Customer Reviews

Upstairs Girls: Prostitution in the American West

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Excellent book, could not put it down. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in the Old West Time period and History. The author gives you facts and background information that others writing about this period do not. Mr. Rutter answers those interesting questions that you would not out-right ask and other authors would not reach into the depths to answer. I have not read another book about this era that could compare to this one. Interesting and highly informative, a great read. Also packed with great pictures.

This book is very interesting and well written. Its easy to read and a book you can pick up and read in parts at your own rate of speed. Extremely interesting and gets you mind thinking of the things you don't see of the West in movies and TV. A very realistic look of a subject that has been glorified in current day and a reminder of of what life was like in the past not only in the West and USA but also in the rest of the world in the same time period.
A good study of life from all angles.
Highly recommend read.

I really wanted to love this book since I am completely fascinated by the subject matter. It just did not happen. The author seems to be a fan of Old West folklore and that passion comes across to the reader but that enthusiasm does not make up for poor writing and organization of the text. At times, the book was highly repetitive and too one-sided. This is a history book yet the author uses such statements along the lines of "It is obvious to people that..." or "As any student of history should know..." A personal pet peeve was the misspelling of actress Lillie Langtry's first name as "Lily."

I wouldn't cast the book completely aside and actually did recommend it to a few of my friends. I learned a lot and found it to be an interesting read - but that was only after I got past the writing.

An interesting history of prostitution in the old west. I only wish there were more pictures of the old west. I enjoy this period. The desperation of these women in a time when the only work available was wife,servant,laundress,or prostitute. The double standard of wife being good, prostitute bad, even though a majority of these women got into to this profession due to the death of a husband or being lured to the west with promises of marriage when there were none. Despite the fact some of these fallen women donated money to causes and helped sick people they were still shunned by "polite society". Such a sad story . All in all this was a good book.

It is sad to say, but I read this book and found pieces of it lifted almost word for word from other author's works. There is no primary research, just secondary re-hashing. If someone is looking for a summary work, this may suit their purpose and the chapters are entertaining to read. However, I would advise against investing time and/or money with this book on western prostitution with so many better examples to chose from, and by authors who at least took the effort to use their own words.

Well done and researched. A lot of interesting information.
Details the harsh times for women in the old west, very little opportunities.

This was one of the better books about the ladies of the evening and their lives. I learned a great deal. Great reference.

I just finished a paper on prostitution and this book was fantastic!!! Great information and great pictures. I would recommend it highly.

As a study of women's roles and opportunities in the Old West, this book is truly fascinating, engaging and well-written. Highly recommended!

In doing research for my own book, I purchased several 'historical' books on prostitution, and it is disheartening to find that so far, all these historians who write about prostitutes in by-gone eras seem to think that prostitution as a profession was at best something that women only pursued out of desperation, and at worst, was a horrific way of life -worse than the lives of married women in the old west who endured as much or more violence as any prostitute did.

I understand that the current politically correct way of thinking is to show how horrible the lives of prostitutes was back then (and now)- but the reality is that many prostitutes actually chose this profession because they did not want to live out their lives in dreary circumstances as teachers or seamstresses or whatever else women could do back then.

Life was hard for everyone- including the men who came out west to seek their fortune and ended up lonely and physically beaten down by years of working in the mines for someone else- without family or friends. Prostitutes were their only source of companionship- outside of their comrades in the mines. Men could be killed in a bar fight or in a mine collapse- and yet they still came out west- year after year. We do not view those men as being 'poor victims of exploitation' but rather as courageous men who fought the elements and braved the hazards of mining to eke out a living.

Prostitutes were no less courageous in coming out west to seek their fortune... and while some were forced into prostitution, others were forced into loveless marriages in which they had no rights, no property and no future. Life was not easy for any woman- regardless of what she did back then, particularly if she ventured beyond the civilized cities of the east. Even women born into wealth did not have it all that easy, because they were treated like children by their fathers, brothers and husbands. Wealthy women did not have careers- other than throwing parties and doing their charity work. Sounds like a real blast to me! NOT!!!

It would be lovely if academics would stop viewing us sex workers as victims and understand that the majority of us- then and now- do what we do because we want better lives for ourselves and working for 50¢ a week (back then) or 8 bucks an hour now is simply not an option! There are no more of us who are drug addicted or alcoholics than there are actors and actresses (Lindsay Lohan? Charlie Sheen?) or athletes, musicians (take your pick, lawyers and even cops.

Even in Amazon's tag suggestions, 'drug addiction' is listed! "Tag Suggestions (click to add):
old west, prostitution, red light, women, history, drug addiction, social history, western, historical " How discouraging is that? Since there are so few books on the lives of the married women in the old west, how do we know they were not all drug addicts or alcoholics? Their lives must have been at least as difficult as their prostitute counterparts, and perhaps they indulged in booze or drugs to numb the pain of their pathetic existence?

I'd love to find one book on the historical lives of prostitutes that did not insist that their lives were nothing but dismal, horrific and dangerous- but viewed them instead like the gutsy, bawdy, courageous women they were.