The Madams of San Francisco PDF Download

Author: Curt Gentry
Publisher: Comstock Publishing
ISBN: 9780891740155
Category : Crafts & Hobbies
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Author: Sherry Monahan
Publisher: Farcountry Press
ISBN: 1560377674
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 188

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"With the discovery of gold at Sutter's Mill in 1848, fortune-seekers from around the globe descended on California, among them a sprinkling of enterprising women. Author Sherry Monahan explains, ""Living in the wild American West provided women with equal opportunity - for both success and failure. Conventional wisdom suggests that women became prostitutes only because they were desperate. . . In fact, many of the women were smart entrepreneurs and saw a way to acquire fast and, in several cases, vast wealth. Rich in details combed from historical archives, California Madams uncovers the enigmatic and salacious lives of twenty-four women who ran houses of ill repute in the Golden State from the 1840's to the 1940's. Here are the hedonistic and sometimes heroic exploits of Margaret Appel, Diamond Jessie, Hattie Wells, Ah Toy, and Lee Francis, but also the unsung sagas of Emily Edwards, Cora Lee, Sylvia Daniels, May Ellis, Alma, Jewett, and many more."

Author: Phillip Margulies
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 0307476030
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 610

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In the home where Arabella Godwin was raised it is forbidden to speak her name, and her picture is turned to the wall. But in the turbulent America of the 1850s, everyone knows her as "Belle Cora," madam of San Francisco's finest bordello. Judges and senators do her bidding; a vicious newspaper editor plots her downfall; a preacher looks at her from across his pulpit and tries to forget that once she was his wife. Merchant's daughter, farm girl, prostitute, mother, madam, murderess, avenger, protector—she has worn all these masks: the only thing that never changes is her tireless pursuit of the one man who can see her for who she really is.

Author: Ivy Anderson
Publisher: Heyday.ORIM
ISBN: 1597143766
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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The collected memoirs of a 1913 San Francisco sex worker, their effect on society at the time, and where they fit in today’s world. In 1913 the San Francisco Bulletin published a serialized, ghostwritten memoir of a prostitute who went by Alice Smith. “A Voice from the Underworld” detailed Alice's humble Midwestern upbringing and her struggle to find aboveboard work, and candidly related the harrowing events she endured after entering “the life.” While prostitute narratives had been published before, never had they been as frank in their discussion of the underworld, including topics such as abortion, police corruption, and the unwritten laws of the brothel. Throughout the series, Alice strongly criticized the society that failed her and so many other women, but, just as acutely, she longed to be welcomed back from the margins. The response to Alice's story was unprecedented: four thousand letters poured into the Bulletin, many of which were written by other prostitutes ready to share their own stories; and it inspired what may have been the first sex worker rights protest in modern history. An introduction contextualizes “A Voice from the Underworld” amid Progressive Era sensationalistic journalism and shifting ideas of gender roles, and reveals themes in Alice's story that extend to issues facing sex workers today. Winner of the California Historical Society Book Award “Essential reading for anyone interested in the rich history of sexual commerce in the United States.”—Gretchen Soderlund, author of Sex Trafficking, Scandal, and the Transformation of Journalism, 1885-1917 “Not only for Bay Area history buffs, Alice will enlighten all readers to early shifts in gender roles and societal correlations today.”—Cassie Duggan, Literary Hub

Author: Linda J. Eversole
Publisher: TouchWood Editions
ISBN: 9781894898317
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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A wealthy madam who was known from San Francisco to Victoria in the early part of the 20th century, Stella Carroll was glamorous, worldly and determined to succeed. Her bordellos were fashionably decorated and patronized by the affluent and the powerful; she offered the best of everything--fine food and wine, cigars, entertainment and, of course, girls. The author, with the cooperation of Stella's family in California and New Mexico, has provided an intimate portrait of this infamous, unrepentant woman, her business and her tenuous relationships with double-dealing politicians and corrupt police, whose cooperation was essential to her success in the shadowy world she inhabited. Stella was a woman of contrasts. Her scandalous lifestyle and fiery temper often landed her in court on morals charges, yet she was devoted to and supportive of her family and gave generously to orphans and charities. This compelling non-fiction narrative is a fascinating look at Stella's life and at how things were in Victoria 100 years ago.

