Lawbreaking Ladies by Erika Owen

Author:Erika Owen
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tiller Press
Published: 2021-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

More Than Just "Ladies of the Night"

While today, the legitimacy of a job in sex work is hotly debated across the world, it was a booming illicit business throughout the United States during the Civil War. That being said, many “madams”—the title given to a woman who owned a brothel—still had to pay inflated taxes at times, depending on the location of their business. In other cases, the women working at the brothels also had to abide by special rules that set them apart from other people in society (think: special “shopping hours” that gave them the chance to visit certain stores only when ladies of more reputable social standing were not present). Some sex workers even had to pay fees in order to work in the brothels. The rules very much depended on the local government and the communities in which the brothels were located and whether they thought it benefitted or posed a threat to the local economy.

Brothels first gained popularity in the United States in the 1700s, and were typically located in cities with bustling ports. These early establishments provided recreation for men traveling alone in the US, as sex work at the time was generally viewed as a socially acceptable business. As brothels grew in number and started showing up in cities without ports, however, they began to cater to different audiences.

There were brothels that offered inexpensive services and others that provided a more luxe experience. And when sex work became more prevalent, society’s opinion of the women who ran and worked in these establishments also changed. Although brothels and sex work were still legal in the 1700s, at a certain point, bribes and other financial agreements between madams and the local authorities became common in order to keep the peace. This meant that financial stakeholders, sex workers, and brothel owners would occasionally receive a fine or punishment of sorts. That being said, the actions against them were never particularly harsh or taken seriously.

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the first organized actions against brothels across the country occurred, a catastrophic series of events generally known as the Whorehouse Riots. At this time, local governments against the existence of brothels and sex work in their respective cities would encourage citizens to destroy the establishments by setting fire to them and tearing down whatever they could. As a result of these riots, in 1790 Massachusetts became the first state to make running a brothel illegal… but the law wouldn’t stick.

For a century afterward, brothels existed as complicated parts of their local communities in the US. Some madams learned how to keep their houses afloat by keeping their reputations in balance, contributing to society in other important ways, such as through regular charity work. Others became adept at dodging ambushes set up by local authorities. And then there were those who offered such elevated experiences that only the wealthiest men could afford their prices, making it less of a financial burden to keep the brothel in business.

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