Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2026

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

History

Advisor

Kathleen McCarthy

Committee Members

Julia Sneeringer

Thomas Kessner

Hasia Diner

Timothy Gilfoyle

Subject Categories

History of Gender | Labor History | Other American Studies | Social History | United States History | Women's History | Women's Studies

Keywords

Sex Work, New York City, sexuality, entrepreneurship, sales, popular culture

Abstract

This project centers the experiences of women who sold sex in the pleasure and leisure economies in New York in the early twentieth century. It explores the impact these women had on the urban landscape, the social and business networks they created, and their influence as active economic and sexual agents. Using civilian investigators’ reports from spaces of sexual exchange, alcohol consumption, and leisure, the project looks at the ways these women created sexual experiences for their customers, fostered community among themselves and other working-class people, and enjoyed the entertainment in these locations. In particular, “Her Person and Body” argues that women who sold sex utilized sales tactics that varied based on the space where they worked and their clientele. It visits the streets and tenements of New York to see how the sale of sex impacted the experiences of working-class New Yorkers who did not participate in the sexual marketplace, and enters the saloons and theaters to interrogate the ways sex workers shaped those spaces and the sexual atmosphere in them. While women who sold sex were in many ways institutionally marginalized, they still had social, cultural, and economic influence on the urban landscape. This work centralizes that impact to demonstrate a richer understanding of working-class life at the threshold of the twentieth century.

Download

This work is embargoed and will be available for download on Saturday, September 30, 2028

Share

COinS