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BUILDING BRIDGES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE WAR ON PROSTITUTION AND THE GREATER WOMEN’S MOVEMENT IN KANSAS CITY A THESIS IN History Presented to the Faculty of the University of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS by KAYLEE M. PEILE B.A., Quincy University, 2015 Kansas City, Missouri 2017 iii © 2017 KAYLEE M. PEILE ALL RIGHTS RESERVED iii BUILDING BRIDGES: AN ANTHOLOGY OF THE WAR ON PROSTITUTION AND THE GREATER WOMEN’S MOVEMENT IN KANSAS CITY Kaylee Marie Peile, Candidate for the Master of History Degree University of Missouri-Kansas City, 2017 ABSTRACT This research looks at Kansas City’s War on Prostitution in 1977 and the larger women’s movement of second-wave feminism throughout the 1970s and 1980s. The War on Prostitution makes the women’s movement in Kansas City unique because it brought together non-like-minded feminists despite their differences in ideology. A product of both oral history and traditional historical research, this work draws upon a large variety of primary sources including newspaper articles from the Kansas City Public Library, archived materials pertaining to women’s groups from the LaBudde Special Collections Archive at University of Missouri-Kansas City. At the core of the project is an oral history component of phone conversations and interviews with women who were active in varying areas of Kansas City public life, including politics, activism, and law during the early decades of the women’s movement. The interviews were conducted from August to November of 2017. Research also included secondary sources on the topic of second-wave feminism and feminist theory. The work serves as a platform for future research on the women’s movement, the War on Prostitution, and the lives of prominent women in Kansas City’s history. It is a testament to the women’s movement of the 1970s and 1980s and the remarkable women who were involved in it. iii APPROVAL PAGE The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of College of Arts and Sciences, have examined a thesis titled “Building Bridges: An Anthology of the War on Prostitution and the Greater Women’s Movement in Kansas City,” presented by Kaylee Peile, a candidate for the Master of Arts degree, and certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE Matthew Osborn, Ph.D., Committee Chair Department of History Sandra I. Enríquez, Ph.D. Department of History Linda Mitchell, Ph.D. Department of History iiiiv CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………...iii ESSAY…………………………………………………………………………………………….1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………..1 Kansas City’s War on Prostitution…………………………………..…………………....4 Race and Sex Discrimination in Kansas City……………………………………………11 Historiography and Feminist Theory…………………………………………………….15 The Women’s Movement and the War on Kansas City…………………………………..21 Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………27 Index……………………………………………………………………………………...29 TRANSCRIPTS………………………………………………………………………………….31 Joanne Collins…………………………………………………………………………...30 Marcia Walsh…………………………………………………………………………….44 Kay Madden……………………………………………………………………………...58 Joanne Katz………………………………………………………………………………66 Eleanor Harris…………………………………………………………………………...80 Paula Mariedaughter…………………………………………………………………….92 VITA……………………………………………………………………………………………106 v Introduction On the evening of May 12, 1977 Theresa Brennan, also known as “Ocelot,” stood at 12th and Baltimore Street with a sign that read, “Here I am. Stone me, those among you who have not sinned.”1 The night before, Brennan and thirty-eight other prostitutes had been arrested in downtown Kansas City. Arrests took place in two waves. The first was conducted in the afternoon of May 11 in the area of Linwood Boulevard and 37th Street due to female sex workers “flagging down cars.” The second was conducted later that evening after twenty-eight women were involved in “disorderly conduct.”2 In an interview with the Kansas City Star, Brennan claimed to have been arrested at least sixteen times and convicted four times over a span of three and a half years, all on the charge of soliciting.3 Brennan was a prostitute in her early twenties and became the leader of Kansas City’s chapter of COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), a prostitutes’ rights organization founded in California by Margo St. James in 1973. 4 Brennan had become the leader of COYOTE-KC, which she noted was made up of “few but determined” women, in 1975 after several incidents between Kansas City police and sex workers. 5 Her arrest and that of the thirty-eight other prostitutes in May marked the beginning of the Kansas City’s 1 Harry Jones Jr, “Crusade Draws Wrath of Coyote Leader,” Kansas City Star, 15 May 1977, sec. 5A, p. 1. 2 Robert L. Carroll, “City Declares Open War on Prostitution,” Kansas City Star, 12 May 1977, sec. 1A, p. 1. 3 Harry Jones Jr, “Crusade Draws Wrath of Coyote Leader,” Kansas City Star, 15 May 1977, sec. 5A, p. 1. 