Selling Sex in the Silver Valley

by Dr. Heather Branstetter

  Brown Manufacturing Company and the American Social Hygiene Association teamed up with the War Department to distribute propaganda meant to educate potential soldiers about the dangers of succumbing to the temptations of women of ill repute. But the bigger-picture strategy was more complex and paternalistic: federal authorities targeted restricted districts and the women within them by rallying employers and community members as the enforcers, calling on everyone to do their part to “protect” the soldiers from these women, who were framed as morally degenerate and disease-ridden. Federal officials discussed women who worked in red-light districts as though they were pests on par with mosquitoes, spreading contagion wherever they were found. This “war on prostitution” was more of an ideological battle than it was a matter of sniffing out and arresting offenders. As one government authority put it: “To drain a red-light district and destroy thereby a breeding place of syphilis and gonorrhea is as logical as it is to drain a swamp and destroy thereby a breeding place of malaria and yellow fever.”105 If soldiers were infected with venereal diseases, the rhetoric went, they would not be “fit to fight,” which was the slogan that the military pushed as it advocated the closure of brothels across the nation. Such language invoked old stereotypes of women’s bodies as mysterious and dank incubators capable of unleashing disease and destruction. One pamphlet, Keeping Fit to Fight, warned:

  Young men boarding a train to go to Camp Lewis, Washington, during World War I. This photo was taken from the Idaho Building on the corner of Seventh and Cedar Streets, looking east. Barnard-Stockbridge Collection, University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives.

  A venereal disease contracted after deliberate exposure through intercourse with a prostitute is as much of a disgrace as showing the white feather.

  A soldier in the hospital with venereal disease is a slacker.

  His medicine and care cost money that could be otherwise used to win the war.

  He has lost the self-respect which is the backbone of every true soldier.

  If you go with a prostitute, you endanger your country because you risk your health, and perhaps your life. You lessen the man-power of your company and throw extra burdens on your comrades. You are a moral shirker.

  WOMEN WHO SOLICIT SOLDIERS FOR IMMORAL PURPOSES ARE USUALLY DISEASE SPREADERS AND FRIENDS OF THE ENEMY.

  No matter how thirsty or hungry you were, you wouldn’t eat or drink anything that you knew in advance would weaken your vitality, poison your blood, cripple your limbs, rot your flesh, blind you, and destroy your brain. Then why take the same chance with a prostitute?

  The War Department sent these materials to regional places of employment in order to “attack the problem through industrial channels—reach the men before they are called,” distributing pamphlets, posters, lecture notes and pay stub enclosures that warned against the dangers of disease. As they explained, “There is no magic formula, which, when adopted, will insure a morally clean city. There is no royal road to cleanliness any more than there is to learning. Eternal vigilance is just as much the price of municipal cleanliness as it is of liberty.”106

  The pamphlets and flyers repeatedly claimed that 70 to 90 percent of “professional prostitutes” were infected with gonorrhea or syphilis “all the time.” Keeping Fit to Fight urged, “That kind of girl is likely to lie,” so the soldiers were instructed to “just remember this—all loose women are dirty. Therefore, any man who joins his body with the body of a prostitute or loose girl runs the risk of catching one of these terrible diseases.” Your Job and Your Future advises all men to prevent the spread of syphilis and gonorrheal “germs” in the following way: “You’ve got to keep away from the kind of women who are willing to ‘give you a good time,’ whether they want money for it or not. Don’t forget it: Keep away from prostitutes, whores, hookers, chippies and so-called ‘private snaps.’” Employers near military training camps were asked to help fight businesses profiting from vice interests. These pamphlets included instructions for leading educational workshops, instructional syllabus and tips for teaching. One War Department propaganda poster features huge red letters, announcing, “BEWARE! Keep Away from Prostitutes,” associating venereal disease with prostitution, adding that 70 percent of all “loose women” have both clap and syphilis.107 The government expected employers to educate their workers and recruit friends and family members to the cause. These packets also contained model laws to be written into city ordinances, with templates leaving blanks for the town name, and license applications for proprietors from boardinghouses.

