1. New York Herald , 11 April-30 June 1836; Lewis Tappan, The Life of Arthur Tappan , 119.

2. Herald , 11 April 1836.

3. New York Commercial Advertiser , 2-11 June 1836; Herald , 7-11 June 1836; The Sun (New York), 3-4 June 1836; New York Transcript , 3-8 June 1836; Oliver Carlson, The Man Who Made News: James Gordon Bennett , 143-67; Patricia Cline Cohen, "The Helen Jewerr Murder: Violence, Gender, and Sexual Licentiousness in Antebellum America," 374-89.

4. Herald , 12 and 13 April 1836.

5. Herald , 11-15 April 1836; Morning Courier and Enquirer , 29 June 1830.

6. Patrica Cline Cohen has an excellent summary of the various versions of Jewett's life story in "The Helen Jewett Murder." I am indebted to Cohen for sharing her article with me.

7. There are many sources describing Jewett's background, many of which contain fabricated material. The most accurate information on Jewett appears to be from court documents and the local press at the time of the murder. See Sun , April, June 1836; Herald , April, June 1836; Transcript , 30 June 1834; CGS, People v. Robinson , 19 April 1836; Coroner's Inquest, 10 April 1836, in CGS, People v. Robinson . At the coroner's inquest, Rosina Townsend said Jewett was born in Hallowell, Maine.

Other sources on Jewett and the murder include An Authentic Biography of

the Late Helen Jewett, A Girl of the Town . . . by a Gentleman Fully Acquainted with her History ; Carlson, The Man Who Made News ; Joseph Holt Ingraham, Frank Rivers: or the Dangers of the Town; The Life of Ellen Jewett: Illustrative of Her Adventures . . . Together with Various Extracts from Her Journal, Correspondence, and Poetical Effects ; Richard P. Robinson, Letter From Richard P. Robinson as Connected With the Murder of Ellen Jewett, Sent in a Letter to his Friend Thomas Armstrong; A Sketch in the Life of Francis P. Robinson, the Alleged Murderer of Helen Jewett, Containing Copious Extracts from his Journal; A Sketch in the Life of Miss Ellen Jewett, Who Was Murdered in the City of New York on Saturday Evening, April 9, 1836; The Truly Remarkable Life of the Beautiful Helen Jewett Who Was So Mysteriously Murdered ; George Wilkes, The Lives of Helen Jewett and Richard P. Robinson .

8. Sun , 11 April 1836.

9. Herald , 12 April 1836; Commercial Advertiser , 6 June 1836; Sun, 6 June 1836.

10. Though there is no indication of Jewett's weekly earnings except for a comment in the National Police Gazette that she "could get $50-$100 a week for Betty's establishment" (24 February 1849), she must have made enough over and above her living expenses and clothing costs to accumulate savings, because on one occasion Mrs. Berry asked her for a loan. "Berry to Jewett," Police Gazette , 5 May 1849 (letter dated 14 December 1835). Estimated earnings for an establishment like Berry's are based on information from a variety of contemporary sources. See Chapter 3.

11. There is no evidence that Jewett was ever personally fined or incarcerated. The arrest of the women in her brothel and other court cases are discussed in Transcript , 30 June 1834; 12 April, 4 June 1836; Sun , 28 June 1834; Herald , 13 April 1836; Commercial Advertiser , 4 June 1836; The Life of Ellen Jewett , 19, 24, 29-30; Wilkes, The Lives .

12. Sun , 6-8 June 1836; Herald , 13 April 1836.

13. "Edward to Helen," Police Gazette , 2 June 1849.

14. Ibid., "Helen to Richard," 9 June 1849 (letter dated 24 July 1835). The use of correspondence with clients may not have been unique to Jewett. In the Corless murder case in 1843, a porter testified that he had carried letters between the murdered victim and a prostitute. Daily Tribune , 29 March 1843. See Appendix 2 for a full explanation and description of the Jewett correspondence.

13. "Edward to Helen," Police Gazette , 2 June 1849.

14. Ibid., "Helen to Richard," 9 June 1849 (letter dated 24 July 1835). The use of correspondence with clients may not have been unique to Jewett. In the Corless murder case in 1843, a porter testified that he had carried letters between the murdered victim and a prostitute. Daily Tribune , 29 March 1843. See Appendix 2 for a full explanation and description of the Jewett correspondence.

