By Margot Peppers. In the first half of the 20th Century, Montreal, Canada, was known as the sex tourism capital of North America. Now, a new set of archive images reveals the faces behind that seedy industry.
Recently unearthed mug shots from the Archives de la Ville de Montreal show the women who were arrested for prostitution and the madams who ran the brothels - commonplace in the Canadian city then known as a place of debauchery. Aside from their heavily plucked eyebrows, curled hair and rouged lips, one thing these woman all seem to have in common is a marked air of mischief.
City of sin: The face of Mary Shepperd, who was arrested in connection with an investigation into prostitution, appears in a collection of s mug shots from the Montreal archives. At the time, the Canadian city was a nightlife Mecca and famous for its brothels.
Her clients were often the same policemen who arrested her. Perhaps their knowing looks had to do with the fact that many of the officers who arrested them were crooked cops who were also their very own clients. In one image, madam Liliane Brown aka Ida Katz , who was one of the three most prominent brothel owners in the era, grins slyly in her black cap and leopard print coat.
Mme Beauchamp - who shows off her freckled features and pencil-thin eyebrows in her mug shot - would reportedly arrive at the courthouse for her arrests in a Cadillac, her body wrapped in mink.
