Bawdy City: Commercial Sex, Capitalism, and Regulation in Nineteenth-Century Baltimore

Baltimore;Maryland;prostitution;venereal disease;history of capitalism;commercial sex;Civil War;syphilis;gonorrhea;lock hospitals;American history;bawdy houses;brothels;legal history;urban history;sex work;History

Hemphill, Katie M.Ryan, Mary P ;

Johns Hopkins University

关键词: Baltimore;    Maryland;    prostitution;    venereal disease;    history of capitalism;    commercial sex;    Civil War;    syphilis;    gonorrhea;    lock hospitals;    American history;    bawdy houses;    brothels;    legal history;    urban history;    sex work;    History;   

Others  :  https://jscholarship.library.jhu.edu/bitstream/handle/1774.2/60299/HEMPHILL-DISSERTATION-2014.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

瑞士|英语

来源: JOHNS HOPKINS DSpace Repository

【 摘 要 】

This dissertation examines the development and policing of Baltimore’s commercial sex trade between 1800 and 1880. Using a core source base of Baltimore City court dockets, newspaper and census records, estate inventories, appellate court decisions, Alms-House medical and admissions records, and medical journals, it reveals that nineteenth-century Baltimore was home to a variety of businesses and entrepreneurs who supported themselves by commodifying sex. The sex trade grew more profitable and diverse as Baltimore developed as a capitalist city, and prostitution, venereal medicine, and (later) risqué print materials were all deeply embedded within the broader urban economy. Commercial sex developed in tandem with the shifting spatial and labor arrangements of capitalism, and it in turn fueled the economic and cultural development of the city.As commercial sex expanded at mid-century, moralists, middle-class Baltimoreans, and political opportunists voiced increasingly strong opposition to prostitution and obscenity. Local authorities were tasked with deciding how best to police the sex trade. This dissertation argues they developed a bifurcated approach. Lawmakers and police eventually assumed a suppressive stance toward the trades in abortion, anti-venereal medicine, and obscene print, all of which promoted sexuality that was simultaneously too public and too covert. At the same time that they cracked down on other forms of commercial sex, however, local authorities tolerated bawdy houses and indoor prostitution and integrated them into a well-established regulatory system that operated through the city courts. Prostitution was tremendously profitable and significant to the social life of the city, and bawdy houses represented the best possible version of it. Not only did bawdy houses line the pockets of a wide array of Baltimoreans (directly or indirectly) but they kept sex out of sight even as they produced legible sexual subjectivities. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Baltimore police officials pioneered the spatial segregation of bawdy houses in an attempt to preserve them in the face of increasing public opposition.