Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
https://doi.org/10.1007/s41636-022-00336-5
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Wares of Venus: The Sensoriality of Sex for Purchase
at a Nineteenth-Century Brothel in Boston, Massachusetts
Jade W. Luiz
Accepted: 24 November 2021 / Published online: 4 April 2022
# The Author(s) under exclusive licence to Society for Historical Archaeology 2022
Abstract Nineteenth-century sites of prostitution, such
as the brothel at 27/29 Endicott Street in Boston, Mas-
sachusetts, were inherently sensual spaces. Entertain-
ment and erotic exchange depended upon the complex
and multisensory experiences of the clients who visited
these spaces and engaged with a carefully crafted fanta-
sy environment. Just as important, however, the sex
workers employed in prostitution also negotiated their
experiences in a multisensory world as they mitigated
the effects of selling their time and bodies. Because of its
rich data concerning practices of dress and adornment,
health, and hygiene, the assemblage from the 27/29
Endicott Street brothel has the potential to provide nu-
anced information about the sensory experience of the
daily embodied practices of women in sex work.
Resumen Los sitios de prostitución del siglo XIX, como
el burdel en 27/29 Endicott Street en Boston, Massachu-
setts, eran espacios inherentemente sensuales. El
entretenimiento y el intercambio erótico dependían de
las experiencias complejas y multisensoriales de los
clientes que visitaban estos espacios y se comprometían
con un entorno de fantasía cuidadosamente elaborado. Sin
embargo, e igualmente importante, las trabajadoras
sexuales empleadas en la prostitución también negociaron
sus experiencias en un mundo multisensorial al mitigar los
efectos de vender su tiempo y sus cuerpos. Debido a la
riqueza de datos sobre prácticas de vestimenta y adorno,
J. W. Luiz (*)
Boston University, 675 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 347,
Boston, MA 02215, U.S.A.
e-mail: jwluiz@bu.edu
salud e higiene, el ensamblaje del burdel de 27/29 Endi-
cott Street tiene el potencial de proporcionar información
matizada sobre la experiencia sensorial de las prácticas
cotidianas de las mujeres en el trabajo sexual.
Résumé Les sites de prostitution du dix-neuvième siècle,
comme la maison close du 27/29 Endicott Street à Boston,
Massachusetts, étaient par définition des espaces sensuels.
Les divertissements et les échanges érotiques dépendaient
des expériences complexes et multisensorielles des clients
qui se rendaient dans ces espaces et participaient à un
environnement fantasmatique élaboré avec le plus grand
soin. Cependant, il était tout aussi important que les
travailleuses du sexe se livrant à la prostitution négocient
également leurs expériences dans un monde
multisensoriel afin d'atténuer les effets de la vente de leur
temps et de leur corps. En raison de la richesse de ses
données relatives aux pratiques d'habillement et de déco-
ration, de santé et d'hygiène, la collection issue de la
maison close du 27/29 Endicott Street a le potentiel de
fournir des informations nuancées sur l'expérience
sensorielle des pratiques incarnées quotidiennes des
femmes se livrant à la prostitution.
Keywords prostitution . archaeology of the senses .
embodiment . personal adornment
Introduction
In searching through documentary records for informa-
tion concerning the brothel at 27/29 Endicott Street in
Boston, Massachusetts, I discovered the last will and
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
testament of Louisa Cowen, who was the madam at the
property between 1857 and her death in 1865 (Suffolk
County Probate Court 1865:248). Not only was it ap-
parent from the will that she had amassed significant
wealth by the time of her death, but she also was able to
leave her relatives very personal and expensive material
goods. Many of these were articles of personal adorn-
ment, from jewelry to pieces of clothing. Clothing and
personal adornment were seen by disapproving moral
reformers as the obsession of 19th-century sex workers.
Indeed, not only appropriate dress, but also a clean and
disease-free body would have been something of a
“uniform” in a respectable brothel. The enumeration of
specific articles of dress and adornment therefore pro-
vides tantalizing clues to what might have been worn by
Louisa during her time as madam. The items that one
wears and the way that one prepares the body are highly
sensorial and deeply tied to one’s embodied experiences
of the world. Nineteenth-century sex workers (and
madams) not only would have been making choices
about the way they presented themselves, but also how
to incorporate and accommodate the fantasies and ex-
pectations of the straight, male customers visiting the
brothel space.
Despite a rich documentary record concerning 19th-
century prostitution, there is very little direct evidence of
the everyday lives of brothel residents. Contemporary
narratives about brothel spaces are largely limited to
accounts written by people residing outside these
spaces, such as male patrons who wrote erotic novels
and guidebooks to red-light districts (Loveyer 1859;
Morgan 1880; Fryer 1968), or moral reformers and
government officials who composed tracts and enacted
laws condemning prostitution as a social evil (Sanger
1859; Committee of Fifteen 1979; Bell 1980). Most
available “eyewitness” observations are therefore biased
toward erotic titillation, moral and religious pity, or
condemnation, preventing a three-dimensional under-
standing of the women in sex work. Because women
engaged in sex work often used false names and ages
when reporting to public officials, prostitution in general
can be difficult to track within the historical record.
Even in the few instances in which prostitutes share
their stories (Kimball 1970; Rose 1974; Pinzer 1997),
this concern for bias does not disappear.
Because of its wealth of data concerning practices of
dress and adornment, health, and hygiene, the assem-
blage from the 27/29 Endicott Street brothel has the
potential to provide information about the daily
245
embodied practices of the women in sex work and
how those practices influenced their sensory experi-
ences and those of the other users with whom they came
into contact. In many ways, personal adornment can be
seen as an archaeological representation of the sex
worker’s body and the way it was manipulated (or not)
based on the needs of the brothel economy. A focus on
how the female body was dressed and maintained also
provides a framework for the interpretation of other
sensorial experiences, such as dining or moving through
the brothel space, because of how restricted or unre-
stricted that body was or whether other sensory stimuli
(such as perfumes, tooth powders, or hair adornment)
apply.
