Prostitution, Modernity, and the Making of the Cuban Republic (1840–1920) by Tiffany Sippial (review)

Prostitution, Modernity, and the Making of the Cuban Republic is a cutting-edge account of a previously unstudied topic in Cuban history. Tiffany Sippial demonstrates that the state regulation of the lives of prostitutes was a negotiated process in which the women themselves exerted considerable agency. Much more than being the first in-depth study of prostitution in Cuba, the book explores the ways national debates over prostitution refracted prevailing anxieties about nationality, modernity, and citizenship in Cuba during a period of intense growth and transformation. This represents a welcome departure from the conventional studies on the topic that conflate a history of prostitution with an account of its state regulation.

The first three chapters of the book provide a richly textured account of the everyday experiences and actions of working women against the backdrop of a much-needed legal, institutional, and intellectual history of the evolution of perspectives on and state regulation of prostitution. Sippial effortlessly interweaves discussions of gender and prostitute agency with narratives of racial and class struggle. On one notable occasion, Sippial even explores debates about the presumed sexual deviance of foreign-born males, bringing in discussions of sexuality that have rarely entered mainstream historical studies of Cuba during this period (92–94). Her ability to craft such an intricate and nuanced narrative bridging regulation and contestation while also foregrounding individual experiences from such diverse and original primary sources constitutes one of the greatest strengths of this study.

The author's careful attention to the shifting social geography and evolving moral landscape of Havana also sets this book apart from most previous studies of Cuba during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While this focus is particularly salient in chapter 1, Sippial demonstrates throughout the book that even though state officials attempted to segregate prostitutes from the supposed "moral zones" of the city by secluding them to the most marginal spaces, the women actively resisted this policy. The zones of vice became increasingly central as the population of Havana expanded rapidly over the second half of the nineteenth century. The shifting state policies toward prostitution—from prohibition to tolerance to regulation and eventually to deregulation—responded to these shifting geographical boundaries of vice and the refusal of prostitutes to surrender their coveted central residences as the urbanized portions of the city expanded.

Given this conscientious attention to issues of space, the almost exclusive emphasis placed on Havana curiously is left unexplained. Even though the title of the book implies an islandwide or at least representative case study approach, only two explicit references to provinces outside of Havana appear, the lengthiest of which details the ways Havana bureaucrats attempted to dictate provincial prostitution regulation (72–75, 142, 144). This Havana-centric approach, though likely indicative of the resources most readily available in the Cuban National Archives, does not necessarily reflect with accuracy the development of the institution in the provinces. There is evidence that Cienfuegos officials, for example, began to mandate the seclusion of prostitutes only during the first American military occupation, while this process began nearly two decades earlier in Havana. Given the importance the author assigns to the specific historical period for understanding the relevance of prostitution regulation to broader issues (14), this chronological discrepancy is worth some attention in future work.

The author's proclaimed intention of writing a "gendered history of Cuba's transition from a colony to a republic" (4) also deserves comment. This is certainly a worthwhile endeavor, and one that is severely lacking in the historiography of Cuba. Nevertheless, the central narrative is less concerned with unpacking gender issues than with examining visions of nationality and modernity among diverse segments of the Cuban population. A gendered history of Cuba necessarily would have to interrogate the ways that ideas about femininity—and masculinity, to be certain—shaped dialogues and experiences of prostitution. Her discussion of the slain early twentieth-century pimp Alberto Yarini was a missed opportunity...