Upstairs Girls: Prostitution in the American West

[sam]

new book

Upstairs Girls: Prostitution in the American West

By Michael Rutter
(review by T.D. Griffith)

http://www.deadwoodmagazine.com/article.php?read_id=127

In this exploration of ladies of negotiable virtue, author Michael Rutter bypasses the apparent incongruity of a scholarly approach to prostitution with well-researched, colorfully written vignettes dedicated to some of the lost souls of this age-old industry.

A veteran writer with some three dozen books to his credit, Rutter pulls no punches as he explores the role of prostitution in the West, why women became hookers, what their lives were like, and hazards of the occupation including disease, violence, pregnancy and addiction. He also examines the notorious Chinese sex trade, in which the youngest of girls were sold into a life of slavery then discarded like a worn bedspread when they no longer generated profit for their masters.

This engaging and insightful study into brothels and boomtowns not only looks inside the world’s oldest profession, it sheds light on the hierarchy that existed between dancers, parlor girls, brothel workers, crib girls and streetwalkers, all supplemented by illustrations and historical photography.

Rutter is at his best when he provides profiles of individual prostitutes and the few who actually left their profession with a bankroll capable of funding a new life, far from the watered-down whiskey, glassy eyes and sagging mattresses associated with upstairs girls.

The author also touches on numerous Colorado, Wyoming, Montana and South Dakota boomtowns and brothels that attracted droves of soiled doves and dancehall girls – places like Deadwood and Lead. Among those Black Hills characters Rutter memorializes are Calamity Jane, Deadwood Dick, Poker Alice, and a once-striking French girl who became known as Madame Moustache.

From Big Butt Annie and Raunchy Rachel to Big Nose Kate and Nellie the Pig, Rutter provides a less-than-titillating but highly readable account of the “working girls” who rarely ruled the West and more often, simply served those who did.

[sam]

Reading the above review reminded me of heroine Donaldina Cameron. Where the names of sexy Josephine Baker and sexy Gypsy Rose Lee have been sexily passed down to the current generation, brave women like Donaldina "The White Devil" have become all but lost to history such that most well-read feminists haven't a clue who she was and what she did for Chinese girls trafficked into prostitution in San Francisco.

http://www.sfhistoryencyclopedia.com/ar ... ldina.html

Donaldina Cameron was born on a sheep ranch in New Zealand. At the age of two she emigrated to California with her parents, older brother, and four older sisters. In 1874, when Donaldina was five, her mother died, worn out from the hardships of ranching life. The family's ranch eventually failed and Donaldina's father supported his family by working for other ranchers. At nineteen, Donaldina was engaged, but for reasons unknown, did not marry. In 1895, Donaldina was persuaded by an old family friend to spend a year helping out at the Presbyterian Mission House in San Francisco's Chinatown. The acceptance of this offer was the turning point in Donaldina's life.

The Presbyterian Mission House at 920 Sacramento Street was chartered with rescuing Chinese girls and women from abusive circumstances. In 1882, Congress passed the first of three Chinese exclusion acts. These acts prevented all but a few privileged classes of Chinese men from sending for their families in China. Single men could not send for Chinese wives, nor did the law permit them to marry non-Chinese wives. The small ratio of Chinese women to men bred a rampant prostitution market. To feed this market, Chinese girls and young women, mostly from Canton, were bought, kidnapped, or coerced into coming to the U.S. Most of them arrived at Angel Island in the San Francisco Bay. To gain entry, they presented false papers showing them to be the wives or daughters of the few privileged classes who were allowed to send for family.

Once in the country, these girls were sold for one of two purposes. Girls in their teens were pressed into prostitution. The life of the average Chinese prostitute was brutal and short. Most died of the harsh treatment within five years. The little girls were sold for household servants called Mui Tsai's. Mui Tsai's were often burdened with heavy labor and endured severe physical punishments. As they got older, they were frequently sold into prostitution as well. The Mui Tsai's and prostitutes were the main target of the Presbyterian Mission Home's efforts, though girls of good family were also sent to the Home to receive an education.

Once at the home, an untrained and naive Donaldina learned the art of rescuing girls. Rescues were often secret nighttime raids conducted with axe and sledgehammer wielding policemen. Donaldina quickly became a master at finding girls that had been hidden under trap doors and behind false walls. She also became adept at protecting already rescued girls from writs of habeas corpus, a legally sanctioned ploy wherein slave owners would accuse a girl of a crime and have her removed from the Mission Home. Once a girl was so removed, she was rarely heard from again. Members of the fighting Tongs, many of whom were slave owners, did not take the loss of their property lightly. Slaves were valuable property, many fetching prices in the thousands of dollars. The Mission Home and its inhabitants were under constant legal and physical assault from the slave owners.

In 1896, Donaldina decided to stay on at the Mission Home to help the crusading superintendent, Margaret Culbertson, whose health was failing. By 1897, Margaret Culbertson had died, reputedly from the toll the job had taken on her. In response to her loss and increased responsibilities, Donaldina suffered a breakdown, but refused to stop her work at the Home. In 1900, Donaldina became superintendent of the Home. In those early years, she also acquired two other titles, which were to stick with her for her lifetime. The angry Tongs called her Fahn Quai, which means foreign devil or white devil. The girls she rescued called her affectionately, Lo Mo, or old mother.

In April 1906, the great San Francisco earthquake and fire forced Donaldina and her girls out of the Mission Home. Realizing that her girl's records had been left behind, Donaldina braved the oncoming fire and military police to retrieve the records that gave her guardianship rights. While the records were saved the Mission Home itself was destroyed, one of many buildings dynamited to try to stop the spreading fire. In 1908, the Home was rebuilt and still stands today. [1]

In addition to her work at the Mission Home, Donaldina was instrumental in establishing the Ming Quong Home for Chinese girls and the Chung Mei Home for Chinese boys.

Donaldina continued to fight for the freedom of Chinese girls and women in the courts, at the podium, and to perform rescues in towns across the country until her retirement in 1934. While she was by no means a lone force, Donaldina Cameron is credited with breaking the back of the Chinese slave trade in the U.S., and the rescue and education of nearly 3,000 girls. In 1942, the old Mission Home at 920 Sacramento Street was renamed "Donaldina Cameron House", in her honor.

[sam]

There's a story told by Carolyn gage in her inspiring book Like There's No Tomorrow: Meditations for Women Leaving Patriarchy (get this book!) about Donaldina Cameron.

Donaldina was invited to the White House to meet the president and on the eve of their meeting she heard that a Chinese girl was enslaved in a nearby brothel. She had to make a choice between rescuing that girl and meeting the president. She chose to sneak into the brothel and carry the drugged-up, limp body of the girl child out of the rape room where she was kept, missing her meeting with the president.