19th Century Prostitution

August 13, 2012 5:57 AM

A Guide to Houses No Gentleman Would Frequent, and more artifacts of history and archaeology that shed some light on the largely-unwritten world of nineteenth-century prostitution in Boston, New York, Washington, DC, and Paris, among other locales. Lest it appear too amusingly salacious, the miserable side.
posted by Miko (5 comments total)

Not an especially huge interest of mind, but I got curious prompted by the Mugshot Yourself post: who are those people, really? At one of the places I worked we had a small collection of artifacts unearthed in the local red-light district, a very well-documented one, as it happened. Similar to these: rouge pots (one shaped like a tall boot) and perfume bottles.
posted by Miko at 6:01 AM on August 13, 2012

The first link in 'miserable side' actually makes it sound like a pretty reasonable way to make a living if nothing else is available.
posted by Space Coyote at 6:37 AM on August 13, 2012 [1 favorite]

Right round the corner from Pizzeria Regina. I had read that Beacon Hill was the red light district during the 1800s, but maybe this was a more genteel establishment.
posted by benito.strauss at 9:54 AM on August 13, 2012

If nothing else is available, it's not a choice.
posted by Miko at 1:02 PM on August 13, 2012

Haven't read the links yet (on cell phone, sorry:-( ), but the post brings to mind some of the historical documents that author Ami McKay uses in her second novel, "The Virgin Cure" (which I highly recommend, and not just because McKay lives near me and I got to meet her when she gave a talk at my university and she's pretty cool).
posted by eviemath at 1:18 PM on August 13, 2012