Author: Chris Enss
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0762751754
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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Between 1840 and 1870, hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic dreamers embarked on a 2,000-mile journey into the wide-open frontier of the United States in search of free land, gold, adventure, and a better life. Although only a few women were numbered among the very first pioneers, those who did take the risk changed the face of the United States forever. The western woman left the restrictions and conventions of her way of life behind and carried the struggle of emancipation into areas sacred to the male. She competed in business and politics, bronco busting, smoking, drinking, gambling, and gun-toting. This book celebrates the stories of the nonconforming, gun-toting pioneers who settled the West.

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780998380650
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: Lisa Riggin
Publisher: U of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 1496203054
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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"San Francisco's Queen of Vice uncovers the story of one of the most skilled, high-priced, and corrupt abortion entrepreneurs in America. Even as Prohibition was the driving force behind organized crime, abortions became the third-largest illegal enterprise as state and federal statutes combined with changing social mores to drive abortionists into hiding. Inez Brown Burns, a notorious socialite and abortionist in San Francisco, made a fortune providing her services to desperate women throughout California. Beginning in the 1920s, Burns oversaw some 150,000 abortions until her trial and conviction brought her downfall. In San Francisco's Queen of Vice, Lisa Riggin tells the story of the rise and fall of San Francisco's "abortion queen" and explores the rivalry between Burns and the city's newly elected district attorney, Edmund G. "Pat" Brown (father of the present governor of California). Pledging to clean up the graft-ridden city, Brown exposed the hidden yet not-so-secret life of backroom deals, political payoffs, and corrupt city cops. Through the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of Burns, Brown used his success as a stepping-stone for his political rise to California's governor's mansion. Featuring an array of larger-than-life characters, Riggin shows how Cold War domestic ideology and the national quest to return to a more traditional America quickly developed into a battle against internal decay. Based on a combination of newspaper accounts, court records, and personal interviews, San Francisco's Queen of Vice reveals how the drama played out in the life and trial of one of the wealthiest women in California history"--

Author: Jan MacKell Collins
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1493050974
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 283

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While settlers were drawn out West by the often empty promises of the Gold Rush, prostitution grew and flourished within the mining camps, small towns, and cities of nineteenth-century California. Whether escaping a bad home life, lured by false advertising, or seeking to subsidize their income, thousands of women chose or were forced to enter an industry where they faced segregation and persecution, fines and jailing, and battled the other hazards of their profession. Some dreamed of escape through marriage or retirement, and some became infamous and even successful, but more often found relief only in death. An integral part of western history, the stories of these women continue to fascinate readers and captivate the minds of historians today. Working girls and madams like Bodie's famous Rosa May and the gambler Madame Moustache remain notorious celebrities in the annals of history, and Collins also includes the stories of lesser-known women whose roles in this illicit trade help shape our understanding of the American West.

Author: Gary Kamiya
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1635575893
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 230

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The bestselling book from two prizewinning, critically acclaimed contemporary chroniclers of San Francisco-a rich, illustrated, idiosyncratic portrait of this great city. In Spirits of San Francisco, #1 bestselling Cool Gray City of Love author Gary Kamiya joins forces with celebrated, bestselling artist Paul Madonna to take a fresh look at this one-of-a-kind city. Marrying image and text in a way no book about this city has done before, Kamiya's illuminating narratives accompany Madonna's masterful pen-and-ink drawings, breathing life into San Francisco sites both iconic and obscure. Paul Madonna's atmospheric images will awe: his wide-angle drawings offer a new perspective on the “crookedest street in the world” and vistas across the city. And Kamiya's engaging prose, accompanying each image, offers striking vignettes of this incredible city: witness his story of “Dumpville,” the bizarre community that sprang up in the 19th century on top of a massive garbage dump. Handsome and irresistible-much like the city it chronicles-Spirits of San Francisco is both a visual feast and a detailed, personal, loving, informed portrait of a beloved city.