Archaeologies of Embodiment and the Senses
In many ways, theoretical frameworks for understand-
ing sexuality, embodiment, and phenomenology have
developed in parallel. An experience of space is ulti-
mately grounded in the body itself and is foundationally
dependent upon the social context of that body. Through
the application of feminist and queer theory, archaeolo-
gists over the past two decades have increasingly ex-
plored methods for examining sexuality in the material
record by challenging traditional binary and
heteronormative understandings of sexuality (Csordas
1994:2; Conkey and Gero 1997; Voss 2000; Voss and
Schmidt 2000:1). Although it seems ephemeral and
intangible, sexuality’s importance in an embodied rela-
tionship with the world makes sexuality one of the more
substantial and physical realms of social life (Voss
2012:23). Archaeologists now recognize that gender,
sexuality, the body, and personhood are intertwined in
archaeological interpretations (Voss 2008).
While the body might be viewed as a scene of display,
scholars such as Lynn Meskell (2000) argue that archae-
ologists risk leaving bodies uninhabited and without
materiality. Instead, the body must be viewed as a social
being, representing the articulation of agency and struc-
ture, causality and meaning, rationality and imagination,
as well as physical determinations and symbolic reso-
nances (Meskell 2000:18). Individuals’ construction of
identity is tied to their experience of the world. Further
problematizing embodiment and the body, phenomenol-
ogy serves to place emphasis on bodily experience (M.
Johnson 2012:273). While traditionally used to explore
the experience of landmarks and culturally important
246
landscapes, phenomenology attempts to understand the
ways in which people experience the world that they
occupy (Tilley 1994:11).
Phenomenological approaches to archaeology are far
from straightforward or uncontested, however, because
of the contradictory and conflicted nature of personal
experiences. Barbara Bender (1998:25) argues that any
given individual’s experience of the world will never be
identical to anyone else’s and is entirely dependent on
the lived experience of that individual. She further sug-
gests that the sensory understanding of a landscape is
not static, but transforms through different life stages
and lived experiences. Additionally, a key problem with
phenomenology lies in the underlying assumption that
archaeologists share the same cultural attitudes and per-
ceptions as the people they study (Given 2004:18).
Through the constant movement, work, and living done
within spaces, meanings constantly change and develop.
Meanings can transform through seeing and touching,
but can be manifested through seemingly ephemeral
features related to hearing and smelling as well (Given
2004:18).
An archaeology of the senses may provide a middle
ground between archaeology of the body and embodi-
ment of self and the phenomenological perspective of
the “body-in-the-world” because it does not privilege
sensory interactions related to vision and sight at the
expense of other senses (Hamilakis 2002:100; Day
2013:4). At the same time, most new theorists in the
archaeology of the senses acknowledge that understand-
ing the psychological significance of sensory informa-
tion might not be achievable through archaeology be-
cause an external viewer is too far removed from the
cultural context of the subjects being studied (Hamilakis
2013:13). For others, however, this limitation is not
restrictive. Mark Smith (2007:5) argues that understand-
ing of senses in the past involves conceiving their study
as a habit or a constant vigilance to the “full sensory
texture of the past and what the senses tell us about
historical experience” (Smith 2007:5). This approach
suggests that actively noting the occurrence of sensory
information in the past will lead to an automatic or
organic recognition of sensory experience in the histor-
ical or archaeological record.
Furthermore, new approaches to archaeology of the
senses are not limited to the Aristotelian five-sense
schema of sight, sound, taste, touch, and smell. Indeed,
the concept of multiple senses working together to
produce meaning, or what Yannis Hamilakis (2013)
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
has referred to as “synesthesia,” not only recognizes that
psychologically significant stimuli rarely isolate a single
sense, but also allows scholars to discuss non-
Aristotelian sensory experiences, such as the sensation
of swimming through water or, as I will discuss below,
the sensation of wearing a corset.
An emphasis on multisensoriality and sensory expe-
riences beyond the Aristotelian five-sense schema does
not suggest that the tradition of visual analysis in ar-
chaeology should be abandoned. On the contrary, mul-
tisensory archaeology calls attention to the necessity of
balance between archaeological practice and scientifi-
cally substantiated data with a reconstructed and re-
embodied human past (Day 2013:6). As archaeologists,
we must be aware of the great responsibility inherent in
presenting new ideas about the past, however. In many
representations, imagined or fictional narratives that
project our own sensory values have the potential for
being misconstrued as definitive interpretations (Day
2013:19). Jo Day (2013:14) argues that archaeologists
must be aware of “whose memories they are present-
ing.” As Chris Gosden (2010:166) notes, we archaeol-
ogists must understand the sensorium in which we live
and how it might influence the ways in which we
approach archaeological material.
The application of theories of embodiment and sen-
sory archaeology is well suited to the archaeology of sex
work. The brothel as an entity occupies an unusual space
in 19th-century society, with intersections between do-
mestic and commercial, illicit and sanctioned, and fem-
inine and masculine. A brothel space was, by its very
nature, sensual—not only in the sale and purchase of
sex, but in the ancillary offerings of food, drink, and
bawdy or musical entertainment. While the desires and
expectations of the male customers of the brothel at 27/
29 Endicott Street undoubtedly drove many of the deci-
sions about how the brothel was presented, women
engaged in prostitution at the brothel constantly lived
with those desires through the daily sensory experiences
related to the commercialization of their physical bodies
within the brothel space.
