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Prostitution in the 20th century in the United States
The history of prostitution 1858
The history of prostitution 1858
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Chinese Prostitutes in the 1900s
In California, between 1850’s to the Chinese Exclusion Act, most of the Chinese women who came to San Francisco were either slaves or indentured. They were often lured, kidnapped or purchased and forced to work as prostitutes at the brothels which is run by secret society of the Tongs of San Francisco. Chinese prostitutes also were smuggled and had worked at the Chinatown brothels in the Comstock Mines in Nevada. Chinese prostitutes were commonly known as prostitutes of the lowest order. “Both outcast slatterns and Asian slaves stood at the edge of the irregular marketplace, far more socially stigmatized than ordinary prostitutes.”
The demand for Chinese prostitutes in California was primarily due to the shortage of Chinese women and the prohibitions and taboo against sexual relations between Chinese men and White women. During the period of unrestricted Asian immigration from 1850 to 1882, more than 100,000 Chinese men but only 8,848 Chinese women entered the United States. The incredible sex ratio and the isolation of Chinese men from white communities generated nearly ideal demand conditions for prostitution, but white prostitutes rarely accepted Chinese customers. The same merchants and members of protective associations who had arranged passages and jobs for male sojourners leaped into the breath, supplying Chinese prostitutes to their own immense profit. These secret Chinese Tongs based in San Francisco controlled Asian prostitution in San Francisco and in the mining towns such as Comstock, Nevada. The Hip Yee Tong, the secret society that reportedly started the prostitution trafficking in 1852. “These organizations, the tongs, soon monopolized the control of vice—prosti...
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... New York, NY: Van Rees Press.
2. Goldman, Marion. 1981. Gold Diggers and Silver Miners.. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.
3. Hirata, Lucie Chen. 1979. “Chinese Immigrant Women in Nineteenth-Century California.” In Women of America. Ed. C.R. Berkin and M.B. Norton. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin Co.
4. Lee, Robert G. 1999. Orientals: Asian American in Popular Culture. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
5. MacLeod, Alexander. 1948. Pigtails and Gold Dust. Caldwell, ID: Caxton Printers.
6. McCunn, Ruthanne Lum. 1988. Chinese American Portraits: Person Histories 1828-1988. Vancouver, B.C.: Raincoast Books.
7. Melendy, Brett H. 1972. The Oriental Americans. New York, NY: Twayne Publishers, Inc.
8. Yung, Judy. 1986. Chinese Women of America: A Pictorial History. Seattle. WA: University of Washington Press.
James, Edward, Janet James, and Paul Boyer. Notable American Women, 1607-1950. Volume III: P-Z. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1971. Print.
The first Chinese immigrants to arrive in America came in the early 1800s. Chinese sailors visited New York City in the 1830s (“The Chinese Experience”); others came as servants to Europeans (“Chinese Americans”). However, these immigrants were few in number, and usually didn’t even st...
This nation was relatively stable in the eyes of immigrants though under constant political and economic change. Immigration soon became an outlet by which this nation could thrive yet there was difficulty in the task on conformity. Ethnic groups including Mexicans and Chinese were judged by notions of race, cultural adaptations and neighborhood. Mary Lui’s “The Chinatown Trunk Mystery” and Michael Innis-Jimenez’s “Steel Barrio”, provides a basis by which one may trace the importance of a neighborhood in the immigrant experience explaining the way in which neighborhoods were created, how these lines were crossed and notions of race factored into separating these
He, Qiang Shan. "Chinese-American Literature." New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage. Ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling. WEstport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996. 44-65.
Barth, Gunter Paul in his book "Bitter Strength: A History of the Chinese in the United States, 1850-1870" depicts the life of Chinese immigrants during the periods of 1850-1870. Barth portrays the experience that the Chinese went through at the Pearl River delta in China to get to the United States and there arrival here in California.
As many women took on a domestic role during this era, by the turn of the century women were certainly not strangers to the work force. As the developing American nation altered the lives of its citizens, both men and women found themselves struggling economically and migrated into cities to find work in the emerging industrialized labor movement . Ho...
。Li Xiaobing, Sun Yi, Li Xiaoxiao, Chinese in America: from History to Present, Sichuan People's Press, Sichuan, 2003
California was becoming known for its entrepreneurial opportunities; soon many were coming to California, not to work in the mining filed, rather to set up business and cater to the mining communities. Soon there were saloons, hotels, and red light districts spread throughout San Francisco and outer mining communities. Women who were forced to rely on men to support them back home, came to California and were able to work and support themselves in these towns.
Liping Zhu shares the dramatic story of the Denver Riot which led to the Chinese Exclusion act in his book The Road to Chinese Exclusion. Zhu illuminates this time of anti-Chinese society in the United States with a large pull for nativism. The way in which Zhu writes about this riot and the consequences that followed shed light on just how anti-Chinese Americans were at the time. Before this time, Asian immigrants were untrusted but never to this extreme. Over time as more and more Asian, specifically Chinese, immigrants arrived the American society felt as though they were being outnumbered in the labor work force.
Cao, Lan, and Himilce Novas. Everything you need to know about Asian American history. New York: Plume, 1996. Print.
Rohrbough, M. (1997). Chapter 17: The California gold rush and the American nation, days of Gold, University of California Press: Berkeley
Hymowitz, Carol, and Michaele Weissman. A History of Women in America. New York: Bantam, 1978. Print.
California society, and people as individuals, could not decide whether they relished their newfound freedom or despised it. Some people attempted to recreate the lives they knew at home, while many others threw off the shackles of their old proper lives. Victorian culture emerged in the 1820’s and 1830’s in America. At 1850, the time of the Gold Rush, it was at it’s high point. Anyone who came to California from the states, no matter what their position, would have come from a place influenced by the Victorian way of life. This included strict ideas about the roles of men and women, taboos on drinking and gambling, high value set on hard work, Christian ethics, and ethnic prejudices.2 People who came to California experienced something quite different.
Schneider, Dorothy. American Women in the Progressive Era 1900-1920. New York: Facts on File, 1993.
"The Painted Cohorts": selected readings on nineteenth-century prostitution from Stephen Crane, Maggie: A Girl of the Streets, ed. Kevin J. Hayes (New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 1999).