4 “Coyote (Organization). Records of Coyote, 1962-1989: A Finding Aid,” Harvard University, accessed September 23, 2016, http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~sch00278 , “History”. 5 Harry Jones Jr, “Crusade Draws Wrath of Coyote Leader,” Kansas City Star, 15 May 1977, sec. 5A, p. 1. 1 so-called War on Prostitution.6 The War on Prostitution, also known as the “Whore War,” is important in Kansas City’s history because it was a part of the local women’s movement in which divided feminist groups who differed in beliefs on several ideological fronts such as sexuality, race, and feminist agendas came together in defense of women’s rights. At a time in women’s history when feminist groups were at odds with each other on numerous political and social issues both locally and nationally, women representing several different facets of Kansas City’s public life including politics, activism, and law coalesced in support of the prostitutes targeted in the War on Prostitution. Prominent female attorneys, city council members, and members of the National Organization for Women-Kansas City, the Kansas City Women’s Liberation Union, and the Greater Kansas City Women’s Political Caucus all played parts in the anti-WoP movement and worked with Theresa Brennan and Kansas City’s COYOTE chapter. Prior to and following the WoP, local feminist groups seldom interacted with one another because of ideological differences and conflicting objectives. The War on Prostitution was a fleeting historical moment in which activists transcended the sharp differences among feminist groups and came together to fight for women’s equality. The intersection of these groups is significant because they both highlight the women’s movement in Kansas City, which has been majorly overlooked by scholars, and mirror what was happening in women’s movements across the country. Similar anti-prostitution operations happened in several major U.S. cities in the 1970s that engaged their local chapters of feminist 6 Throughout the essay, the author will refer to the War on Prostitution both by its full name and by the abbreviation WoP. 2 groups including New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles.7 It is important to recognize that Kansas City had comparable experiences to other cities in order to connect it to the larger narrative of the women’s movement. It is also necessary to acknowledge the uniqueness of the women’s movement and the WoP in Kansas City. Although the movement was on a smaller scale, it included distinct characters that represented variations in class, race, and sexuality. The WoP unintentionally fueled intersectionalism among feminist groups who supported persecuted sex workers and COYOTE members. Before and after the WoP, groups like NOW-KC and the KCWLU did not extensively overlap, making it a vital point of collaboration in the women’s movement in Kansas City. In Kansas City, there is a lack of historical analysis on the local women’s movement. Although scholars have focused on Kansas City women in the 1950s and 1960s, there has not been a focus on women in the 1970s and 1980s and the larger women’s movement.8 The scope of this work focuses on the 1970s and 1980s women’s movement in general and the War on Prostitution in particular, based on interviews with six women who were involved in Kansas City public life in the 1970s. The recollections of local feminist groups contained in the interviews begin in the 1970s and end in the 1990s. These oral histories are supplemented by historiography, feminist theory, and other primary sources in order to provide a thorough understanding of the War on Prostitution and the larger women’s movement in Kansas City. This 7 Stephanie Gilmore, “Strange Bedfellows: Building Feminist Coalitions around Sex Work in the 1970s” p. 246-272 in No Permanent Waves: Recasting Histories of U.S. Feminism by Nancy A. Hewitt (New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2010). 8 Women such as Lucile Bluford and Martha Jane Phillips Starr are celebrated in Kansas City’s Starr Women’s Hall of Fame. The majority of women included in the Hall of Fame, however, are focused in the decades preceding the women’s movement. The Starr Women’s Hall of Fame is located in the LaBudde Special Collections Archive at the University of Missouri— Kansas City. 3 anthology not only adds unheard voices to the city’s historical narrative, but also offers a foundation for future research. This thesis was conducted as an oral history because oral histories create a more personal, intimate microhistory that cannot be accomplished by traditional methods of research. This oral history provides new historical insights into the War on Prostitution and the broader topic of feminist activism in Kansas City, while offering understanding of the social and political climate of the city at that time. By adding interviews to traditional research, this thesis explores the women’s movement in Kansas City in more depth. This research allows agency to individuals who were active in the women’s movement by supplementing women’s history with their own experiences and recollections.

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