Case Study: The Brothel at 27/29 Endicott Street
The majority of the 19th-century artifacts associated
with 27/29 Endicott Street were recovered from a filled
privy vault (Feature 38) at the back of the former house
lot (Cheek 1998:156). The privy was discovered during
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
Phase III excavation of the Mill Pond site (BOS-HA-14)
in advance of Boston’s Big Dig Project (Cheek and
Balicki 2000). According to the codes used on the
1867 Sanborn map, the building at 29 Endicott Street
was a narrow, three-story wooden structure, while 27
Endicott Street was a three-story brick structure with a
stone foundation and metal or slate roof (D. A. Sanborn
1867).
The footprint of a brick-lined, double-vaulted privy,
measuring 1.4 × 2.5 m (4.5 × 8.5 ft.), was divided into
two brick-lined chambers (Fig. 1). The bricks forming
the vault were laid two courses thick. The surviving
portions of the brick vault extended 1.2 m/4 ft. (or to a
depth of 2.9 m/9.5 ft. below datum). Within the vault,
both chambers measured approximately 1 × 1 m (3 × 3
ft.) square. The privy was vented by a pipe located at its
south corner. The vents had been truncated at the top of
the brick vault. The floor of both privy chambers was
also lined in brick. The fill within the chambers was
excavated stratigraphically, and all fill associated with
active privy use was water screened through ¼ in. mesh
(Cheek and Balicki 2000:156). Excavators identified
five distinct stratigraphic units within the privy cham-
bers: Harris Nos. 230 and 233 in the west, and Harris
Nos. 232/236, 234, and 235 in the east. No attempt was
made to develop a concordance of stratigraphy between
the two chambers (Cheek and Balicki 2000:157). While
excavators noted that there were traces of lime (which
might have been used as a disinfectant and deodorizer)
within the strata, details related to lime deposits were not
recorded in the site report, and, as they were not seen to
disrupt the identified strata, they were not measured
(Stevens and Ordoñez 2005:9).
My analysis of the 27/29 Endicott privy assemblage
draws on over two decades of research into different
elements of the collection. The collection from the 27/29
Endicott Street privy has been the subject of artifact-
specific studies and conference papers (Dudek 1999;
Stevens and Ordoñez 2005; Eichner 2012; A. Johnson
2014; Luiz 2014), an article that considers the disparity
between the public respectability of Dr. Padelford and
his marriage to the madam Mary Lake (Beaudry 2002),
another that discusses personal adornment and public
perception in the urban landscape (Keim 2013), a dis-
sertation that examines parasites and gastrointestinal
health (Gallagher 2014), another dissertation that inves-
tigates personal adornment and movement through ur-
ban space (Keim 2015), several object-specific student
papers (Eichner 2008; A. Johnson 2010), an
247
undergraduate thesis (Benes 1995), and several master’s
theses (Doyle 1995; Stevens 2000; A. Johnson 2012).
For my doctoral dissertation, I conducted the first com-
prehensive study of the collection (Luiz 2018).
The 27/29 Endicott Street site was at one time in the
heart of Boston’s North End neighborhood, which
served as the hub of shipping and workshop manufac-
ture in the region. By the early 19th century, wealthy
merchants, businessmen, lawyers, and retired sea cap-
tains had moved out of the overcrowded North End. At
that time, textile manufacturing had taken hold, and the
new factory system grew into a multimillion-dollar in-
dustry by the 1830s (O’Connor 2001:86). During the
rise in industrialization, people from rural areas flooded
into cities like Boston, and many of the new factory
workers took up residence in packed North End tene-
ments. Because of the changes in the neighborhood’s
makeup, city officials and reformers largely regarded
the North End as an overcrowded slum and a center for
vice and immorality. They were especially concerned
with the high numbers of young, unmarried women
moving to the city to take up jobs in the different
factories cropping up in Boston throughout the 19th
century. Rather than (or in addition to) the limited pay
and opportunities available to them in the Boston econ-
omy, many women turned to prostitution to support
themselves and their families (Hobson 1990:76).
It is not a simple matter to determine when the 27/29
Endicott Street lot first was first used as a brothel.
Between 1845 and 1851, various residents were listed
at the two addresses, either in the capacity of boarder or
as a business owner (Stimpson 1845, 1846; Adams
1846, 1847, 1848, 1850, 1851). From its earliest listing
in the 1845 city directory, a grocer or fruit seller was
always recorded at 27 Endicott Street (Stimpson 1845,
1846). The last, Isaac Whitcomb, continued to operate a
grocery at the site until about 1855 (Adams 1850, 1851,
1852, 1853, 1854, 1855, 1856, 1857), and thus over-
lapped the period in which Mary A. Adams managed a
brothel at the site. The residents who boarded at the
property were mostly clerks and tradesmen, such as
Samuel Safford, a carriage maker who lived on the
property for four years, though records show that a
laborer or mariner occasionally resided on the property.
Additionally, Nathanial O. Hart reported that his house-
wright business operated from the property for three
years while his residence was elsewhere in the city.
From 1855 to 1867, however, the character of the
residents changed dramatically. By 1855 the number of
248
Fig. 1 Excavation plan view of BOS-HA-14. Feature 38, the privy vault, is indicated by the arrow (Cheek and Balicki 2000:81).
individuals who listed 27 or 29 Endicott Street as their
residence in the Boston city directory dropped from an
average of four individuals to one woman—the widow
Mary A. Adams (Adams 1850, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854,
1855, 1856, 1857; Adams, Sampson, & Co. 1858, 1859,
1860, 1861, 1862, 1863, 1864, 1865; Sampson, Daven-
port, and Company 1866, 1867). For the following 12
years, single females—first Mary A. Adams and, after
1857, Louisa Cowan—were named as the primary res-
idents of the property with no listed occupations. In
1859, an anonymous author, under the pen name “A.
