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  • Colorado Madams by Michael Rutter book cover
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Colorado Madams

by Michael Rutter

Women and opportunity in Gold Rush Colorado

$17.07 USD
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AlbakiReads Editorial

Women and opportunity in Gold Rush Colorado

Set against the 1858 Colorado Gold Rush, Michael Rutter’s account examines women who built livelihoods in the sex trade as miners, merchants, and railroad workers arrived in search of fortune. Its portraits include Denver parlor-house owner Verona Baldwin and Trinidad’s Mae Phelps, whose work extended to health care for working women and a rest home for retired prostitutes. The book places these individual stories within the social world of early Colorado, using historical context and photographs to complicate familiar Western lore about madams and their lives.

Good fit for readers who enjoy

  • Readers interested in the social history of prostitution and the sex trade in the American West.
  • Readers seeking accounts of women’s lives and work during the Colorado Gold Rush.
  • Readers who value historical photographs alongside biographical portraits.

Themes

Women’s economic livesProstitution and the sex tradeColorado Gold RushSocial history of the American WestCare and community among working women

Based on publisher information and book metadata.

Book overview

In 1858 the Colorado Gold Rush drew more than 100,000 fortune seekers. Among them were enterprising women seeking their own motherlode--riches dug straight from the pockets of miners, merchants, railroad workers, and any other man with money to burn. The madams of early Colorado were complex-- and far more brazen--than conventional western lore might lead you to believe. In Colorado Madams, meet Ada Lamont, a preacher's widow turned prostitute, perhaps the first woman to advertise her wares on Cherry Creek, Verona Baldwin, scandalized by one of the wealthiest men in California, only to turn her shame into fame as the owner of the most exclusive parlor house in Denver, Laura Evens, who once attended a costume ball dressed as a nun, and Trinidad's savvy Mae Phelps, a leader in offering health care to working girls and a founder of a rest home for retired prostitutes. The stories of these women come alive with voluptuous detail, authentic photographs, and historical context.
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