15. Information on urban changes in New York City can be found in Robert G. Albion, The Rise of the New York Port, 1815-1860 ; Amy Bridges, A City in the Republic: Antebellum New York and the Origins of Machine Politics ; Robert Ernst, Immigrant Life in New York City, 1825-1863 ; Douglas T. Miller, Jacksonian Aristocracy: Class and Democracy in New York, 1830-1860 ; Edward Pessen, Riches, Class and Power Before the Civil War; Edward Spann, The New Metropolis: New York, 1840-1857 ; Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New

York City and the Rise of the Working Class, 1788-1850 ; James Grant Wilson, ed., The Memorial History of the City of New York .

16. On the activities and position of women in the nineteenth century, especially in New York City, see Berg, Remembered Gate ; Nancy Cott, The Bonds of Womanhood: "Woman's Sphere" in New England, 1780-1835 ; Smith-Rosenberg, Religion and the Rise ; Stansell, City of Women ; Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood," 151-74.

Many young women and girls found employment in industry or as domestics and seamstresses. Sources noted that women frequently moved from the last two professions into prostitution. House of Refuge case histories include numerous examples of young girls in service having practiced casual prostitution before they were admitted to the Refuge. New York House of Refuge Case Histories (HRCH), 1829-1860, New York State Archives, State Education Department, Albany. See also: NYMS, First Annual Report of the Executive Committee of the New York Magdalen Society, Instituted January 1 , 1830, 8; William W. Sanger, The History of Prostitution — Its Extent, Causes and Effects Throughout the World , 526; Theresa M. McBride, The Domestic Revolution: The Modernization of Household Service in England and France, 1820-1920 , 22, 99-107; Rosen, Lost Sisterhood , 62-63; Stansell, City of Women , 167, 178; Margaret Hewitt, Wives and Mothers In Victorian Industry , 59. A. J. B. Parent-Duchatelet and Henry Mayhew also noted this as a problem in France and England.

17. The term social evil began to be used in the last half of the nineteenth century and became increasingly common in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the work of Progressive reformers, especially the New York Committee of Fifteen and the Vice Commission of Chicago, both of whom published research reports under the title The Social Evil . See James D. McCabe, Lights and Shadows of New York Life; or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City , 579; Matthew Hale Smith, Sunshine and Shadow in New York , 371; Rosen, Lost Sisterhood , 14, 40.

18. Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery , 66; Tappan, The Life of Arthur Tappan , 111-12; Smith-Rosenberg, Religion and the Rise , 98-103; idem, "Beauty, the Beast, and the Militant Woman: A Case Study in Sex Roles and Social Stress in Jacksonian America," 562-84; Advocate of Moral Reform , 1 January 1837; NYMS, First Annual Report , 4-9.

19. Philip Hone, The Diary of Philip Hone, 1828-1851 , 45 (general entry for summer 1831); John R. McDowall, Magdalen Facts , no. 1; Tappan, Life of Arthur Tappan , 113-18; Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan , 68.

20. Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan , 70; McDowall, Magdalen Facts .

21. John R. McDowall, McDowall's Journal , January 1833. Many sources refer to the existence of this list threatened by McDowall, but none documents

where it is found where it is found. Only two volumes of McDowall's Journal were published, covering the period from January 1833 to December 1834. Some issues contain letters with initials of seducers. See Paul Boyer's discussion of McDowall's threatened list in his analysis of New York moral reformers' attempts at social control, in Paul S. Boyer, Urban Masses and Moral Order in America, 1820-1920 , 17-21.

22. NYFBS, First Report of the Female Benevolent Society of the City of New York: Presented January 13, 1834 , 6-7.

23. Sun , 15 March 1834.

24. Smith-Rosenberg, Religion and the Rise , 102-12; Keith Melder, " La dies Bountiful: Organized Women's Benevolence in Early Nineteenth-Century America," 231-54.

25. Advocate of Moral Reform , 1 January 1837; Herald , 11 and 14 April 1836; Tappan, Life of Arthur Tappan , 119; [Phebe McDowall], Memoir and Select Remains of the Late Rev. John R. McDowall, the Martyr of the Seventh Commandment, in the Nineteenth Century , 1-89, 153-54.

26. A. J. B. Parent-Duchatelet, De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris ; William Tait, Magdalenism: An Inquiry into the Extent, Causes, and Consequences of Prostitution ; William Acton, Prostitution Considered in Its Moral, Social, and Sanitary Aspects in London and Other Large Cities and Garrison Towns, with Proposals for the Control and Prevention of its Attendant Evils ; [Charles Smith], Madam Restell, An Account of her Life and Horrible Practices, Together with Prostitution in New York, Its Extent, Causes, and Effects Upon Society ; Sanger, History of Prostitution . Some of the "popular writers" of the 1840s were George G. Foster, New York in Slices by An Experienced Carver: Being the Original Slices Published in the New York Tribune and New York Naked ; Solon Robinson, Hot Corn: Life Scenes in New York Illustrated ; Ned Buntline [E. Z. C. Judson], The Mysteries and Miseries of New York . See Chapter 7 for a further discussion of popular literature.

