Fornalski 1

Aleksander Fornalski

Professor Pella

EDUC 165-03

8 October 2013

History of Prostitution in the American West

In the middle of the nineteenth century, America experienced a boom of expansion and

development. Miners in pursuit of gold and riches raced across the country, establishing mining

and frontier towns along the way. A lot of these towns or settlements had high populations of

men, like miners and army garrisons. With a rise in these developments, the West also

experienced a rise in prostitution. Prostitution is defined as the contractual relation in which

sexual services are exchanged for a sum of money (Davis, 1937). Prostitution in the early West

was a cutthroat business. Predominantly a female occupation, many women, including those

from overseas, were often forced into the lifestyle and found it very difficult to leave the

profession (Oharazeki, 2013). Due to the skewed gender role expectations in the nineteenth

century American West, female prostitutes often experienced abusive masters, pitiful wages, and

an overarching poor quality of life.

In the nineteenth century American West, womens employment options were often

limited by societys expectations of the females role in the household (Rosen, 1986). According

to Rosen (1986), prostitution [has been] tightly yoked to the social and economic history of

women and the family (p. 91). If womans skills are no longer needed or employed, she can be

hard pressed to support herself economically. During this time in the nineteenth century, rural

families no longer needed the domestic skills of women. As a result, many young women left

home in order to try and find work. When many women had difficulty finding work in the
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traditional public sphere, they turned to prostitution to support themselves and their children

(Rosen, 1986). Once contracted to work as a prostitute, most women were subject to harsh

treatment from their masters. Masters often resorted to physical violence to keep prostitutes from

running away (Oharazeki, 2013). Most prostitutes did not want to stay in their profession, but

they were literally beaten into submissive behavior, believing they had no other options available

to them. This reveals an expectation that prostitutes were not capable of any other type of work,

nor did they deserve to be anywhere else. That attitude is demeaning towards prostitutes because

of the nature of their profession. Many men objectified prostitutes and treated them harshly

(Oharazeki, 2013). These men viewed these women as objects. That kind of viewpoint can be

detrimental to women not only physically, but also how they view themselves. Since a lot of

prostitutes also worked in saloons, they often had to service drunk men who often treated them

badly (Spude, 2005). If a women had to service a lot of men who treated her as an object, that

could destroy her self-respect, self-esteem, and overall feeling of self-worth (Laite, 2009).

Not only were the working conditions poor for most prostitutes, but they also received

very little economic compensation. Apart from the few women who served in high-end parlors,

most prostitutes worked in poor areas, received little compensation, and had to service many men

each day just to scrape out a living (Laite, 2009). Prostitutes who received little compensation

could then equate that monetary value to their own self-worth. Women could then start to believe

that they had no value, which could then lead to despondency and even suicide. Society

perpetuated these beliefs in prostitutes by not upholding any standard of living for these women.

Often, police officials and others in power were bribed to look the other way when it came to

prostitution in their cities (Rosen, 1986). Prostitutes had very few avenues available to them to

defy the constricting gender role expectations placed upon them (Laite, 2009).
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Prostitutes on the American frontier experienced an overarching poor quality of life.

Furthermore, there was a double standard between the men who visited prostitutes and the

prostitutes themselves. Men faced virtually no repercussions for eliciting the services of a

prostitute, while the few prostitutes lucky enough to leave the business were effectively shunned

and viewed as loose, lawless, and immoral (Laite, 2009). During this time there existed a

dichotomy between mens and womens gender role expectations, especially when concerning

prostitution. For example, during the nineteenth century, female reformers formed alliances with

prostitutes, while some male reformers blamed prostitutes for spreading disease and sexual

disorder (Rosen, 1986). The male viewpoint in this instance is negative towards women,

especially when the male population was equally responsible for the spread of diseases. Rosen

(1986), further writes western prostitutes were hard-working, poverty-stricken women, who

lived bleak and joyless lives (p. 92). During the nineteenth century, this profession did not lend

itself to happy women. Unfortunately, many prostitutes committed suicide in the American West.

Due to the constraints placed on them, prostitutes were largely unable to find any solace in their

lives because the negative aspects of prostitution overshadowed any positive influences in their

lives (Oharazeki, 2013).

Prostitution in the American West provided negative gender role expectations for women

in that profession. Many women became prostitutes as a result of their skills no longer being

needed, and they needed a way to provide for themselves. So, women found one aspect of

themselves that society told them they could sell. Unfortunately, prostitution was a bleak affair.

Occasionally, a woman got lucky and bought her way out of the profession, but she was the

exception. Most lived and died in poverty. Furthermore, because of the destructive nature of the

profession, most prostitutes grew to be disheartened and disillusioned, many even diseased.
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Prostitutes were socially ostracized, victims of the gender roles that were placed upon them.

Women who lived the life of a prostitute often faced harsh realities, far from the promised lure

and attraction of the American Frontier.

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References

Davis, Kingsley. (1937). The sociology of prostitution. American Sociological Review, 2(5),

744-755.

Laite, Julia. (2009). Historical perspectives on industrial development, mining, and prostitution.

Historical Journal, 52(3), 739-761.

Oharazeki, K. (2013). Listening to the voices of "other" women in Japanese North America:

Japanese prostitutes and barmaids in the American West, 1887-1920. Journal Of

American Ethnic History, 32(4), 5-40.

Rosen, Ruth. (1986). Go west young women? Prostitution on the frontier. [Review of the book

Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, 1865-90, by Anne

Butler]. Reviews In American History, 14(1), 91-96.

Spude, C. (2005). Brothels and saloons: An archaeology of gender in the American West.

Historical Archaeology, 39(1), 89-106.