Free Loveyer,” included the property in a gentlemen’s
“sporting guide” that admonished its readers to “beware
all houses not recommended” (Loveyer 1859:43). The
27/29 Endicott Street brothel appears at the top of a list
of only six recommended Boston brothels, despite the
numerous options available throughout the city during
that time.
It is interesting to note that, while North Street in the
North End was generally considered the red-light dis-
trict during the second half of the 19th century and was
the subject of several police crackdowns on prostitution
(Savage 1857–1873), four of the six recommended
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
brothels listed in Loveyer’s (1859:43) guide had Endi-
cott Street addresses. The other two brothels listed were
in the West End neighborhood. It is possible that Endi-
cott Street was the site of the city’s respectable and
expensive brothels. High-status houses promised some
level of discretion and elegance that drew less attention
from law-enforcement officials than the rougher
brothels on North Street.
In addition to information collected from Boston city
directories, the state-census data for 1855 and 1865 and
the federal census for 1860 also show that Mary Adams
and Louisa Cowen shared their residence with multiple
women under age 30, usually with no occupations listed.
These entries provide additional evidence that 27/29
Endicott Street operated as a house of prostitution during
these years (Massachusetts State Census 1855:295, 1865;
U.S. Bureau of the Census 1860:181). Despite the large
immigrant population in the neighborhood, the majority
of the women employed by the brothel during these three
census years were American-born women from New
England. Indeed, only two of the nine women working
for Mary Adams in 1855 were foreigners (Irish-born
immigrants). When Louisa Cowan and her employees
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
were recorded at the site in 1860, all of the women
working for her were American. Additionally, the census
records two Black servants—25-year-old Adeline Jones
and 24-year-old Sarah Hill, both from Massachusetts.
The last record for Louisa Cowan’s tenure as the brothel
madam, the 1865 Massachusetts census, shows three
foreign-born women out of the seven working as prosti-
tutes for Cowan (Dora Adams from England, Emma
Healy from Ireland, and Carrie Allen from Nova Scotia).
She also employed a White servant from Nova Scotia,
Margaret Hobo.
The 1865 state census also marks the first appearance
at the brothel of Mary Lake. Lake, who was from Maine,
would take over the brothel the following year. Lake is
documented as the brothel’s madam or manager in the
1866 tax valuation, in which she is named as the primary
taxpayer at the residence, with her occupation listed as
“prostitution” (Boston Street Book 1866). Perhaps when
the land was sold to Dennis Flagg in 1867 he chose not
to condone a brothel as a tenant at 27/29 Endicott Street
(Boston Street Book 1867); that year the residence
appears to change back to a boardinghouse with no
documentary evidence to suggest that prostitution was
taking place in an organized way (i.e., with a manager or
madam).
In 1867, Mary Lake married William Padelford, a
homeopathic doctor who moved his practice to 29 En-
dicott Street (Massachusetts Town and Vital Records
1867). That same year, the harbor-police officer William
Gray was listed as a tenant in the tax valuation book
(Boston Street Book 1867). For the next two years,
multiple tenants were recorded in the city directory
(Sampson, Davenport, and Company 1868, 1869,
1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877,
1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883, 1884) as boarders
at the site, including, in 1870, the Inas and Segar fam-
ilies and 13-year-old George Lake, who appears as a
member of the Padelford family in the 1870 census
(U.S. Bureau of the Census 1870). Alice Doyle, a 30-
year-old tailor, was also listed as a resident in that census
enumeration. It seems likely she was related to Mary
Padelford, whose maiden name was Doyle. In 1874,
Mary Padelford gave birth to Alice Padelford, who died
of cholera infanta the following month (Massachusetts
Town and Vital Records 1874).
In 1876, the Padelfords finally left Endicott Street,
and it is likely that the privy shaft was filled shortly after
their departure, given the overall dates of the material
within and the connection of Endicott Street to
249
municipal sewers around that time (Boston Water and
Sewer Commission 2018). The 27/29 Endicott Street
property appears to have been occupied solely by the
gentleman Luther B. Hall during 1877 and 1878
(Sampson, Davenport, and Company 1877, 1876). No
residents are listed for the property in the 1879 Boston
city directory (Sampson, Davenport, and Company
1879), but the 1879 tax valuation (Boston Street Book
1879) lists the residence as a “house by females.” This
entry suggests the possibility of a short-lived brothel,
but there is no other documentary evidence to support
this. The driver Robert Emerson and his wife Minnie are
recorded as resident at 27 Endicott Street in 1880 and
continue to reside at the property, apparently exclusive-
ly, until 1886 (Sampson, Davenport, and Company
1868, 1869, 1870, 1871, 1872, 1873, 1874, 1875,
1876, 1877, 1878, 1879, 1880, 1881, 1882, 1883,
1884; Sampson, Murdock, & Company 1885. 1886).
The Embodied Experience of Dress and Adornment
Reform literature of the mid-19th century often cites the
ability of young women to buy fashionable dresses and
accessories as a motivating factor for choosing to take
up a life of prostitution (Committee of Fifteen 1979:8;
Hemyng 2005:80). This might have been true for some
women. In Massachusetts, women in factory work in
1850 only earned between $12.79 and $14.22 a month
(almost half that of their male counterparts), barely
enough to cover basic living expenses (Sanger
1859:624). At the same time, prostitutes in elite brothels
could charge as much as $5 per customer, easily
outstripping the factory worker’s monthly salary in a
single evening (Gilfoyle 1992:164). Although this
greater purchasing power may have afforded the ability
to buy better clothing, the assertion of reform literature
that women were going into sex work for the clothes
greatly oversimplifies the relationship that women in
prostitution had with their work and their appearance.
