The Underworld Sewer

For twenty years Josie Washburn lived and worked in houses of prostitution. She spent the last twelve as the madam of a moderately fancy brothel in Lincoln, Nebraska. After retiring in 1907 and moving to Omaha, she turned to "throwing a searchlight on the underworld," including the "cribs" of Nebraska's largest city.The Underworld Sewer, based on her own experience in the profession, blazes with a kind of honesty unavailable to more conventional moral reformers. Originally published in 1909,The Underworld Sewerasks why "the social evil" is universally considered necessary or inevitable. Washburn minces no words in exposing the conditions that perpetuate prostitution: the greed and graft of landlords, pimps, alcohol vendors, dope dealers, police officers, city administrators, and politicians; the competition for circulation by sensation-seeking newspapers; the indifference or intolerance of law-abiding, church-going citizens; the false modesty that prevents family discussion of venereal disease; the double standard that allows men to indulge their sexuality but punishes women who do so. This knowing social history and commentary on human nature is transfixing. Through her strong words, Josie Washburn, a shrewd businesswoman, was determined to end the social evil by giving a voice to its victimsmainly the women who sold their bodies and who had reason to hate the buyers.

Sharon Wood is an assistant professor of history at the University of Chicago.