Notes
Notes Notes to Introduction 1. The names of the clubs are pseudonyms to protect the identity of the interviewees. 2. See the appendix for more detail regarding interview subjects. Notes to Chapter 1 1. Timothy Gilfoyle (1992) also examines the problematic situation of gender roles for women without a male escort within the public sphere and their association with prostitution. 2. Swedish singer Jenny Lind was one of the first women to appear on stage in the 1850s, representing female moral standing as an attempt to combine art, women, and middle-class values within the theater (Allen, 1992). 3. According to Allen (1992) this form of performance also was associated with the working classes and an indicator that women performing on stage was moving from the previous association of the middle class to the lower classes with the introduction of the nude female form. 4. In the play, Menken rides a horse while wearing a pink body stocking and tunic, marking her as a subversive performer pushing the moral boundaries. 5. Allen does not indicate if the Blacks who attended the theater were all men or if women also were in attendance. 6. A waiter girl was a woman who sold alcoholic beverages in what was considered short dresses (Allen, 1991; see also Delany, 1999). 7. This is seen in the performances of comedian William Mitchell who staged burlesque shows and “delighted his mostly working-class audience with send-ups of whatever their “betters” found fashionable in literature or the theater” (Allen, 1991, p. 102). 8. There also were performances centered on blackface femininity, involving men playing lower-class wench roles, or portraying refined mulattoes who sang of romantic love (Allen, 1991). It is interesting to note the association between mixedrace femininity and sexual/romantic desire. See also Jayna Brown’s Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Modern Body (Duke University Press, 2008). 107 9. During this time, there also was a rise in commercial sex districts within urban areas. 10. Elizabeth Bernstein (2007) in her book, Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity , and the Commerce of Sex, argues that during this period many sexual services were available for purchase in urban centers, especially for bourgeois men. She avers that these services included “diverse forms of prostitution as well as erotic masked balls, private modeling shows, and pornography” (p. 171). 11. The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of theatrical productions that ran on Broadway in New York from 1907 to 1931 and were inspired by Folies Bergères of Paris (Allen, 1992). 12. According to Allen, during economic hardship, “high-class” venues find it harder to attract audiences because of high admission rates; vis-à-vis “lower-class” forms of entertainment. This was the case with burlesque during the Depression. The Minsky brothers of New York named the art “striptease” and featured performer Gypsy Rose Lee, who helped popularize burlesque during this time (Frank, 2002; see also Friedman, 2000). 13. The image of strip clubs as seedy is illustrated in the 2007 film, Planet Terror, produced and written by Robert Rodriguez. Notes to Chapter 2 1. Information is from the 2004 U.S. Census Bureau. 2. Jill Jonnes makes a distinction in her book, South Bronx Rising about the various types of Jewish people who moved to New York during this time. According to Jonnes, the German Jews had a longer history of being established in New York than did Russian and Polish Jews, were horrified at the conditions and poverty of the eastern European Jews, and felt culturally obligated to help them out economically (Jonnes, 2002). 3. Jonnes acknowledges that Blacks have always been in New York, from the time of slavery and the Harlem Renaissance, but now in larger numbers. 4. White U.S. veterans were able to take advantage of the GI Bill and enrolled in the CUNY system, and moved to predominately White suburbs, thus taking resources with them. 5. See Ruth Frankenberg (1993) for more on race and social geography. 6. In the 1996 documentary, Hookers at the Point by Brent Owens, this aspect of street prostitution in the South Bronx is explored. See also Kevin Mumford (1997). 7. See also cultural anthropologist, Katherine Frank (2002), who discusses the role of club ranking in Laurelton by customers, and racial geography: Though not explicitly stated, there seemed to be an implicit assumption among the customers that an upscale club was also primarily white. Strip clubs are frequently spoken of in Laurelton as being black or white, as are...
OR
Buy This Book in Print