While independent sex workers, such as courtesans
and so-called street walkers, might have had a great deal
of personal autonomy concerning what they could and
could not wear, some texts suggest that madams or
managers of brothels exerted a modicum of control over
the appearance of the women working for them. Reform
literature occasionally wrote of managers who took
street clothes from women and exchanged them for
“parlor” clothes as a means of entrapment and control
250
(Bell 1980:146). In most cases, however, it appears that
what was worn might not have been tightly managed,
but a style or quality (such as evening wear) was ex-
pected to match the environment of the house (Kimball
1970:58; Rose 1974:164) or to act as a sort of costume
to heighten the fantasy (Rose 1974:148).
It can be argued that individual identity stems from
the lived experience of bodies in the social world (Fisher
and Loren 2003:227). In this definition, an individual’s
personal identity is not created or changed in isolation; it
is developed through an interaction between bodily
experience, the surrounding environment, and other ob-
jects and bodies, what Elizabeth Grosz (1994:85) refers
to as “a postural schema of the body.” As Carolyn
White and Mary Beaudry (2009:210) argue, “the con-
cept of identity is complicated, paradoxical, and cultur-
ally situated in time, place, and society. Identity is at
once both imposed by others and self-imposed, and is
continuously asserted and reasserted in ways that are
fluid and fixed.” Likewise, Barbara Voss (2008:407)
notes that “identities are multi-scalar and are constantly
under negotiation within the tensions between similarity
and alterity.”
Ideas of performativity as it pertains to embodied
identity most commonly draw on the theories of Judith
Butler (1990), who suggests identities (such as gender
identities) are defined by how one performs those iden-
tities to the rest of the world. As Lynn Meskell
(2002:281) suggests: “[I]dentities are multiply con-
structed and revolve around a set of iterative practices
that are always in process, despite their material and
symbolic substrata.” In considering how performativity
can be viewed archaeologically, Rosemary Joyce
(2005:146) notes that emphasizing the performativity
of identity can contribute to “more critical examination
of items of dress that previously have been viewed
simply as reflections of categories of people.” In es-
sence, articles worn and carried on the body can be
given more meaningful attention by archaeologists
when they are considered in terms of the ways identity
is created through repetitive performance.
While discussion of identity via “inscription” must be
careful to avoid removing agency from the subjects of
study, Grosz (1994:85) argues that bodily inscriptions
“manifest the ideas held by society as a whole on the
surface of the body.” While “inscription” can refer to
physically marking the body, it can also mean those
things that are worn on the body. Carolyn White
(2008:18) further remarks that, when considering
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
identity, what is “inscribed” on the surface of the body
“is a reflection and intensification of the exterior ideas
that then move from the surface to the interior.” In other
words, even exterior trappings of society can be psy-
chologically internalized. Voss argues that people can
experience the materials that are on the body as a phys-
ical extension of that body—that the body can be sepa-
rated, protected, hidden, or restricted by these materials.
As Voss (2008:409) notes: “[T]his sensory dialectic
fosters a subjectivity in which the physical boundaries
of person are continuously under negotiation.”
Artifacts related to personal adornment are often the
best markers available to archaeologists in getting at an
individual’s personal identity. As White (2005) notes,
personal affiliations are displayed on the body con-
sciously and unconsciously through various methods,
such as lifestyle, habits, postures, and behaviors. More
materially, however, these affiliations are also accom-
plished through clothing, cosmetics, hairstyles, and oth-
er forms of adornment. Clothing has symbolic commu-
nicative power and is, like all material culture, “a medi-
um of communication that can condition and control
social action” (White 2005:4). Artifacts related to per-
sonal adornment are the material traces of the “repeated
stylization” of the body. White argues further that “get-
ting dressed and choosing (even within a very narrow
range of choices) what to wear are repeated acts, which
over the long term produce an appearance of a natural
being” (White 2005:5). Dressing involves more than
just personal choice. The act of dressing “prepares the
body for presentation and observation in the world”
(White and Beaudry 2009:21). Further, “when an indi-
vidual dresses, he or she clothes the body in a manner
that is appropriate, respectable, and desirable” (White
and Beaudry 2009:214).
Although Marie Louise Stig Sorensen (1991:122)
makes a convincing argument for considering the con-
stituent parts of the dressed human being and the way
dress is constructed at any given time, it is necessary to
consider dress and how it is linked to the body and to the
self in totality. Diana Loren (2001:236) argues that the
power of wearing combinations of clothing and objects
lies in the performance of the social and public presen-
tation of the body and self. Dress and the presentation of
self allow an individual to “dress up” or “dress down”
within the boundaries of social expectations. This en-
ables one to reveal and conceal different selves and to
gain access or membership to restricted social arenas
(Fisher and Loren 2003:225). Dressing and adorning the
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
body are, in and of themselves, embodying activities, as
costume and ornamentation necessarily modify the
body itself (Fisher and Loren 2003:228).
In the 19th century, dress was linked to what was
socially respectable. A woman was expected to exercise
extreme care with all parts of her attire. In the 1845 Art
of Good Behavior (excerpted in Aldrich [1991:68]), the
author argued that, although a lady’s underclothes were
not intended to be seen, “we always imagine them to be
faultlessly clean, and as an accident may at any time
reveal their true condition, they always should be so.”
She then goes on to claim that if a man were to marry a
woman with dirty or worn-out stockings, he would be
“very likely to beat her in a month and run away from
her before a year was over” (Aldrich 1991:68). While
extreme (and most likely hyperbolic), this statement
demonstrates the importance attributed to well-cared-
for garments.
