Listen free for 30 days
-
Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls
- Prostitution in Colorado, 1860-1930
- Narrated by: Laura Jennings
- Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $26.82
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's Summary
Prostitution thrived in pioneer Colorado. Mining was the principal occupation and men outnumbered women more than twenty to one. Jan MacKell provides a detailed overview of the business between 1860 and 1930, focusing her research on the mining towns of Cripple Creek, Salida, Colorado City, and similar boomtown communities. She used census data, Sanborn maps, city directories, property records, marriage records, and court records to document and trace the movements of the women over the course of their careers, uncovering work histories, medical problems, and numerous relocations from town to town. She traces many to their graves, through years filled with abuse, disease, narcotics, and violence.
The book is published by University of New Mexico Press.
What the critics say
More from the same
What listeners say about Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2019-11-11
Lacks context and has a bad narrator
This book has a fascinating subject matter, but fails to deliver in several significant respects. Its biggest problems are poor narration, bad writing and lack of context. The first several chapters read like a dry summary of archival research. This might be academically useful, but it is extremely dull listening. There are only so many times you can listen to a list of girls registered as employees for such and such a madam, before you just have to throw up your hands in frustration. The breathless narration doesn't help either, and these chapters emerge as an odd jumble of facts with little apparent connection or meaning. While the later chapters pick up in interest - the discussion of the town of Ramona is particularly interesting, the book never shakes its larger problems.
Mackell, is extremely detailed, but doesn't fit those details into a coherent narrative. Here are a couple examples to illustrate what I mean:
1. Mackell talks about prostitutes following mining boom towns, but she never gives an overview of the state's economy.
2. Several of the stories she tells discusses laudanum, but she does not talk about how opiate used in context.
3. Her most interesting chapters follow the the conflict between the red light districts and groups like the Women's Christian Temperance Union, but she doesn't write about these groups in their own right.
Ultimately, I gave this book 2 stars rather than one or zero, because many of the stories were interesting and humanizing and because the description of the decline of the red light districts was sadly compelling.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!