  Government anti-prostitution propaganda, 1917. Potlatch Forests Papers, University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives.

  “Beware Prostitutes” flier, 1917. Potlatch Forests Papers, University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives.

  The U.S. War Department targeted Wallace and surrounding area because of its proximity to the large military camps. On October 19, 1917, an article appeared in the Spokesman-Review reporting that the War Department had ordered the closure of the Wallace red-light district. The article associated the brothels with bootlegging and petty robbery, claiming that during the year, there had been one hundred or more women operating in the town. As evidence of the need for this closure, the reporter explained, “Married women have complained that their husbands were neglecting their families and squandering their money buying whiskey.”108 Despite the paper’s announcement, local operations continued, insulated by the decision in Wallace to regulate instead. The resilience of this decision is apparent in former mayor Moe Pellissier’s 2014 explanation: “If you shut down the upstairs, it just moves to the bars and the streets. You can regulate venereal diseases if you regulate prostitution.” The idea was not to legislate against behavior that would continue anyway in a riskier form.

  In reality, prostitution and the government—especially the military—have been interdependent throughout American history. Wallace’s sex industry faced this moment of existential crisis that closed many other red-light districts as city officials acknowledged the full extent to which their economic interest was invested in the brothels; symbiosis between the brothels and local government actually intensified after the War Department’s social and moral hygiene campaign. Rather than acquiesce to pressure, the town doubled down on prostitution. City officials struck a quiet compromise: for the first time in history, Wallace would officially require its sex workers to undergo health examinations, and this tradition of medical regulation would continue up until the closure of the houses. On September 10, the city council initiated a discussion about the “conditions in Alley A.”109 The actual discussion was not recorded, but considering the pressure exerted by the War Department with regard to concerns over venereal disease, it’s likely that a large part of the debate concerned the need for doctors to examine the working girls living in and operating out of the Alley. The madams probably didn’t attempt to oppose this regulation because they understood that the exams would help ensure the men’s continued patronage, despite the fear mongering.

  Knoxit tin, advertising a compound made locally, meant to treat sexually transmitted infections in the days before penicillin. Richard Asher Collection; photo by Heather Branstetter.

  From a social hygiene perspective, it does seem to be the case that venereal disease was quite rampant and a rather serious public health issue during this pre-penicillin era. The health exams also served another important social function—they helped to placate the concerns of local community members and they provided an improved image, which was needed in order to effectively counter the government’s public relations campaign, which would soon amplify, both in terms of scale and intensity. In the face of the War Department’s negative publicity campaign, the madams understood that the exams would help ensure the men’s continued patronage, and indeed, brothel managers would continue to emphasize cleanliness and medical regulation in both rhetoric and ritualized practice from this time onward.

  Josie Mor
in, pictured here in 1914. Barnard-Stockbridge Collection, University of Idaho Library Special Collections and Archives.

  By January 1918, amid declarations that the war against prostitution had been successful, the federal government acknowledged that simply closing down the red-light districts had not worked to eliminate prostitution. One official conceded, “I do not think we will ever absolutely eliminate the prostitute, but we do want to make it impossible for the prostitute to flaunt herself in the face of men on the streets when they are not thinking about her.”110 The War Department’s efforts did shut down the majority of restricted districts across the country. In Wallace, however, the campaign reinforced a convincing anti-reform argument: if prostitutes were not segregated and thus easy to identify, it would be impossible to enforce health regulations. It soon became clear that prostitution in the Silver Valley had not run its course. The approaching war ensured that mining activities would continue to flourish, which in turn ensured a large population of single men who would provide ongoing economic demand for women who would sell sex. Long-term mining camp communities like Wallace adopted a pragmatic acceptance of prostitution. Wallace residents would continue to prefer a decriminalized model rather than a prohibitionist stance so sex workers could be regulated rather than spread informally throughout residential areas, where sexually modest girls might be lured into the profession. As local historian John Amonson described it, “The community felt better leaving that particular element in that particular place rather than having it be pervasive all over.”111