For 19th-century sex workers, of course, this notion
of respectability and dress became muddied. Although
the historical literature describes prostitutes in obscene
or slovenly dress, many historical narratives describe
prostitutes dressing in high style, in one case showing
up wealthy women in public (Fryer 1968:84). In some
cases, elegantly dressed women from high-class houses
rode in open-topped carriages through public thorough-
fares in order to advertise the houses’ offerings (Gilfoyle
1992:157). At the same time, women would have shown
off some of the latest fashions, informing “respectable”
female observers about what would be fashionable in
the coming season. In that case it was not necessarily the
garments that were not respectable, nor the way they
were being worn, but instead the body that was doing
the wearing. Perhaps, even in the 19th century, identity
and respectability were less about the garments and
more about who was wearing them.
A “respectable” woman was expected to wear several
layers of undergarments, including corset, chemise,
drawers, corset cover, multiple petticoats, and, in the
1860s and into the 1870s, a cage crinoline or hoopskirt
(Moore 1949:66; Köhler 1963:432; Payne 1965:508).
Most women wore corsets, to some degree, from early
childhood until their deaths, with few suffering ill ef-
fects from the practice. The primary purpose of the
corset was not only to mold the body, but also to provide
a base to distribute the weight of upwards of 20 lb. of
skirts and understructure that a woman would wear daily
(such as full-body suspenders) (May 1855). Despite the
rarity of “tight-lacing” (the practice of extreme waist
251
reduction), there is evidence that corsets did change
the body’s physical structure over time. Rebecca Gib-
son’s 2015 osteological studies of human remains from
the Musée de l’Homme in Paris and the Center for
Human Bioarchaeology at the Museum of London re-
vealed the deformation of ribs and vertebrae of 19th-
century women. The skeletal materials studied at the
Museum of London were recovered from a cemetery
in an impoverished part of the city that contained lower-
class interments. All skeletal materials that she exam-
ined had deformation of the ribs and spinal processes,
which she attributed to the constant wearing of a corset
from at least adolescence onwards. As part of her study,
Gibson attempted to correlate these findings with age at
death and found that, despite the universal skeletal de-
formation, the ages at death were, in fact, greater than
the average life expectancy of the period (Gibson
2015:56).
Remarkably, the only evidence of corset usage at 27/
29 Endicott is in the form of five bone-lacing grommets,
also known as “French holes” (Luiz 2018:127). All of
the extant corsets I have found with this style of grom-
met are corded rather than boned with steel or whale
baleen. This style of corset fell out of regular usage by
the early 1840s, as it was not capable of producing the
hourglass shape that began coming into fashion during
that decade without the corset buckling in unsightly
wrinkles. It is possible that these grommets had been
salvaged from an older corset to be used in one of a new
style as a strategy of economy. Additionally, a corset
pattern in Godey’s Lady’s Book (1857:165–166) calls
for a box of “French Holes.” I have not been able to
determine whether this term refers to bone French holes,
such as those recovered from the Endicott Street privy,
or if the term is a holdover from before “grommet” or
“eyelet” became the more common descriptors in the
literature, but it is possible that homemade corsets dating
from the 1850s or 1860s using bone French holes were
common and have not survived.
Even corded corsets, however, had physiological
effects on the body wearing them. A corset restricts
how the wearer is able to breathe and how much breath
can be drawn in. Additionally, even non-rigid corsets
hold the body upright and discourage slouching or
rolling the shoulders forward. While many people may
assume that a corset would prevent a working-class
woman from doing manual labor, in many ways boned
corsets actually acted like a weight belt and provided
support during lifting. That said, bending at the waist is
252 Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261

extremely uncomfortable or impossible in a boned cor-

set, so the body’s range of motion and way of moving
through space are changed. Furthermore, when gar-
ments such as cage crinolines and heavy skirts are
added, movement is further controlled, and the wearer
needs to maintain a different spatial awareness as she
moves through a room or in the street, lest she knock
over furniture, become caught in machinery or wheels,
or catch her skirts on fire (the cause of death for 3,000
women a year in the United Kingdom alone during their
decade of popularity [David and Semmelhack
2014:26]). These sensory experiences are difficult to
fit within the Western tradition of the Aristotelian five- Fig. 2 Buttons recovered from the 27/29 Endicott Street privy.
sense schema (sight, smell, taste, sound, and touch) and (Photo by author, 2019.)
likely meant something psychologically different for
each woman who experienced them; it is important to prostitute dress and presentation. In some brothels, such
note, however, the ways women in corsets and large, as the one depicted by Nell Kimball (1970), perfume
heavy skirts likely experienced their body and the was part of the required uniform for the women working
spaces through which they moved. there. At this same brothel, small bottles of perfume
There are some historical cases of women employed were sold to male customers at extreme markup so that
at brothels who were distinguished by not wearing the they could present favored prostitutes with a gift. In a
expected garments of 19th-century respectability. Sev- sort of “perfume racket,” the bottles were then sold back
eral of the Storyville prostitutes photographed by E. J. to the proprietor by the prostitute for extra money
Bellocq in the New Orleans vice district chose to be (Kimball 1970:78). In the 27/29 Endicott Street assem-
depicted in loose, shift-like garments, without corsets or blage, at least eight perfume bottles have been identified
outer garments (Friedlander and Szarkowski 1970). (Luiz 2018:115). Two of these are embossed with the
This is unsurprising, given the time required for a wom- company name of Lubin, one of the first French
an to dress and undress in a full 19th-century outfit. parfumiers to break into the mainstream American mar-
While these examples are from later contexts, the limit- ket in the 1860s. Other represented perfume companies,
ed evidence of corset wear at the 27/29 Endicott brothel such as Jules Hauel from Philadelphia, are American.
demands a closer look. This social distinction between The scents of these perfumes may represent what was
how one is or is not “respectably” dressed would have fashionable, what the prostitute preferred, or, perhaps,
been a visual and sensory distinction of which both the what the client preferred (Fig. 3). Richard Stamelman
male visitors and female sex workers would have been (2006:33) notes that perfume “has its own history,
keenly aware. which coincides, sometimes centrally, other times
The most common artifacts at the Endicott site that
could be associated with clothing were fasteners, such as
buttons, hooks and eyes, and buckles (Luiz 2018:126).
