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Bawdy City: Commercial Sex and Regulation in Baltimore, 1790-1915
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About Bawdy City: Commercial Sex And Regulation In
Product Description A vivid social history of Baltimore's prostitution trade and its evolution throughout the nineteenth century, Bawdy City centers women in a story of the relationship between sexuality, capitalism, and law. Beginning in the colonial period, prostitution was little more than a subsistence trade. However, by the 1840s, urban growth and changing patterns of household labor ushered in a booming brothel industry. The women who oversaw and labored within these brothels were economic agents surviving and thriving in an urban world hostile to their presence. With the rise of urban leisure industries and policing practices that spelled the end of sex establishments, the industry survived for only a few decades. Yet, even within this brief period, brothels and their residents altered the geographies, economy, and policies of Baltimore in profound ways. Hemphill's critical narrative of gender and labor shows how sexual commerce and debates over its regulation shaped an American city. Review 'Katie M. Hemphill's superb book delivers both a big-picture arc, showing how economic forces shaped the market for commercial sex, and an amazing wealth of detail about transactional sex from brothels to beer gardens. She gives voice to sex workers and vice reformers alike, an impressive feat of archival research.' Patricia Cline Cohen, author of The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York 'Skillfully answering the call for a gendered history of capitalism, Hemphill situates the sex trade in contentious struggles over real estate development, property rights, and class formation. Well written and carefully researched, Bawdy City keeps women at the center of the story, all the while revealing men's power to extract wealth from sexual commerce.' Seth Rockman, Brown University, Rhode Island Book Description This vivid social history of Baltimore's prostitution trade centers women in a story of how sexual commerce and debates over its regulation shaped an American city. A critical addition to the current literature addressing women's history, the history of gender and sexuality, and labor history in nineteenth-century America. About the Author Katie M. Hemphill is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Arizona.
