Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Max Evans (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 4, 2002

Mildred Clark Cusey was a whore, a madam, an entrepreneur, and above all, a survivor. The story of Silver City Millie, as she referred to herself, is the story of one woman's personal tragedies and triumphs as an orphan, a Harvey Girl waitress on the Santa Fe railroad, a prostitute with innumerable paramours, and a highly successful bordello businesswoman. Millie broke the mold in so many ways, and yet her life's story of survival was not unlike that of thousands of women who went West only to find that their most valuable assets were their physical beauty and their personality. Petite at five feet tall with piercing blue eyes, Millie captured men's attention by her very essence and her unmistakable joie de vivre.

Born to Italian immigrant parents near Kansas City, she and her sister were orphaned early and separated from each other. Millie learned hard lessons on the streets, but she never gave up and she vowed to protect and support her ailing older sister. Caught in a domestic squabble in her foster home, Millie wound up in juvenile court with Harry Truman as her judge. This would be only the first of many brushes in her life with prominent politicians.

When physicians diagnosed her sister with tuberculosis and recommended she move West to a Catholic home in Deming, New Mexico, Millie moved with her. Expenses ran high and after a brief stint waiting tables as a Harvey Girl, Millie found that her meager tips could easily be augmented by turning tricks. Thus, out of financial need and devotion to her sister, Mildred Cusey turned to a life of prostitution and a career at which she soon excelled and became both rich and famous.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Millie's is the quintessential American success story." (The Dallas Morning News )

"There aren't many subjects more titilating than good old fashioned whoring." (The Weekly Alibi, Albuquerque )

From the Inside Flap

Madam Millie contains sordid details and frank language that will make many readers blush. It is unvarnished language, as recorded directly from Millie by Max Evans over a period of almost twenty years. It presents a complete picture of the business of prostitution as it was practiced in the west from the late 1920s to the mid 1970s, told by the most successful madam in the business. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press; illustrated edition edition (March 4, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826327826
• ISBN-13: 978-0826327826
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #699,426 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read as social history, August 8, 2002

By 

Dr Cathy Goodwin (Seattle, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan (Hardcover)

Ignore the book's subtitle, cover and back cover copy. Madam Millie is not about bordellos or lurid sex detail. It's about a tough, wise, loveable woman. There are a few funny incidents -- as when a cat attacks a delicate portion of a bishop's anatomy -- but today they seem rather tame.
Millie's long life was never ordinary. Orphaned at a young age, she was saved from juvenile justice by Harry S. Truman, then a Kansas City judge. When her sister Florence was diagnosed with tuberculosis, Millie accompanied her to Deming, New Mexico, where she worked as a Harvey Girl at the train station.
Millie entered her new profession to pay her sister's medical bills. And the rest is, literally, history.
Readers will appreciate Madam Millie on two levels: as the biography of a legend and as a social history of women, work and early life in the southwest. Millie entered the business to pay medical bills for her sister. In one night, she would earn more -- and have a pleasanter life -- than she would in the other occupations open to women at the time.
Millie was first and foremost a businesswoman. She built her success not on her looks but on her charisma, executive skills and ability to read people. It was no accident that her houses attracted high-powered clients. She was their equal.
Millie managed bordellos but she also bought and sold real estate. If she had been born forty years later, she would be a player in business or politics -- a very different but equally challenging game.
Readers can debate the morality -- and inevitabilty -- of Millie's "business." Millie herself believed there would always be a need, whether legally met or not. As Millie acknowledged, in the end what she had to sell soon became available for free, thanks to birth control and a changing society.
Millie ran clean houses, with no drugs and no disease, and her contributions to the community must have set a record. There were no rescue agencies back then. She *was* the Red Cross. Her last houses on Hudson Street -- site of the current Silver City post offices -- closed in 1968.
Madam Millie is fast-paced and easy to read. We get a sense of her wit and style, though not a great deal of her thought processes. Then again, Madam Millie does not come across as an introspective gal. She's all action. The pictures help us see history: the "girls" come across as more humorous than provocative.
Give this book to your favorite Silver City newcomer. Buying stamps and mailing a letter will take on a whole new meaning after they read Madam Millie.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Hillarious Read!, June 24, 2002

By 

"cheetoprincess2" (Silver City, New Mexico USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan (Hardcover)

I found the story of Madam Millie very fascinating and funny at times. I've lived in Silver City for two years and its interesting to read about the town in its heyday. Especially now that I know that the post office is where her infamous whorehouse once sat.
The story is told as if Millie was still alive and Max Evans makes her real and not just some unreachable figure in Silver's past. What I enjoyed most was learning about the people who would visit her brothels and I rolled on the floor with laughter at the story of the Mormon bishop.
I recommend this book to anyone, especially if you live in or near Silver City, because most of the places she talks about still exisit and it makes you think twice about downtown Silver City.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wild, Ribald, Funny, Great!, March 28, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan (Hardcover)

Absolutely great book if you want to read about one of the truly fantastic madams of the recent period, read this! She crowded more 'living' into her life than most people do in 6 lifetimes. She had friends in all the right places, and knew everyone. On her own from the age of 14, she was a quick learner and knew all the 'tricks'. In fact, as she put it, "We turned a good trick". Had houses from Alaska to the bottom of New Mexico. Top notch- 5 stars.