Table of Contents

Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Public Women of Minneapolis

1. Women’s Work of all Kinds: Paid Labor, Sex Work, and the Reform Movement

2. The War on the Madams: Purity Crusades and Liquor Patrols

3. Red Lights Along the Riverfront: The Madams Make their Move

4. Reforming the City: Doc Ames, “White Slavery”, and the End of an Era

5. Vice Report: After the Bordellos Closed

Notes

Index

About the Author

Penny Petersen is a historical researcher and the author of Hiding in Plain Sight: Minneapolis' First Neighborhood.

Reviews

"An utterly engrossing, behind-the-bordello look at the collision between the Mill City’s commercial sex industry, civic corruption, and advocates for sexual purity in the 1800s, Minneapolis Madams is always empathic, never prurient, but often shocking. Historian Penny Petersen probes the nineteenth-century ecosystem of brothels and streetwalkers with a keen eye for political hypocrisy, sexual double standards, racial prejudice, and gender-driven economics. A gem of sexual and social history, this book illuminates the boudoirs of the long-forgotten red-light districts with insight, wit, and humanity." —Paul Maccabee, author of John Dillinger Slept Here: A Crooks’ Tour of Crime and Corruption in St. Paul