City of Eros Book

This book is a fascinating social history of prostitution in New York City in the 19th century. It deals with all aspects of prostitution, from its geography (it was EVERYWHERE, but especially around Broadway), to its economy (madams were among the richest members of New York society and prostitution may have been the city's largest industry behind saloons), to those who were forever trying to end it (both working-class rioters angry at the prostitutes' "easy-living" and Comstockian moral reformers who used vigilante methods as well as the law to close brothels down).

The book also veers into areas like pornography (an early 1839 description of local brothels was called "Prostitution Exposed," and was written by "Butt Ender") to personal ads (which began appearing in the 1820s). And it traces the gradual evolution of prostitution throughout the century, from early streetwalkers and saloon girls, through the brothel phase (1830s-1870s), to the concert saloon era to the eventual rise of tenement house call-girls.

What is perhaps most interesting though is the ubiquity of prostitution throughout the era. Walt Whitman claimed that almost every young man in NYC visited a prostitute at some point, and that seems plausible when estimates put the number of prostitutes at something like 5 to 10% of the adult female population. And many of them could go through literally hundreds of men in a day.

What finally helped reduce prostitution's grasp on the city were earlier marriages, more open sexual mores among young unwed women, and the increasing stringency of the laws against open brothels and streetwalkers. Prostitution stuck around, but it was not such a universal or openly acknowledged thing.