ABSTRACT A Different Kind of Reservation: Waco's Red-Light District Revisited Amy S. Balderach Mentor: T. Michael Parrish, Ph.D. Similar to other American cities after the Civil War, Waco, Texas, maintained a large red-light district. Commercialized sex boomed in Waco, as hundreds of itinerant prostitutes lived among working-class minorities, plying their trade in brothels in the Reservation, an area sanctioned specifically for prostitution. In recognizing both the possible ill effects of vice on the population and an easy means to obtain revenue, policymakers required prostitutes and madams to pay licensing fees to operate in the Reservation. Further, law enforcers frequently arrested bawds, gaining consistent revenue for their municipality. By maintaining a contradictory and inconsistent policy toward the bawdy women of the Reservation, Waco developed a method that was conducive to allowing a prosperous, albeit crime-ridden, sex trade to continue in the community until when the federal government created an army Camp MacArthur, which briefly provided a higher boost to the economy than sexual vice. A Different Kind of Reservation: Waco's Red-Light District Revisited, 1880-1920 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Baylor University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts By Amy S. Balderach Waco, Texas May 2005 Copyright 2005 by Amy S. Balderach rights reserved CONTENTS PREFACE iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS v DEDICATION ix Chapter 1. LET'S TALK ABOUT SEX: HISTORIOGRAPHICAL ISSUES OF PROSTITUTION AND AN INNOVATIVE METHODOLOGICAL CONTRIBUTION 1 2. WACO UNDRESSED: THE WOMEN TWO STREET 27 3. IF YOU CAN'T STOP IT, REGULATE IT: WACO'S RESPONSE TO SEXUAL VICE 67 4. GREENBACKS REPLACE RED LIGHTS: THE CONSEQUENCES OF ARTHUR BIBLIOGRAPHY 118 iii PREFACE By the last decade of the nineteenth century, many American cities in the East, South, and West had designated places for the operation of brothels. They continued their sponsorship of sexual vice until World War I, receiving considerable profits and boosts to their economies from red-light districts. The extent to which cities profited from the brothel economy varied, but recent microhistories, including Paul Best's work on vice in St. Paul, Minnesota, are beginning to illustrate that a general trend of contradiction existed between cities' official policies and their unofficial regulation of the sex trade to obtain supplementary revenue. Money meant everything in a business that relied on the exchange of sex for cash. Profits and monetary assets influenced most relationships surrounding a community's commercialized sex trade, including bonds between madams and their prostitutes and those between bawds and city law enforcers. The following work addresses the economic relationship between prostitutes who plied their trade in Waco, Texas, and the community outside of the red-light district. None of the previous works about Waco's Reservation covers the significance of money in maintaining the continuance of the district's operation, at a time when Progressive activism began to filter into the Waco community. The study revisits a topic about Waco that already enjoys three newspaper pieces, two short journal articles, and a master's thesis, but it significantly offers new material and a clearer picture of prostitution in a city that was both Old South and Old West. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS One and a half years ago, I arrived at Baylor University with an idea of what I might do for my master's thesis. During my last two years at Westminster College, I had completed survey projects ranging from premarital sex in Victorian England to prostitution during the American Civil War. By my senior year in college, I had found myself playing the part of a disgruntled and seasoned prostitute for the final of my Acting 101 class. The history of sexuality and gender roles always seemed to fascinate me, but I was not sure about the plausibility of doing serious work about my new-found research tastes. A dear professor and Dr. Eugene Sharkey, once called me an iconoclast and urged me to utilize that attribute to study whatever I wanted, even if that meant to take a somewhat deviant path. The last conversation I had with Dr. Sharkey before his sudden passing a month before the start of my first class at Baylor has given me hope when things seemed hopeless, particularly after a near-fatal car accident and the death of my grandmother a month into that fall semester. If he were still among us, I would thank him for his last words to me and for his faith that I could do anything. After Dr. passing, I arrived on campus eager to prove him right and ready to take my chances to do my dream project: a work about prostitution. I went to Michael Toon at Baylor's Texas Collection and asked his advice on any materials the archives had concerning prostitution in Galveston. Mr. Toon had something much better in mind. He told me that Waco once had a fairly large red-light district. A study had already been done about it, but he was convinced more could be written about the V scarlet ladies by the Brazos River. He was right. Mr. Toon's help in giving me the idea for the project and for advising me on initial outlets of research were invaluable. Who knows what my thesis would have been if I had not met with Mr. Toon that fall day. I also owe my appreciation to other faculty at Baylor. Dr. T. Michael Parrish, my thesis director, went above and beyond in providing me with copious amounts of sources that were pertinent to my secondary literature survey. Further, he urged me last February to send my thesis prospectus to the Texas State Historical Association so that I could present a conference paper at its annual meeting this year, which was a tremendous boost to my experience in the academic world. I also thank Dr. Rebecca Sharpless for being on my committee and for allowing me to periodically visit with her at the Institute for Oral History, where she is director and I am a graduate assistant. Brief chats with her about my thesis were useful, while discussions of the Lady Bears basketball team were a welcome distraction. I must direct a large amount of gratitude to certain depositories that provided me with useful materials in a helpful and friendly manner. Several visits to the Texas Collection at Baylor University in the beginning of the research process were assisted by Ellen Brown, the collection's archivist. I would also like to thank Judy Shofner at the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum. Judy provided me with one of the most profound quotes of the thesis, the one concerning Olonzo Oden's conversation with Miss Hattie, which appears at the beginning of chapter three. The bulk of my research was at the McLennan County Archives in Waco with Kathy Schwartz and Trudy McGuire, however. I spent a few hours a day for three months doing research at the county archives, digging and discovering. Trudy was incredible in copying the documents that I vi needed and was wonderful in getting me acquainted with the archives so that I could freely roam and get any materials that I needed. I particularly enjoyed chatting with both her and Kathy, and I am very indebted for their hard work in providing a home for historical materials that were formerly neglected. My acknowledgments do not stop with those who were immediately involved in the creation of the following thesis. I would like to thank the ladies at the Institute for Oral History for letting me practice my conference paper with them and for providing me with a wonderful opportunity to work there this year. I am really not sure where I would be without the funds that working at the Institute provided me with, and I believe working there has made me a better writer. Hilderman, my coworker at the Institute and, more importantly, my good friend, provided invaluable tips for the oral histories that I incorporated in my last chapter. She saved me several hours of research, and I owe her a lot of gratitude for that and for her initial edits of my manuscript. I am also grateful for her wonderful friendship during the stressful year of research and writing, and I will always remember the great diversions firom my thesis with VSG, Anne of Green Gables, and Lady Bears basketball. On a personal note, other and my family have played an important part in helping me to keep some amount of sanity as I attempted to research and write my thesis during my first taste of true independence. My friends, both new and old, have provided me with ample amounts of support. Daily lunches and trips to the Dr. Pepper Museum for floats with Christiana Biggs were a welcome routine. Marie Meyers gave me further emotional support, providing me with certain degrees of tough love and patience that helped me to see that "all of this" was not going to kill me. Her visit to Texas during her vii Easter break was not only fun, but a much-needed stress buster. Both my mother and father were great in allowing me to vent my problems to them. My mother took time out of her hectic schedule to visit me twice in Texas and was a wonderful boost to my morale and sanity. My father and I have been through a lot this past year, but I value how "one little accident" can make a daughter truly appreciate a friendship with her father. We've been through the trenches together, and one day, hopefully, we'll feel the better for treading through the ripples in life's immense pool.