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Prostitutes make up one of the most engaging chapters in the story of the American West. Upstairs Girls opens a window on the lives of these women for hire--why they turned to prostitution, who they worked for, and what their lives were like. Author and historian Michael Rutter offers a thorough history of prostitution in the West, with chapters on notorious madams, the hierarchy of prostitution, from parlor girls to streetwalkers, and occupational hazards such as disease and addiction. Rutter also unveils the brutal Chinese sex trade, which was little more than slavery, with women being shipped across the Pacific and bought and sold like material goods. The engaging and carefully researched background history leads up to the often heart-breaking and sometimes humorous profiles of the individual madams and prostitutes, from the famous Calamity Jane to the less-known Rosa May, from ruthless madam Ah Toy to mother of civil rights Mary Ellen Pleasant. Great photographs and illustrations Upstairs Girls: Prostitution in the American West
There's a whole lot that's good about this book. Who writes a mass market book about such a relatively obscure (read: fascinating!) subject? Long passages lend context at the start of each section. Details about railroad camps and a larger sense of Chinese immigration pre-Chinese Exclusion Act were impressive. The chapter on occupational hazards, most notably venereal disease, both fascinated me and had me squirming in my chair (with enchantingly grotesque photos!). There's definitely a lot to learn between the covers of this title.
However, having read another of Rutter's books, Bad Girls, it was clear there was a fair amount of overlap in the last section of the book, that profiled various madams and prostitutes. Some of these profiles were fascinating, shocking, and sad—but many of the woman were only tangentially involved in prostitution, and their profile only seemed to mention that aspect in passing. If Bad Girls had been written first, I would accuse Rutter of repackaging his material—but in fact, Bad Girls was the repackaging of the material in here.
As the book uses a lot of quotes or mentions arguments by specific historians without mentioning names in the text, I would really like some footnotes in the book. I suspect a lot of the readers of this title are armchair historians who are old west buffs, I'm surprised there aren't more sources named. If these people are anything like me, they'll want to know precisely where that newspaper article quoting Big Nose Kate came from, so if they're working on their own projects, it will help them with their own research.
There's also the use of language. There are folksy sayings sprinkled throughout the book that interrupted my reading, where the voice is switched just for a fraction of a sentence. For example, one place where he points out a pun in a clunky way before the pun has actually taken place. The text also seems to try and use as many adjectives for prostitute or brothel as possible—if the reader isn't familiar, this can interrupt the flow of reading as well. I wondered if maybe he had a list of all the adjectives when he was writing, and whenever he referred to a prostitute he would consult the list to use a different term. When I discovered the glossary at the back—which consists almost solely of adjectives for prostitutes—I knew I couldn't be too far off.
Despite the above, this is a fascinating, under-reported subject, so I really did enjoy the book very much! Paperback Follow all my reviews at: http://flashlightcommentary.blogspot....
I got excited when I discovered Michael Rutter’s Upstairs Girls at my local library, but while I found it factually interesting, I can’t help feeling it failed to meet my expectations.
In terms of tone, Rutter failed these women like all the historians and newspaper men before him. He defines the daughters of joy by their role in the flesh trade, exploring their business dealings, their notable lovers and the memoirs of their clients rather than the women themselves. I can’t explain the oversight, but I was disappointed by the superficial portrait Rutter painted of the Wild West’s soiled doves.
Rutter touched on several business concerns, but omitted any information about children born in the red light district. Rutter mentions pregnancy alongside other occupational hazards, but ends the section before examining what happened to girls who carried children to term which is how I find myself here, still wondering what happened in such circumstance and why in heavens name didn’t the author think to include such a detail?
I found the text itself repetitive and disjointed, but also biased. Rutter places significantly more emphasis on the high-end girls than those who worked the streets on their own, but even then, he tends to highlight their clients above the women who serviced their interests and I personally found the imbalance deeply disappointing.
Not horrid, but not at all what I expected. Interesting, but I don’t think Upstairs Girls comes close to telling the entire story. Paperback The information was interesting...but the writing was repetitive and choppy to the point of annoying. Paperback I've read a few books about the Old West and thought this looked interesting. The topic was, but the book wasn't. It read like a college paper: Next I'm going to talk about... which drove me crazy when I was teaching freshmen comp. There was a lot of repetition and, worse, it appears there was no proofreader. The text contains these doozies:
...which was a cause for alarm among many concerned women, especially women.
More than one prostitute was beaten to death, then robbed and turned out on the street with hardly more than the clothes on her back.
...attempts would be made to make the her vomit up the overdose...
Most women were little more than chattel in his own country.
There were lots of other errors, like $20 dollars, a women, and so on.
And if I never hear the expression soiled dove again, it will be too soon. Paperback Women were scarce on the early Western landscape. This introductory line in Michael Rutter's book invites the reader to believe that the scarce commodity is prized, valued, and expensive. The backstory is sorrowful. Scathing, down-and-dirty, raunchy and gut-wrenching are some of the descriptive words describing the social status of women in the ole West. Female companionship should be valued and treasured since it is in short supply, especially in the early days of development when the land was clean and free and available. Some men came to mold the barren, wild earth into their own idea of freedom, but mostly the human male came for gold, lots of it. The quicker the better. Females got in the way - a temporary diversion, replaceable and of little value.
Rutter descriptive use of female dalliance aptly captures life for women in the early, developing days of the Southwest. It's an engaging read with legendary characters. Paperback
Very good history book. Well written and an easy read. Excellent source on an area neglected by most history books. Very recommended Paperback I read this book as part of my research for a writing project I'm working on, and found it a really interesting read. I love history and enjoyed reading about the old west. The book goes over the life of woman prostitutes in the west - how they got there, why they got into that work (mostly poverty and a lack of other options as life was very limited for women)and all the dangers they encountered. The part I found most interesting was the personal accounts of ten well-known madams and soiled doves, as they were called, including Calamity Jane. Many were close to famous outlaws like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as well as famous figures like Doc Holliday, Wyatt Earp, and Wild Bill Hickok. It was a crazy, open ended time. The book oddly paralleled what I learned about Chinese courtesans in Amy Tan's The Valley of Amazement. Paperback This book told a fascinating history of women in the frontier west and why so many either chose or simply ended up in prostitution. Even the town I live in was mentioned and I asked my Mom if they got it right. Everyone knew where the brothel was back in the 40s and 50s and earlier. When the Pill came along many of the shops were closed down because wives and girlfriends could now put out without fear of pregnancy. Kind of weird to think that one little thing like that would change so much. Paperback Not great. Highly anecdotal, and would have benefited significantly from footnotes. The lack of citing made me skeptical about many of the claims the author makes. Paperback A solid does what says on tin sort of book. A good overview of the history as well as some of the key personalities. Paperback
