Victim of Seduction or Vicious Woman?: Conception of the Prostitute at the Philadelphia Magdalen Society, 1800-1850 (original) (raw)
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Seduction, Prostitution, and the Control of Female Desire in Popular Antebellum Fiction
Nineteenth-Century Literature, 2010
During the antebellum era, increased attention to the prostitute coincided with a prevalent conception of women as, in Nancy Cott's words, essentially "passionless" unless aroused by sincere romantic love. Yet it seems paradoxical that this ideology existed alongside an increasing awareness of women whose livelihood depended upon manufacturing and marketing sexual desire. In this essay I argue that the prostitute became an object of antebellum fascination and concern less because of her defiance of the ideology of passionlessness and more because of the extent to which she could be made to reinforce this ideology. Casting the prostitute as a victim of seduction preserved predominant beliefs about the dependency of female desire on male impetus. The popular novels of George Thompson and Osgood Bradbury elide the sexual autonomy of the prostitute by making her a victim of men, but they do so in different ways. Thompson employs two variants of the seduction narrative that differ according to class, but both result in the subjection of female desire to male control. His indigent females are chaste victims of violent forms of sexual exploitation, while his licentious rich women reveal an inherent tendency toward monogamy or an inability to command their own aberrant desires. Bradbury, in contrast, is remarkable for his willingness to allow fallen women and prostitutes the chance to reform. As refreshingly progressive as Bradbury's novels seem, however, his adherence to the seduction narrative ultimately suggests that female desire is doomed to dissatisfaction unless properly channeled toward working-class men.
The (Im)morality of the New Woman in the Early 20th Century
The (im)morality of the New Woman is scrutinized in this article. The question is why and how this outstanding female figure was born and what the reasons are behind her behavior and actions. It is studied in brief which social, political, ideological and conceptual changes helped this process to take place, like, for example, the feminist movement, the change in the place of women, the popular recognition of Freudianism or WWI. This all is presented through a major focus on the visual representations of the New Woman such as the Gibson Girl, the Christy Girl and many other magazine cover images. It is demonstrated how her evolution occurred and what the inner and outer attributes of her various images are. I point out that the incompatibility of the Victorian feminine ideal and the coexisting prostitution is a major cause behind the great change in women's sexual behavior at the beginning of the twentieth century and as soon as smaller changes take place releasing some tension, the avalanche cannot be stopped and the women start to do sports, go to college, start to work, dress more comfortably and do not deny the pleasures of life which was forbidden for them before. In Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), I trace all the elements and features of the flapper existence and present how this era and its prominent female figure functioned. _____________________________________________________________________ In my paper, I intend to examine and analyze the moral issues from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century, together with the emergence of the New Woman. My aim is to present how this process was manifested in the United States, what reasons were behind the birth of this new female figure and the great changes in morality. After the theoretical considerations, I will show in a brief example how all this was realized in Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967), in a film made about this eminent female personae.
Armstrong Undergraduate Journal of History, 2019
In the mid-to-late nineteenth century, the impoverished and vulnerable white sex worker was a ubiquitous figure in American fiction. Often portrayed as seduced and betrayed, this young woman could come from a lower-, working-, middle-, or upper-class background and almost always lived in an urban area. However, she also may have been a foreign-born naïf or innocent farm girl who only recently arrived in a bustling American city where she was easy prey for immoral men. The prostitute's most consistent characteristic in these stories, however, was her whiteness, which was strongly associated with notions of chastity, purity, and domesticityideals the prostitute directly violated with her immoral and overtly sexual behavior. 1 Male-authored novels written in the mid-to-late nineteenth century frequently denied female sexual desire and agency and adhered to themes of poverty and seduction. Karen J. Renner argues that the "prostitute became an object of antebellum fascination and concern less because of her defiance of the ideology of passionlessness and more because of the extent to 1 For background information about nineteenth-century sex work, see
Harlot or Heroine? Changing Views of Prostitution, 1870-1920
The Historian, 1980
B Y LESLIE FISHBEIN* HE persistence of prostitution in America troubled nineteenthcentury reformers who believed that the nation could rid itself of a corruption that had plagued Europe for centuries. Their faith in the ability of republican institutions and economic opportunity to cure social problems in the United States was sorely tested by the growing traffic in women.' In attacking prostitution, they were torn between two immediate goals: containing the social evil through regulation or eradicating it entirely. Although regulationists claimed that they favored the eventual elimination of the vice, they urged "realism" in managing it for the present. Believing that sexual intercourse was vital to men's mental and physical health, they viewed prostitution as a social requisite and argued that medical control alone would provide sufficient community protection. The noted criminologist Cesare Lombroso even claimed that prostitution reduced crime.* Hence, regulation, administered by police and by medical personnel, would safeguard both the prostitute and the public.3 This seemingly pragmatic approach to prostitution masked a number of conflicting assumptions. In examining the "Social Evil in Philadelphia," the Reverend Frank M. Goodchild noted the hypocrisy of the sanitarians in their scorn for the fallen woman: There are those who insist that the whole arrangement is necessary evil; that our daughters would not be safe on the streets but for these outlets *The author is Assistant Professor in the American Studies Department at Douglass College, Rutgers University. 'For a general discussion of this optimistic view of American institutions and affluence, see David J. Rothrnan, The Discovery ofthe Asylum: Social Order and &or& in the
The Myth of Rape in Eighteenth-Century Literature
World Journal of English Language, 2023
Rape as propaganda is the main focus of this study. Feminist scholars and activists have investigated rape in English history and discussed how this term was used by men to dominate women and spread fear amongst them. The patriarchal society of the early eighteenth-century England used rape in order to limit the freedom of female movement. Women were led to believe that their state of safety lies within their willingness to trade submission to a man for protection from all other men. This study investigates attitudes of rape and near rape attempts which were used in three seventeenth and eighteenth-century texts; Aphra Behn’s The Rover (1677), Eliza Haywood’s The History of Miss Betsy Thoughtless (1751), and Frances Burney’s novel Evelina (1778). These attitudes were presented in order to portray different ideas such as a critique of the patriarchal society, to warn women of the dangers they might face out of the domestic sphere and perks of abiding by the social conduct, and also t...