Minneapolis Madams: The Lost History of Prostitution on the Riverfront by Penny A. Peterson (review)

Kudos to Penny A. Petersen for writing a highly readable, engaging, accessible, and – above all – balanced account of turn-of-the-20th century Minneapolis’ urban development and history. How does she accomplish this? By not only including accounts of the usual suspects – civic officials, politicians, and prominent members of the “better” classes – but also by exploring in great detail the tribulations and trials (literally and figuratively) of the city’s leading madams. Using their experiences as a lens through which to view Minneapolis’ late 19th and early 20th-century development, Petersen decentres and destabilizes understandings of urban history.

The book is a product of over a decade of research. Petersen consulted and interpreted a vast of array of sources including newspapers, property records, maps, city directories, estate records, police and court files, prison records, and social purity organizations files. The source base is rich and diverse; from it, Petersen is able to reconstruct a colourful and detailed recounting of this important period of Minneapolis history.

The book proceeds chronologically. Its introduction, “The Public Women of Minneapolis,” offers a concise overview of the book’s period of focus, situating these women’s history squarely at the centre of the civic growth narrative. It also introduces other key players – politicians, captains of industry, workers, and social reformers – positioning their priorities and actions in relation to the budding sex trade. Chapter 1, “Women’s Work of All Kinds,” delves into financial opportunities for women, noting the challenges and limitations of “respectable” paid labour, the appeal sex work could hold, and the rise of brothel culture in 1870s Minneapolis. She concludes with a consideration of the motivations and efforts of reform organizations, detailing in particular the rise of the Sisters of Bethany and their efforts at “rescue” of “fallen” women. In Chapter 2, “The War on the Madams,” Petersen explores the backfiring social purity campaign that ultimately created what she describes as “a moral geography that would concentrate the sex districts and define a large section of the riverfront for decades to come.” (54) Chapter 3, “Red Lights on the Riverfront,” delves more deeply into the resulting making and re-making of the city’s “red light” districts, underscoring the individual and collective power several local madams enjoyed. The series of events that led to the end of tolerated prostitution is detailed in Chapter 4, “Reforming the City.” Chapter 5, “Vice Report,” speaks to the ensuing fallout, exploring the much-debated results of a vice commission struck in 1910 to investigate the city’s sex trade past. This final chapter also highlights a number of the madams’ responses to their changed business circumstances. Some retired or repurposed their bordellos into boarding houses; others continued in one form or another in the sex trade. Petersen closes Minneapolis Madams – rightly – with a call for these women’s public historical recognition, alongside that of the already noted and celebrated Minneapolis urban boosters and reformers.

If a shortcoming must be noted, then it would be the dearth of commentary on those who worked for these madams. Largely left out are those who performed the sexual and other labour on which the madam’s fortunes rested: the inmates, housekeepers, house “boys,” and others. In this way, Minneapolis Madams functions as a history of elites. To ascribe this to Petersen, however, is probably unfair, given the likely dearth of sources. As historians of folk like sex workers and others who existed on the margins know, it can be a challenge to locate records to inform the telling of their stories. Often impossible to come by, when available, they are rarely the creations of these individuals themselves but rather of those who sought to regulate, contain, reform, or exploit them, which can limit these sources’ usefulness.

All in all, Petersen has succeeded in writing a significant book, one that is both entertaining and informative. By framing Minneapolis’ past through the experiences of a particular socially marginalized – albeit...