Prostitution in Colorado, 1860-1930

Brothels, Bordellos, & Bad Girls by Jan MacKell

In Brothels, Bordellos, & Bad Girls: Prostitution in Colorado 1860-1930 by Jan MacKell, MacKell discusses prostitution in Colorado, just as the title suggests. Prostitution is a very interesting topic of research, for a wide variety of reasons. Frequently referred to as the world's oldest profession, prostitution is notable for the fact that it exists in some form in every society. However, because of sexual taboos that label prostitution as immoral, it has not been the focus of a significant amount of scholarly research. This is a shame because prostitution and how a society approaches prostitution can be very informative about that society's views of women, sexuality, sexual relationships. Moreover, this insight goes far beyond how prostitution is viewed within this context and illuminates the entire context, because how a society treats those who are generally considered lesser than other members of the society is far more informative of its view of women and sexuality than how the society treats upper-class women.

MacKell makes it clear that her purpose in writing about prostitutes is not to be exploitative. In the preface, she talks about wanting to right the wrongs that have been done to these women. She hints at the idea that life circumstances have frequently left women with few choices, so that prostitution may be the only possible alternative for financial survival. Her goal was to go beyond what is known about prostitutes, which is that they engaged in sexual activity for money, and look at their lives in a more in-depth manner. She wanted to understand what motivated them to join the profession, their pastimes, the social consequences that they faced, their interpersonal relationships, and other details that frequently get ignored when one views the prostitute label.

Her findings reveal a significant amount of detail about prostitution in Colorado from the first major gold rush through the 1920s. First, it revealed that, even though some of the major cities made significant efforts to outlaw prostitution, prostitution flourished, openly, throughout Colorado during this time period. In the 1880s and 1890s, open solicitation was legal. After that time, solicitation, outside of a brothel, was generally illegal, but there were a number of different ways that prostitutes continued to solicit their clients that obeyed the letter, if not the spirit, of the law. In addition, even if a town prohibited prostitution, the timely paying of any fines by the brothel would ensure that the business could continue without interference. Another revelation was the prostitution could be a very lucrative business. Until reading this book, it seemed inconceivable that a prostitute during that time period could actually retire after a few months of work if she worked in the right location and ran her business well. The age range of prostitutes was an interesting revelation as well; they ranged from 13 to 50, though most of them were around 21 years old (MacKell, 2004, p.6). Many prostitutes were hoping to either get married or become mistresses, and brothels actually promoted the idea of the women as courtesans rather than streetwalkers. They also revealed an interesting amount of organization by the madams, who sought to stay on the right side of the law, generally were protective towards the women working for them, and oftentimes acted as a surrogate mother for them. She also discusses the rate of Asian prostitutes, sold into prostitution before coming to America, which not only played a role in prostitution in Colorado but accompanied the gold rush throughout the West.

MacKell's major argument concerning prostitutes and prostitutes is that they were not actually bad women. She does not do anything to minimize the bad things that these women might have done, and drug abuse, alcohol abuse, abortion, assault, and murder were not uncommon among prostitutes. However, in many ways society has villainized the prostitute or made her a figure of caricature, which is something that MacKell stridently resists. She portrays them as human beings first, and members of their profession second, making it clear that, for many of these women, prostitution may have seemed like the only viable career option at times. In addition, she discusses some of the positive, socially constructive things that prostitutes brought to their locales, particularly in the developing West. In much of Colorado, the atmosphere was absolutely dominated by males, so that prostitutes might be the only female companionship a man could find.

MacKell ends her official coverage of prostitutes in 1930, although, throughout the book one finds references to brothels that continued to exist into the 1930s and 1940s. However, as prostitution became illegal throughout much of the state, the nature of prostitution changed. Women could no longer openly ply their trade in brothels. In 1909, Boulder's red-light district closed down for good, and after 1910, one saw the same thing occur in a number of Colorado towns (MacKell, 2004, p.233). In 1930, a prostitute named Anna Ryan killed a former police officer Maurice Lyons, which was another death knell for the trade. Therefore, while brothels continued to exist past 1930, the open practice of legal or semi-legal prostitution had virtually ceased by that time. As women were forced to go underground, the nature of their business changed. Whether those changes were positive or negative is a subject of debate, but the change meant that 1930 was a good, practical stopping point for MacKell's coverage.

MacKell's historical study fits the contemporary landscape of prostitution and the status of women in Colorado in the early twenty-first century by highlighting the role that women played during that time and providing a contrast between it and the role that women play in modern Colorado. Perhaps the first significant contribution to the status of women is the fact that there are so many prostitutes in the family trees of seemingly legitimate families. Over and over again, MacKell's book discusses historical prostitutes with family members who evidence no shame or embarrassment about the prostitutes in their histories. This reveals an important fact about the nature of prostitution during that historical time period; while prostitutes were not in any way accepted as part of mainstream society, they may not have suffered the same stigma that current prostitutes face. Instead of having no place in society, they had an established place in society. That place good vary on the establishment in which a girl worked and other factors, but a prostitute had a defined role in society. This could both constrain the girl, but it could also provide a certain level of protection for a prostitute, because she could seek legal and societal protection from the status of an insider, even if she was a much marginalized insider.