Part of: Society for Historical Archaeology One distinct Orange Street deposit was associated with a brothel which operated in the early s and seemed to reflect the contradictory nature of this occupation. While some food choices reflected the working class nature of the neighborhood, other finer foods, were selected for fancy feasts, to entertain guests or for Existing scholarship has focused on progressive reformers who helped launch the new policy, but there has been scant examination of the male subculture that helped transform the business of prostitution even as the era of regulation came to a close.
This paper examines Tom Savage, a saloon-owner, prize-fighter, Studies in historical prostitution are uniquely poised to demonstrate the importance of partnership between historians and archaeologists. Sites of prostitution may be present in the historical literature; however, the transience of the women employed at these sites means that they often leave ephemeral traces in the written record.
Though typically unable to illustrate individual actors within these sites, archaeology can help to reanimate the everyday lives of women in sex work. Using the Brothel madams were often responsible for managing their establishments and the women who lived and worked in them.
Unsurprisingly, "female boarding houses," the euphemism often used for such sites on historic maps, have typically been gendered as female spaces. On the other hand, saloons tend to be thought of as male spaces despite the presence of prostitution in most of these businesses.
This paper will begin to argue that a rethinking of space and gender in regards to brothels will provide But what did this structure mean for the women who inhabited these roles? And how can we access all levels of the hierarchy? Police magistrate court dockets provide a valuable lens through which to analyze prostitution in Fargo, North Dakota during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