  Madams and sex workers supported the war effort, too, despite the War Department’s anti-prostitution campaign. During World War I, for example, Josie Morin, madam of the U&I Rooms, donated $25 for a Red Cross fundraiser. That amount of money would be worth about $585 in contemporary currency. Mary White Gordon described the incident in her 2001 autobiographical narrative about growing up in Wallace:

  I rang the bell and a very nice lady asked me to come in. Her living room had pink shaded lights and a lot of shiny satin pillows, and she seemed very friendly and very pretty.... I told about my lucky afternoon at dinner that night, my father said he knew her. She was a very generous lady. She gave money and other helpful things when needed.... Jessie Moran, a very well known madam who had a booming business in Wallace and the Coeur d’Alenes definitely knew my father. He wasn’t ashamed of that and I doubt very much that he was one of her customers, but he had the Victorian belief that women shouldn’t know about those things—certainly not his sweet little daughter.112

  3

  Prohibition, North Idaho’s

  “Threefold Conspiracy ” and Depression

  During the Prohibition era, sex workers remained in the restricted district above the drinking establishments, which constructed fronts as pool halls or cigar shops, but some women also worked out of hotels and taxis. Most maintained alliances with liquor dealers, selling alcohol to their clients, and some women were bootleggers themselves. Several prominent madams were arrested in an event referred to as “the north Idaho whiskey rebellion,” when federal investigators arrested around two hundred Shoshone County residents in 1929 for bootleg liquor production, distribution, gambling and prostitution activities. We don’t know as much about the women who sold sex in the Silver Valley during the Great Depression, but oral histories reveal the trade continued until the Second World War, when the profession began to flourish again.

  PROHIBITION ERA

  Public opinion in Shoshone County wavered back and forth on the Prohibition issue, which also affected the townspeople’s perspective regarding the two major interests that remained intertwined with saloon culture: gambling and prostitution. Much of the rhetoric against prostitution focused on protecting families and innocent young girls as well as soldiers. New anxieties about gender had already begun to crop up as Americans began to worry about the entry of women into speakeasies and the resulting possibility that more women would be vulnerable to becoming prostitutes.113 Those in favor of reforms connected crime to underground liquor activities, prostitution, moral degradation and, ultimately, the demise of traditional families. Prohibition changed the traditional drinking patterns: before this time, it was uncommon to see women in drinking establishments. Any woman who drank in a saloon was assumed to be a prostitute or, at the very least, a “bad” woman, but during Prohibition, new social spaces created for drinking encouraged women to join the men at speakeasies.114 For moral traditionalists, increased freedom for women led to concerns about sexual promiscuity. Mothers worried their daughters would choose frivolity or prostitution instead of marriage and children while men were concerned about women invading formerly male-only venues.115

  TABLE 2: BROTHELS, LOCATIONS, AND PROPRIETORS 1917–1947

  In Idaho, Prohibition began when the state legislature voted to become officially dry on January 1, 1916, in a move that was received with some ambivalence in Shoshone County. As Barton put it the summary of his 1979 study interviewing old-timers in the area, “Many loggers and miners took their pleasures very seriously. The transcripts are loaded with stories about men in search of gambling, bootleg alcohol, and ladies of the night.”116 Prostitution was “entwined with other entertainments that were sacred to miners, which meant that any potential attack on prostitution could be construed as an attack on these other entertainments as well” and vice versa.117 Those who were in support of alcohol reform, on the other hand, praised the decision’s potential to increase worker efficiency and bring greater stability to family life. City leaders worried they would be unable to run the town if their revenues were seriously depleted. According to Donna Krulitz Smith, city officials in the Silver Valley began to face a dilemma as the mining camps grew into mature and long-term communities and business leaders recognized how an unruly wide-open town reputation could tarnish the kind of wholesome small-town image that attracts stable middle-class families.118 Could the town find a balance between economic interests and residents’ desires?