27. Sanger has a full discussion of Parent's data in his History of Prostitution , 139-54. Judith Walkowitz has an excellent analysis of the best-known nineteenth-century writers on prostitution in "We Are Not Beasts," 44-97. I am indebted to both Walkowitz and Jill Harsin for their discussions of Parent-Duchatelet, for whom there is no translation. Jill Harsin, Policing Prostitution In Nineteenth-Century Paris .

28. [Smith], Madam Restell , 24; Tait, Magdalenism ; Acton, Prostitution Considered .

29. [Smith], Madam Restell , 5-24, 27-48.

30. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 27-34, 450-52, 575-676.

31. Most of those interviewed used prostitution as a sole means of support, and many of them probably lived in known houses of prostitution. See ibid., 523.

32. Ibid., 617.

30. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 27-34, 450-52, 575-676.

31. Most of those interviewed used prostitution as a sole means of support, and many of them probably lived in known houses of prostitution. See ibid., 523.

32. Ibid., 617.

30. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 27-34, 450-52, 575-676.

31. Most of those interviewed used prostitution as a sole means of support, and many of them probably lived in known houses of prostitution. See ibid., 523.

32. Ibid., 617.

33. The tacit acceptance of prostitutes and their integration into neighborhoods will be discussed in Chapter 6.

Reformer Charles Loring Brace noted that prostitutes understood well the types of explanations for prostitution that would evoke either sympathy or criticism from reformers or police: ''They usually relate, and perhaps even imagine, that they have been seduced from the paths of virtue suddenly and by the wiles of some heartless seducer. Often they describe themselves as belonging to some virtuous, respectable, and even wealthy family." He went on to point out: "Their real history is much more commonplace and matter-of-fact. They have been poor women's daughters and did not want to work as their mothers did." Charles Loring Brace, The Dangerous Classes of New York, and Twenty Years' Work Among Them , 118.

34. HRCH, 1829-1860. For a collective intake profile for the Houses of Refuge in 1835, see Appendix 1.

35. The Jewett correspondence was printed in the National Police Gazette from April-June, 1849. Copies of letters also were referenced or printed in other sources in the 1830s. For a detailed discussion of the Jewett correspondence, see Appendix 2.

36. The discussion of definition will be concerned with female prostitution only. Various nineteenth- and twentieth-century definitions of prostitution are discussed in Acton, Prostitution Considered , 2; Walkowitz, "We Are Not Beasts," 93; [Smith], Madam Restell , 25; Abraham Flexner, Prostitution in Europe , 11; Barbara S. Heyl, The Madam as Entrepreneur: Career Management in House Prostitution , 2; Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "Politics and Culture in Women's History—Response," 62; Vern L. Bullough, The History of Prostitution , 1-5.

37. Some of the sources claiming that officials maintained lists of prostitutes or prostitution houses are McDowall's Journal , May 1833; Sun , October 1834; New York Daily Times , 3 January 1855; George W. Walling, Recollections of a New York Chief of Police: An Official Record of Thirty-Eight Years as Patrolman, Detective, Captain, Inspector and Chief on the New York Police , 580. Police also were said to have records of all persons who boarded in or moved in and out of a ward. New York City, Police Department Reorganization Committee Report , in Documents of the Board of Aldermen (DBA), doc. 53 (1844): 808.

38. For information on New York City prostitution in the half century before 1830 see Gilfoyle, "City of Eros," chs. 1 and 2; New York City, Minutes of the Common Council of the City of New York, 1781-1831 ; Magdalen Society of New York, Second and Third Annual Reports , 1814-1815. In 1818, the Columbian reported that the city watch had found 1,200 prostitutes in New

York City. See Stansell, City of Women , 172, 276, n. 2. See also Tappan, Life of Arthur Tappan , 110-14.

