The Historical Archaeology of Brothels

Lynn Robinson

Date of Award

2003

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelors

Department

Social Sciences

First Advisor

Baram, Uzi

Keywords

Historical, Archaeology, Prostitution

Area of Concentration

Anthropology

Abstract

Excavation, material culture studies, and examination of the historical record give a fuller understanding of the lives of prostitutes. I focused on one upper status brothel in Washington D.C., Mary Ann Hall's brothel. High status material remains, such as champagne bottle fragments indicate that the brothel was catering to the high-class clientele it served. The next chapter focused on mid status brothels in Hooker's Division, Washington, D. C. The material remains from these Washington, D.C. sites indicate that prostitution allowed women to earn a higher wage than their working class counterparts providing themselves and their children luxuries and higher quality goods that many families in the neighborhood could not afford. The study of settlement patterns of prostitutes on the westem frontier illustrates the extent of variation of brothel type. This study revealed that not only class must be considered in the interpretation of these sites, but ethnicity as well.

Rights

This bibliographic record is available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication. The New College of Florida, as creator of this bibliographic record, has waived all rights to it worldwide under copyright law, including all related and neighboring rights, to the extent allowed by law.

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