  In the wake of the new dry laws, which went into effect on January 1, 1916, many Wallace buildings remodeled in order to better facilitate continued liquor sales. Most of the saloons turned into “soft drink establishments” or “cigar stores,” while the Samuels and Sweets made plans to run as billiard parlors. Other bars called themselves confectionaries or fruit stands. The Press-Times reported on December 30, 1915, that R.A. Greer would be closing the Comet as a saloon but would open again the very next day as a “soft drink establishment and as a lobby for the rooming house on the second floor”—that is, liquor would be available downstairs and a brothel would continue upstairs. Even though the laws changed, old behavior would be tolerated locally as long as the liquor proprietors kept things quiet enough to evade potential state or federal enforcers. Each “soda shop” had a receiving area with a lookout and double doors blocking the visibility of the area inside, so if a federal agent walked in, the bouncer could push a button connected to a trapdoor that opened underneath the well liquor bottles, which would drop down to the basement, where they would crash and break.119 If anyone looked inside the bar, they wouldn’t find any alcohol, and if they went downstairs, they would only find broken glass and a wet floor. The bars had rooms in the back or partly upstairs where the gambling took place—not exactly out in the open, but not really hidden either. In the Club Bar below the Oasis brothel, for example, there was a small balcony area up a set of stairs, which is still visible in the northwestern corner of the Oasis Bordello Museum.120

  A map of Wallace brothels in 1927—the saloons are labeled more discreetly, with sex for sale in locations indicated by solid gray. Adapted from Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps.

  A sex worker named Bertha Lee was the first person arrested under the new Prohibition laws. She was arrested only two weeks after the laws went into effect, caught with a man and a partially filled flask of whiskey in a room above a former saloon at the corner of Sixth and Pine. According to the story reported in the Press-Times, Lee claimed that “some
man brought the liquor to her room and left it on the table. She told this story when she was first arrested and, if she has information regarding bootlegging, she is not giving it to the authorities.”121 The article’s title calls her a “Woman Bootlegger,” but she was also selling sex (as a man pretending to be Mr. Lee explained, without explicitly naming the woman’s profession).122 Donna Smith’s thesis detailing the north Idaho whiskey rebellion describes the situation for sex workers during Prohibition:

  Bawdy houses offered trays of drinks in the front parlors (some filled with tap water) for 25 cents a glass; if poured carefully, six glassfuls could be squeezed out of one bottle of beer. Prostitutes in cribs sold beer for a dollar a bottle, while paying the supplying saloon twenty-five cents. If, as in the early days of prohibition, finding a supplier proved difficult, other means could be found. Juanita Wilson, who admitted to planning to “lay over in Mullan until after the payday season,” was apprehended with a suitcase full of alcoholic beverages when she stepped off the train from Missoula. Prohibition simply added another risk for prostitutes already employed in a business fraught with pitfalls.123

  Gambling and alcohol distribution would remain interconnected with sex work. In November 1916, the Wallace Press-Times editorial page describes a “little clique [that] has subsisted among the gamblers, the liquor dealers, and the shame of the community [sex workers].”124 Women sold alcohol out of the rooms where they sold sex, and liquor dealers directed customers to their businesses accordingly. Wallace townspeople not directly invested in the underground operations had begun to speak out more openly, and by December 1916, the City of Wallace passed an ordinance making gambling illegal. This decision followed complaints from the wives of the town that “persistent carrying on of gambling” had been depriving them and their families of the “necessities of life” as “the husband’s income was lost over gambling tables.”125 The ordinance made sure to note that it was the women of the town who had been the driving force behind the ordinance, but the motivation was actually more nuanced: the wording also reflected the city’s desire to keep pace with reforms taking place across the nation. There was not really much opposition to the council’s decision. The mayor claimed to have consulted with the business owners, who were “willing to cooperate in bringing about the elimination of gambling,” in the interest of “the welfare of the community.”