39. Courier and Enquirer , 22 August 1831. According to the Working Man's Advocate , the City Watch conducted a ward by ward survey for the Grand Jury and discovered only 1,388 prostitutes. There is a discrepancy of 50 women between the Courier and Enquirer's estimate and that of the Workingman's Advocate. Workingman's Advocate , 20 August 1831. McDowall's estimate is found in NYMS, First Annual Report , 7-9. In calculating his estimates of New York's prostitutes, McDowall referred to the estimates of an alderman and a resident physician at the almshouse, who had both estimated 5,000 prostitutes in New York City. On visits to the Five Points, McDowall had counted 104 notorious places of lewdness. He speculated that each of these places had five females (possibly three times more than that), for a total of 520 lewd women. One could safely double this number and have 1,040 notorious females in the vicinity of the Five Points in the sixth ward. Admitting only 1,000, "a humble estimate," for the entire sixth ward, one could then estimate for the whole city. If each of the other thirteen wards had only one-fourth as many as the sixth, they would together account for 3,250, which added to the 1,000 in the sixth produces a total of 4, 250 public women. To this figure, add 400 who are usually in the penitentiary, and the result is 4,650, only 350 less than the alderman had computed. One also should add to these public women those females who reside in houses of higher reputation, who work as domestics, and who take lodgings in private families and boarding houses of respectability. These clandestine prostitutes were "doubtless more numerous than the girls abroad on the town," but if they were estimated at the same number, one would get a total of 10,000! See also [Phebe McDowall], Memoir and Select , 153-54.

The one in seventy females identified as prostitutes by the grand jury, as well as McDowall's one in ten, are based on the U.S. Census of 1830. A figure of 101,295 assumes the 1830 female population at roughly 50 percent of the total city population (202,589). U.S., 5th Census, 1830.

40. The estimated figures for prostitution in the period 1830-1847 have come from a variety of sources. See: NYMS, First Annual Report , 7-9; Ad vocate of Moral Reform , 15 May 1840; Daily Tribune (New York), 14 March 1844; Herald , 4, 7, 9, 20 January 1844; Samuel I. Prime, Life In New York , 164, 166; Licentiousness: Its Effects, Extent and Causes , 7; DBA, Police Reorganization , 53 (1844), 104; Foster, New York in Slices , 4; Tait, Magdalenism . The Herald estimated there were 9,000 prostitutes and 3,000 houses of ill fame. Prime stated that there were 10,000 prostitutes, one out of seven women of "sexually active age" (16 to 36), and 400 brothels.

41. Police Gazette , 12 June 1847. Smith offered a simple method of checking these calculations. Assuming the population at about 400,000 and the

number of females at about 200,000, one could exclude all females under 14 and all over 40, and the number left capable (italics mine) of prostitution was 60,000. Subtract from this all virtuous wives and daughters and all respectable women and girls (a number he must have assumed to be around 57,500) and one would have about the same number as the police returns showed. [Smith], Madam Restell , 26.

The female population reported in the 1845 census was 190,751. New York State, Secretary of State, Census, 1845, 29.

42. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 616.

43. Ibid., 575-79, 582-84. Sanger calculated the number of prostitutes as follows: To Chief Matsell's number of "not over five thousand," he added a 20 percent increase to adjust for population growth in the years leading up to 1858 and for the economic slump, which he believed caused women to turn to prostitution when they were laid off in other occupations. To test the accuracy of this figure of 6,000, Sanger asked precinct police to estimate the number of prostitutes in their precincts, and their reports totaled 3,857. To this number he added another 1,500 for the "floating prostitute population of station-houses, city and district prisons, hospitals, work-house, alms-house and penitentiary." The resulting total was 5, 357, and the difference between that and 6,000 could be accounted for by those who had escaped the eyes of the officers taking the census. To the number of 6,000 he added those whose calling was "effectively disguised"—or approximately 1,260 women who frequented assignation houses for sexual gratification, 400 who visited assignation houses to augment their incomes, and 200 who were assumed to represent half of the kept mistresses (the other half being included in those who visited assignation houses). Taken together, these figures totaled 7,860 public and private prostitutes, or about 2.1 percent of the female population.

In order to compare Sanger's figures with the total female population, I have estimated the number of females as 50 percent of the total population. Thus the female total for 1855 would be 314,952, and for 1860, 416,679. By averaging these two figures together, we get an estimated female population of 365,815 for 1858, for comparison with Sanger's prostitution figure for that year. U.S., 8th Census, 1860, 337; and N.Y., Census, 1855, table 1:2.

42. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 616.

