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50 of 54 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Solid Academic Piece, July 26, 2002
This review is from: Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, 1865-90 (Paperback)
Having just read this book for an upcoming graduate level women's history course I can highly recommend it for students and others.Firstly this is not one of those books that weigh 20 lbs that would break your toe should you drop one on it. It is concisely and well written and well organized as well. It is thoroughly footnoted which in of itself is valuable because he reader can then draw upon those sources for additional study if they so desire. That being said I found the overall thesis to be solid and well thought out. I did find myself at times wondering if additional observations might be drawn from the source materials. Even if one might reach a different conclusion in some areas the main points of the book are logical and well thought out. I suspect that even if you did come up with another angle to the story it would likely be supplementary to the author's thesis. The main point here is that prostitutes contributed significantly to the development of western society in both de jure and de facto ways. While they were both citizens and members of society they were not beneficiaries of the full protection of the law with regards to violence (a great many wound up murdered and assaulted). In addition in many areas it would appear that law enforcement would both publicly decry them and at the same time tolerate them. They were routinely hauled in made to pay a fine and released thereby subsidizing the existence of law and order in the west. The mainstream societies were generally willing to have their elected officials benefit in this way provided they themselves did not have to deal with it. In addition there is apparently quite good evidence to suggest that the U.S. Army not only patronized prostitutes but condoned and perpetuated the profession as well. In many instances they actually lived on army property and at times were paid as washerwomen and supplied with rations as well. While no official order to this effect was ever decreed there is apparently ample evidence both that the upper hierarchy knew of it and then condoned it. The author also delves into what the life of the prostitute must have been like drawing from court records, newspapers, personal diaries and the like. While there were exceptions the picture is bleak. The women were young, impoverished, prone to drug and alcohol addiction, spurned by respectable society, and subject to violence that oftentimes went unpunished. There is evidence of certain individuals committing multiply murders against prostitutes who were never punished for instance. Once involved in prostitution the chances of a Julia Roberts Pretty Woman style redemption were slim to none as many often were married to men who kept them in the profession. In addition very few made enough money to escape the profession and in that era there were very limited options for a woman to work to support herself. Even if a single woman were to take up one of the available professions very often they found themselves impoverished and drawn back into the profession. In that era there was no social services to fall back on. Churches were just forming and institutions were weak or non-existent. With very few exceptions there was nothing for the women to reach out to in order to escape the life of the violence, poverty, and disease. Oh and the prostitutes were disproportionately minority including former slaves, Irish, Asian, and Indian. A very interesting read indeed.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
A mixed (but interesting) bag, July 10, 2007
This review is from: Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, 1865-90 (Paperback)
As the author notes, seeing prostitutes clearly has not been very easy for our society. We've often glamorized the western `hooker with a heart of gold' or seen them as sexual pioneers. Recently, with the advent of feminist perspectives, we're told to see all of them as exploited victims of the great all-encompassing patriarchal system that controls and explains every dimension of their life. I picked this book up because it seemed to be moving beyond all of those stereotypes to try to take a fresh look at this aspect of society.
The author did an impressive amount of research in a wide variety of primary sources in numerous locations of the American West. The result is equal parts fascinating and frustrating. Her research has given her a variety of illuminating incidents to relate as well as permitting her to provide some ground level statistics such as how many prostitutes were convicted in various locations and the ebb and flow of certain women through the court system.
But she is hamstrung to some extent by the marginalized nature of these women - they didn't attract biographers, leave institutions or have families that wanted to preserve the incidents of their lives. She can't even tell how many died and at what age. The result is a curious distance: she can often provide a sharp detail but can't provide any before or after narrative to place the detail in context.
So we get a little on the various classes of prostitutes, a little on their relations with the army or local leaders, but I found myself wanting to learn more. She spends almost no time describing the interaction of prostitutes and customers, for example. Nor does she attempt much analysis of how they regarded themselves.
Limited by the data, she has to generalize. But the author can neglect to provide the documentation to explain her conclusions. She wants us to see these women as exploited, helpless, without resources of the legal or medical systems, unable to accumulate any economic stability. And it's not as if that is an implausible set of conclusions. But sometimes she had no data for that, or even that her conclusions override her data - and that is a warning sign.
She tells, for example, about a respectable lawyer who left a narrative that describes the legal work he did for a prostitute. Then, without a word of explanation, she dismisses the man's conclusions as inadequate, implying (I guess) that he was having sex with the prostitute for services given. Again, it's hardly implausible to guess that this took place sometimes or even often, but that is not the same as evidence that it took place in this particular case. And while the man's words were to praise the woman, she still asserts, without evidence, that he had contempt for her and was exploiting her. This sounds like a theory bending facts.
By contrast, her recounting of the one church order that accepted prostitutes as nuns is fascinating - and that the order continues today and continues to operate discretely to protect the reputation of the women is compelling.
Also of considerable interest is her chapter on the dynamics of the army casting a blind eye toward the prostitutes that congregated near army bases. She can make some interesting judgments about how the army knew they were there, even worked with them, but never openly admitted they were doing so. Here, she has more data to work with due to the structured, documented, nature of the army.
She can refer to lawsuits against prostitutes for non-payment of rent as part of a "system of control" - as if prostitutes should have been entitled to free lodging, apparently. However, this book is generally free of cant and sloganeering. I just wish she was a little more careful about substantiating her conclusions - which, again, are hardly wild or outlandish, but tend to emphasize everything horrible about their lives.
Sex workers today are often frustrated by academic insistence that they are all miserable, abused or in denial, and there is a little of that in her approach, but only a little.
Perhaps the lesson is that assessing prostitution in the fluid, less structured frontier is more difficult than we think and that our various ideologies have more impact on our views in this area than others. So, beware generalizations about prostitutes.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Somewhat Informative, January 13, 2008
This review is from: Daughters of Joy, Sisters of Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, 1865-90 (Paperback)
The review by John below was excellent...I agree with pretty much everything he said...A lot of primary sources/data...But that's it......For one who knows nothing about "soiled doves" except what they see on tv or the big screen, this is a good book to read.....The corruption/"looking the other way" interaction is what I found the most fascinating
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