Of these, buttons were the most common, with 63
recovered. For the most part these buttons were small,
white, and undecorated or minimally decorated, and
likely represent buttons from undergarments (unsurpris-
ing in a privy context) or men’s shirts. Unfortunately,
not much more conclusive diagnostic information about
forms of dress can be gleaned from these fasteners, as
they are all extremely common to 19th-century dress
(Fig. 2).
Scent, to the 19th-century brothel, particularly as it Fig. 3 Glass perfume bottles recovered from the 27/29 Endicott
pertains to perfume, was a significant element of Street privy. (Photo by author, 2019.)
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
tangentially, with the history of the culture which it
mirrors and in which it participates,” just as other activities
reflect the mental attitudes and social behavior of a culture.
As with clothing, perfume scents follow fashions (Reinarz
2014). Additionally, individual body chemistries react
with perfumes in different ways, so each wearer’s scent
would have been subtly different from another’s, even if
they wore the same perfume. Perfume is also composed of
three predominant “notes” (high note, middle note, and
base note) produced by scents with different molecular
weights (Mata et al. 2005:2834). The lightest weight (or
high note) is what the perfume smells like when first
applied. As that scent evaporates it is replaced by the
middle-weight scent (or heart note). The final scent to
remain on the skin is the heaviest molecular weight,
known as the base note. This time release of scent means
that the experience of a particular woman’s smell not only
has to do with her body chemistry, but also how long
since the perfume was applied. The women at the Endicott
Street brothel might have smelled differently depending
on the time of night or whether they had applied scent
multiple times during the evening.
Unexpectedly, other types of material culture related
to cosmetics were seriously underrepresented (Luiz
2018:206). The only positively identified material relat-
ed to makeup was an unmarked ceramic jar. It is unclear,
however, whether this represents a container for rouge,
face powder, or even ointment, like cold cream. It is
likely that the contents would have been at least lightly
perfumed and possibly contained such ingredients as
almond oil, orange water, rosewater, or any number of
other aromatic materials. The lack of evidence for addi-
tional makeup use does not necessarily mean that the
women at 27/29 Endicott Street did not use such prod-
ucts, however. Absence of cosmetics might relate to
depositional biases or reflect their personal and portable
nature. Some sources suggest that prostitutes moved
between brothels regularly. For example, sex worker
and, later, brothel madam Kate Austin worked for four
madams (including Louisa Cowen) before establishing
her own brothel in New York, all between 1860 and
1865 (J. C. Haney & Co.1865:57)—perhaps the women
of 27/29 Endicott did not stay long enough to throw out
copious makeup-related materials.
What is well represented in the Endicott Street broth-
el assemblage, however, are materials related to the care
and dressing of hair. At least five of the recovered
embossed bottles are for patent hair tonics (Luiz
2018:115). One, Nature’s Hair Restorative, assured its
253
customers that it contained no lac sulfur, sugar of lead,
litharge, or silver nitrate (unlike its competitors) and,
among its claims, promised customers that the tonic
restores and prevents the Hair from becoming
Gray, imparts a soft, glossy appearance, removes
Dandruff, is cool and refreshing to the head,
checks the Hair from falling off, and restores it
to a great extent when prematurely lost, prevents
Headaches, cures all Humors, cutaneous erup-
tions, and unnatural heat. (Cape Ann Advertiser
1869:3) (Fig. 4)
While it is unlikely that Nature’s Hair corrected all,
or any, of these ailments, some symptoms (and correc-
tions) represent strong sensory experiences, be they
irritating or soothing. If some of the claims of the
“cooling” properties of the hair tonic are considered
valid, one has to wonder whether this references an
evaporative chemical quality, similar to rubbing alcohol,
or something more stimulating, like a mint-derived oint-
ment. In addition to providing a tactile experience dur-
ing the application of Nature’s Hair, it would have also
imparted a scent of some description, likely mingling
with any other applied perfumes. For many people,
interacting with their sexual partner’s hair can be an
erotic experience; presenting glossy, soft hair to their
customers likely gave the women at 27/29 Endicott
Street an edge, while also possibly affecting their own
personal reflections on their appearance as they arranged
their hair. One must also wonder, however, how many
users the presence of cure-all hair tonics in the privy
represent. It is likely that the product was used as a
preventative, restorative, or cleanser by multiple indi-
viduals, but it is also possible that a single user was
concerned with premature graying and/or hair loss and
experimented with various treatments.
In addition to the hair tonics, two tortoise-shell hair
fasteners and a gutta-percha comb for holding the hair
back were recovered, along with a wooden hair brush,
two bone lice combs, and several fragments of gutta-
percha hair-dressing combs (Luiz 2018:207). A
woman’s hair was seen as her “crowning glory,” and
great care was taken to keep the hair long, since short
hair might represent poor health. Despite this, all of the
recovered hair implements were simple and undecorat-
ed. Any ornamentation of the hair was likely through the
coiffure or made from materials that did not survive in
the archaeological record, such as wax or fabric flowers,
feathers, or ribbons (Fig. 5). Elaborately dressing one’s
254
Fig. 4 Nature’s Hair Restorative
advertisement (Cape Ann
Advertiser 1869:3).
hair is not something that can be done early in the day
and then forgotten about—especially if one’s visual
presentation is crucially important. The coiffure must
be periodically checked to make sure that nothing has
fallen out of place, which would have made the mirror
fragments found in the privy vitally important (Luiz
2018:114). Hairstyles of the 1850s and 1860s often
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
included braids, rolls, and loops that, in addition to any
ornamentation, would have weighed on or scratched
against the scalp, constantly reminding the wearer of
their presence. Their removal would have also provided
a very physical representation of the transition from
being “done up” to undressed; I am sure that all those
who have experienced the pleasure of massaging their
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
Fig. 5 Bone and gutta-percha hair and lice combs recovered from
the 27/29 Endicott Street privy. (Photo by author, 2019.)
scalp after an extended period of having hair pinned up
know how profoundly sensory that feeling can be.
