Unsavory Old West Profession

The Victorian posture was one of stern resistance to human weakness, in particular to carnal pleasures. But the business of vice was extensive enough in Old West cities of the 1880’s to suggest the devil was not in limbo. Respectable standards prescribed laws against prostitution in varying degrees in stringency, but these were not largely enforced as the more urgent demands of lust and money proved irresistible. In the larger cities such as Denver, Colorado and San Francisco, California, prostitution entrepreneurs offered services for all classes and pocketbooks, from palatial bagnios and brownstones to dives in the slum areas. It was a commercial trade, practiced with remarkable openness. The stock solicitation “Hello, dear, won’t you come home with me?” astounded visitors in San Francisco where the girls were particular brazen. Sex had become a commodity; as America’s first woman doctor, Elizabeth Blackwell, observed; “Shrewdness and large capital are enlisted in the lawless stimulation of the mighty instinct of sex.” Police protection cost the bordello operator an initiation fee of $300 to $500 and $30 to $50 monthly thereafter, traditionally collected by the precinct captain. The enormous number of girls involved in interesting counterpoint to the proclaimed rectitude of Victorian life. In 1870, when it’s population was more than 192,000, San Francisco had an estimated 7,500 prostitutes. Prostitution’s unsavory side effects were often more damaging than the vice itself, as the bordellos attracted and encouraged all manner of criminals who found in them a harvest of easy victims. For more stories about the soiled doves of the Old West visit www.chrisenss.com.