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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographicaliy in this copy. Higher quality 6” x 9” black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. THE TEEMING BROTHEL: SEX ACTS, DESIRES, AND SEXUAL IDENTITIES IN THE UNITED STATES, 1870-1940 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University . By Heather Lee Miller, M.A. The Ohio State University 2002 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Leila J. Rupp, Adviser Professor Birgitte Spland i'jj C2 'Adviser' A /lvicoi* Professor Susan M. Hartmann . Department of History Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3049090 _ ___ ® UMI UMI Microform 3049090 Copyright 2002 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright by Heather Lee Miller 2002 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT At the margins of women’s sexuality, so-called deviant women—masturbators and nymphomaniacs, and especially prostitutes and lesbians—set the boundaries for “normal female sexuality” in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Despite the supposed nineteenth-century ideal of women’s “passionlessness,” sexually “deviant” women enjoyed, desired, and participated in numerous sex acts with both men and women, much to the chagrin of “respectable” white middle-class men and women who tried, but usually failed—if judged by the increased shrillness of their voices over the period between 1870 and 1930—to determine the outlines of what constituted acceptable female (and male) sexual and gender behavior. “The Teeming Brothel” is a cultural, social, and medical history of women’s sex acts and sexualities within the commercial sex context. The title can be read in two ways: literally, as in an actual brothel teeming with divergent sex acts and sexualities; and figuratively, to represent society’s fears of what the world might become if deviant female sexualities were allowed to run rampant in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This study combines analysis of published sexological treatises and surveys from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries with examination of prostitutes’ diaries and autobiographies, guides to and descriptions of brothels and red-light districts, one man’s “erotic autobiography,” pornography, and written reports of the men and women who participated in purity campaigns and vice ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. reform in the nineteenth- and twentieth-century United States. Ultimately, I conclude that the sexual history of prostitutes is complex and does not easily follow the historiographical models that have preceded this work. Sexual behavior, desire, and identity among commercial sex workers, although always categorized as “deviant,” does not easily conform to the chronology laid out by previous historians. Scientific methodology and some conclusions about the nature of female sexuality changed, as did the historical and social context within which scientific research was being conducted. However, many of the parallels sexologists drew among so-called deviant groups of women—masturbators, nymphomaniacs, prostitutes, lesbians, and feminists—remained strikingly similar. The multiple and varied sex acts in which prostitutes participated for money and the complexity of these women’s sexual identities and desires persisted throughout the period (and has continued through to the present). This dissertation lays out the trajectories of and complex links among changes and continuities in social discourse and then assesses how they were reflected in and also affected the lives, sexual activities, and sexual identities of commercial sex workers in the United States between 1870 and 1940. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. For James Gardner Miller, HI, who was there at the beginning, and Ruby James Keeton, who will be there, at the end. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DISSERTATION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are too many people to thank, but I’ll try, apologizing in advance to those whom I’ve inadvertently forgotten. For getting me started and believing that I could be a historian at the very beginning, I’d like to thank Carolyn Stefanco, Edward Mayo, James C. Mohr, Louise Carroll Wade, Barbara Y. Welke and, especially, George Cotkin for providing guidance, friendship, and empathy through all these years of neurotic worrying about my work. For commenting on this project at various stages and for providing invaluable leads and constructive criticism I thank George Chauncey, William Ralph Childs, Stephanie Gilmore, Lesley Hall, Joan Nestle, Joanne Meyerowitz, Jennifer Terry, Julia Watson, and Marc Stein. This dissertation could not have come to fruition without the support and help of my dissertation committee: Birgitte S0land and Susan M. Hartmann, and also Jennifer Terry, who was unable officially to be at the defense but who helped guide the project through its first four years. Her work has been an inspiration for me. Most of all I wish to thank Leila Rupp, who has not only been an extraordinary adviser and mentor, but has also provided an example of scholarly excellence, unfailing good humor, and a model of grace and diplomacy from which all academics should leam. If I am only half as productive and half as nice as she is I will consider my life a success. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I would also like to acknowledge the academic and personal support of a number of people with whom I had seminars and participated in conferences, among other things: Cherisse Jones, Cecily McDaniel, Paul Jussel, Rick Dorn, Joe Pirone, Greg Wilson, Phil Huckelberry, Ardith Allen, Anne Collinson, Betsy Kaminski, Susan Stryker, Miriam Reumann, and Sarah Igo. I especially want to acknowledge Julian Carter, whose thinking continuously inspires me. My thanks to the History Department at The Ohio State University for years of financial support and for funding conference attendance, and to Joby Abernathy for always making the process fun. For logistical support v/ith research, I would like to thank The Ohio State University College of Humanities for awarding me a Graduate School Alumni Research Award and The Ohio State University Department of Women’s Studies for awarding me an Elizabeth D. Gee Dissertation Research Grant. I would also like to acknowledge all the helpful folks at the New York Public Library, Chicago Historical Society, Kinsey Institute for Sex Research (Bloomington, Indiana), and Tulane Special Collections (New Orleans, Louisiana), with special recognition to David Bardetscher, principal librarian of the New York Criminal Court library; Jay Satterfield at the University of Chicago Special Collections; and AleciaLong at the Louisiana State Museum. For my favorite Columbus women, Journal of Women’s History coworkers, Berkshire compatriots, and confidantes there are no words. Susan K. Freeman, Ren€e Lansley, and Basia Nowak have made life in Ohio much better than bearable. I thank Andrew Sandoval-Strausz for his friendship and je ne sais quoi (it might be the Armani suit and ABBA CD in the Saab); Katie Burrill and Stuart Hilwig for always making me vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. laugh; Chris Capozzola for letting me crash at the New York apartment, even when Ellen was away, and providing good company on the conference circuit; Max and Tabby Ehrlich for feeding me carrot soup

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