Selling Sex in the Silver Valley: A Business Doing Pleasure

by Dr. Heather Branstetter

Overview

Once the largest silver producer in the world, Wallace became notorious for labor uprisings, hard drinking, gambling and prostitution. As late as 1991, illegal brothels openly flourished because locals believed that sex work prevented rape and bolstered the economy, so long as it was regulated and confined to a particular area of town. The madams enjoyed unprecedented status as influential businesswomen, community leaders and philanthropists, while elsewhere a growing aversion to the sex trade drove red-light districts underground. Dr. Heather Branstetter's research features previously unpublished archival materials and oral histories as she relates the intimate details of this unlikely story.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781467136563
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	05/15/2017
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

A Silver Valley native, Heather Branstetter graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English and philosophy from the University of Idaho before completing a PhD in rhetoric, writing and cultural studies at the University of North Carolina. She taught at the University of Idaho, the University of North Carolina and Wake Forest University and was assistant professor of rhetoric and writing at the Virginia Military Institute. Dr. Branstetter now lives in Wallace, Idaho, where she is executive director of the Historic Wallace Preservation Society.

Table of Contents

Preface 7

Acknowledgments 9

Introduction 13

Part I "A Mining Town Needs Brothels": The Early Days

1 Milling Camp Lifestyle and the Politics of the Restricted District 25

2 Sex Trafficking Panic and the Effect of War 50

3 Prohibition, North Idaho's "Threefold Conspiracy" and Depression 65

Part II Sex Work in Wallace During and After World War II

4 The Madam Next Door 81

5 Firsthand Written Accounts and Regulation 105

Part III Oral Histories

6 1945-1973 137

7 1973-1991 162

8 End of an Era 195

Notes 203

Bibliography 213

Index 221

About the Author 223