A final important element of adornment for the wom-
en of 27/29 Endicott would have been jewelry. There
were six pieces of jewelry recovered from the privy
(Luiz 2018:129). Two gold-filled brooches or lace pins
were nearly complete. One retains a faceted, square-cut,
garnet-colored stone, and the other is missing its stone,
but is engraved on the sides and has a pin attached. A
third gold-filled pin without the associated brooch was
also identified. A small, undecorated gold ring that
measures 1.5 cm across was recovered. This is slightly
larger than a modern U.S. ring size 4. While the size is
quite small for a grown woman’s hand, it is still likely
that of an adult woman. Two pendants were also recov-
ered from the privy. The first pendant is a glass-fronted
locket of a similar nature to those that would have been
used to house woven hair in memorial jewelry. The
second pendant is a black glass cross with cupriferous
ends. The top portion of the cross is broken off, likely
the reason for its discard or the source of its loss (Fig. 6).
Jewelry would have provided elements of visual interest
to an outfit. In low-light environments, like a 19th-
century parlor in the evening, polished metal ornaments
and faceted beads or stones would have glinted and
sparkled when they caught the light and provided a
textural contrast to the garments and skin.
The broken black glass cross may suggest yet another
interpretation beyond simple adornment and identity
creation. In her last will and testament, Louisa Cowen
left her oldest sister Mary Ann Perry all of her “black
jewelry” (Suffolk County Probate Court 1865:248). It is
possible that the cross was originally part of Louisa’s
black jewelry collection. Louisa’s will also described
other elements of personal adornment that did not make
255
Fig. 6 Brooch, locket, gold ring, and glass cross recovered from
the 27/29 Endicott Street privy. (Photo by author, 2019.)
it into the archaeological record: the plaid dress, bonnet,
and cloak that she left to her sister-in-law, Amarilla
Clemons; two bracelets and a neck chain that she left
to her niece, Dimis Perry; and a gold cross that she left to
the final madam at 27/29 Endicott, Mary Lake.
Louisa was a relatively wealthy woman on her death,
leaving behind an estate of at least $5,000, not including
her property and the numerous pieces of jewelry and
silver that she left as bequests. She was therefore likely
a successful madam, though she may have started as a
prostitute herself at 27/29 Endicott Street. Careful reading
of her will, however, shows that the women of her family
were exceptionally favored in her bequests, especially in
expensive articles of personal adornment. Despite access
to luxuries that would have been out of reach for her
working-class contemporaries, perhaps an examination
of Louisa’s bequests can provide hints about how she, at
least, felt about the commercialization of the bodies of the
women working for her. She had witnessed how the
world treated impoverished women. Her bequests sug-
gest she was doing what she could to keep her sisters and
their children from those experiences.
The questions posed by Cowen’s black glass jewelry
(and other articles of personal adornment in her bequest)
are a perfect representation of the issues with interpret-
ing the meaning behind sensory data in the past. Is the
black cross’s interaction with visual senses merely about
light and color? Does it reflect something about 19th-
century social and religious mores? Does it speak to
mourning culture during the period, or are there still
more complicated expressions of interpersonal relation-
ships encompassed in this sensory information? Sensory
archaeology can provide a compelling starting point for
engaging with the past, but does not supersede all other
types of archaeological interpretation.
256
Conclusion
The ways in which individuals present themselves to the
world involve engagement with sensory stimuli, both
reflexively and for others interacting with them within a
space. At the 27/29 Endicott Street brothel, personal
adornment extends beyond just the clothing that was
worn to encompass all elements of presentation of self,
including hygiene and health. While much of the evi-
dence of personal adornment does not survive in the
archaeological record, tools, related refuse, and lost
elements hint at the strategies that the women at the
brothel were using to present themselves to their visiting
clients as youthful, attractive, and healthy. While it is
likely that most of the choices being made by the wom-
en at 27/29 Endicott Street were autonomous and
pertained to their identity and sense of self, the influence
of the madam or the control that she might have
exercised on their choices in promotion of the brothel’s
image cannot be ignored.
Additionally, though personal adornment has been
largely confined to theoretical interpretations
encompassing identity, embodiment, and sexuality,
it is also ripe for examination through the lens of
sensory archaeology. The embodied experience of
presenting oneself to the world results in countless
sensory experiences as one dresses and arranges the
exterior self. From the use of scented products to the
visual presentations of hair, skin, and clothing, to the
manipulation of the body through corseting, each of
these points of sensory data contributes to the under-
standing of the constructed world of the 19th-century
brothel at 27/29 Endicott Street. This is only a limited
and restricted sample of the types of data available,
however, and reflects only a tiny fragment of the
complete experience of a resident of and visitor to
27/29 Endicott Street. One of the frustrations of
employing a sensory archaeology to a site is the
overwhelming potential for different interpretations,
especially when one supersedes the constraints of the
five-sense schema. This approach, however, in addi-
tion to its potential to illuminate subtle and personal
experiences, can also bring one closer to an empathet-
ic connection to the past.
Declarations
Conflict of Interest The corresponding author states that there is
no conflict of interest.
Hist Arch (2022) 56:244–261
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