850, Wards 5 and 8; N.Y., Census, 1855, Wards 5 and 8. William Sanger discussed black women only as servants in brothels ( History of Prostitution , 554). [BACK]

86. The Gentleman's Directory: The Gentleman's Companion, New York City in 1870 , 24.

87. Ibid., 29. [BACK]

86. The Gentleman's Directory: The Gentleman's Companion, New York City in 1870 , 24.

87. Ibid., 29. [BACK]

88. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 473-75; N.Y., Census, 1855, Wards 5 and 8; Times , 23-24 May 1855. [BACK]

89. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 477-80. It is not possible to say how many of the census prostitutes had had children, since only those children living

in the household were included in the survey. There were, however, a number of children listed as residents of the brothels.

90. Ibid., 477-83. Mortality for children under five was very high for New York as a whole. In 1850 and 1860, 52 percent of children died before they reached age five. Robert Ernst noted that, according to the City Inspector, 67 percent of the city's total mortality for 1857 represented children under five, mostly of foreign parentage ( Immigrant Life , 53). See also Spann, The New Metropolis , 135; John Duffy, The History of Public Health in New York City , vol. 1, 1625-1866 , 259, 532-38.

The use of abortion by prostitutes will be discussed in Chapter 7. [BACK]

89. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 477-80. It is not possible to say how many of the census prostitutes had had children, since only those children living

in the household were included in the survey. There were, however, a number of children listed as residents of the brothels.

90. Ibid., 477-83. Mortality for children under five was very high for New York as a whole. In 1850 and 1860, 52 percent of children died before they reached age five. Robert Ernst noted that, according to the City Inspector, 67 percent of the city's total mortality for 1857 represented children under five, mostly of foreign parentage ( Immigrant Life , 53). See also Spann, The New Metropolis , 135; John Duffy, The History of Public Health in New York City , vol. 1, 1625-1866 , 259, 532-38.

The use of abortion by prostitutes will be discussed in Chapter 7. [BACK]

91. Smith, Sunshine and Shadow , 424; Sanger, History of Prostitution , 523-31. [BACK]

92. Times , 24-25 May 1855. It is possible that some of these women were not prostitutes but were arrested merely for being on the street after dark. See Chapter 4 for a discussion of false arrests. [BACK]

93. Sanger believed that a woman who continued in another occupation after she began working as a prostitute did so to "deceive the world as to her own pursuits, or else to satisfy her conscience that she was not entirely depraved" ( History of Prostitution , 528, 523-24). In the Sanger study, 75 percent of interviewees had been employed previously. Barbara Hobson has pointed out that 75 percent is very high in light of the low rate of women's participation in the labor force in this era, which she estimates roughly at between 10 percent and 15 percent. The New York Census of 1855, however, stated that 24 percent of women were employed in the workforce. Carol Groneman-Pernicorn's study of New York women in the sixth ward has challenged official estimates on female employment, demonstrating that in this ward, at least, women workers were greatly undercounted. See Hobson, Uneasy Virtue , 96; Groneman-Pernicorn, "Bloody Ould Sixth," 149, 162, 169; N.Y., Census, 1855. [BACK]

94. N.Y., Census, 1855, Wards 5 and 8. [BACK]

95. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 535-36. Approximately one-third of the women were daughters of skilled workers, and almost one-fourth were daughters of farmers. Hobson speculates that these women may have had "expectations of economic and social well-being that could not be fulfilled in a world [where their fathers were facing] narrowing opportunities" ( Uneasy Virtue , 92-93). [BACK]

96. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 455; NYMS, First Annual Report , 9; Tait, Magdalenism ; Prime, Life in New York , 164. [BACK]

97. [Smith], Madam Restell , 28; Parent-Duchatelet, De la prostitution ; Acton, Prostitution Considered , 27, 28-33, 300-302. [BACK]

98. New York City, Dept. of Health, Register of Deaths , 1850-1855; N.Y., Census, 1855. [BACK]

99. In her research on prostitutes in Boston, Barbara Hobson has sketched a partial portrait of foreign prostitutes. According to Hobson, immigrant women

typically entered the profession later, stayed longer, were more often married, and were usually less literate than native-born prostitutes ( Uneasy Virtue , 91). No such analysis exists for New York immigrant prostitutes. [BACK]


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