43. Ibid., 575-79, 582-84. Sanger calculated the number of prostitutes as follows: To Chief Matsell's number of "not over five thousand," he added a 20 percent increase to adjust for population growth in the years leading up to 1858 and for the economic slump, which he believed caused women to turn to prostitution when they were laid off in other occupations. To test the accuracy of this figure of 6,000, Sanger asked precinct police to estimate the number of prostitutes in their precincts, and their reports totaled 3,857. To this number he added another 1,500 for the "floating prostitute population of station-houses, city and district prisons, hospitals, work-house, alms-house and penitentiary." The resulting total was 5, 357, and the difference between that and 6,000 could be accounted for by those who had escaped the eyes of the officers taking the census. To the number of 6,000 he added those whose calling was "effectively disguised"—or approximately 1,260 women who frequented assignation houses for sexual gratification, 400 who visited assignation houses to augment their incomes, and 200 who were assumed to represent half of the kept mistresses (the other half being included in those who visited assignation houses). Taken together, these figures totaled 7,860 public and private prostitutes, or about 2.1 percent of the female population.

In order to compare Sanger's figures with the total female population, I have estimated the number of females as 50 percent of the total population. Thus the female total for 1855 would be 314,952, and for 1860, 416,679. By averaging these two figures together, we get an estimated female population of 365,815 for 1858, for comparison with Sanger's prostitution figure for that year. U.S., 8th Census, 1860, 337; and N.Y., Census, 1855, table 1:2.

44. James D. McCabe, The Secrets of the Great City: A Work Descriptive of the Virtues and Vices, the Mysteries, Miseries and Crimes of New York City , 284-85. Female population statistics for 1865 and 1870 are based on an estimated 50 percent of the total population for those years as reported in N.Y., Census, 1875, table 1, p. 2.

45. New York State, Board of Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police (BCMP), Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of the Metropolitan Police (New York: Berger & Tripp, 1867-1870), 86 (1866), 103 (1867), 93 (1868), 106 (1869).

46. Edward Crapsey, The Nether Side of New York; or, the Vice, Crime, and Poverty of the Great Metropolis , 24, 146.

47. McCabe, Lights and Shadows , 579.

48. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 580; Police Gazette , 20 January 1849. Also, see Chapter 6.

49. Sanger, History of Prostitution , 580. New York City, Municipal Manuscripts (MM), Police Dockets (1849-1851), New York Municipal Archives and Record Center (NYMA).

There are many problems in trying to locate names in the 1855 census. The census has not been indexed, so one must read through pages of old ledgers that do not identify houses by number or street name. In addition, the names are handwritten in ink and often illegible. Furthermore, prostitutes usually went by pseudonyms but may have given census officials their legal names. Despite these difficulties, a survey of wards five and eight did verify the existence of many prostitutes said to have been in New York City at that time. In the 1850 census, 131 prostitutes were identified in ward five and 179 in ward eight for a total of 310. By the 1855 census, there were 46 fewer prostitutes found in these two wards (264, as opposed to 310)but 4 more houses (42, as opposed to 38).

In comparing the number of houses identified in the 1855 census and other sources with the number said by Sanger to exist in wards five and eight, the proportion that can be located is again significant: 44 houses in ward eight (76 percent of Sanger's estimate) and 29 in ward five (41 percent). Because it is difficult to identify assignation houses that were operating discreetly, many have probably been overlooked. New York State, Manuscript Census, 1855, New York City Population Schedules, 5th and 8th Wards, County Clerk's Office, Hall of Records (CCHR); U.S., 7th Census, 1850, New York City Population Schedules, 5th and 8th Wards, NYPL.

50. Rosen, Lost Sisterhood , 3; Richard J. Evans, "Prostitution, State, and Society in Imperial Germany," 106-29.

51. Rosen, Lost Sisterhood , 3. An appendix to the 1897 edition of Sanger's study noted that if Sanger's ratio of prostitutes to general population had kept pace with the city's growth, the number of prostitutes in that year would be 15,500. According to the editors, "these figures, startling as they are, would seem to fall far short of the calculations of many intelligent investigators of the subject, who place the number as high as 25,000 or even 30,000. The latter was the figure given by a high police official about a year ago. The sensational estimate, tacitly accepted by the committee of the State Senate during its late inquiry, putting the number at 50,000, bears on its face the mark of exaggeration, as it would show one prostitute in every 36 inhabitants, including men, women, and children." The editors accepted the police official's 30,000 as reasonable. Sanger, History of Prostitution , Appendix, 677-78.

52. Data related to prostitutes' ages is discussed in detail in Chapter 2 and

its notes. Age structure of the female population of New York in 1850 is based on the 1850 census. See U.S. 7th Census, 1850, 396.