| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 109.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Canada and the United States

Jeffrey Nichols. Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847–1918. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 2002. Pp. viii, 247. $34.95.
Jeffrey Nichols maintains that religious conflict defined debates over prostitution throughout Utah's territorial period in this fine treatment of prostitution in Salt Lake City. As with all aspects of life in Utah, the tension between Mormons and non-Mormons made concerted action on prostitution all but impossible. Mormons accused non-Mormon men of patronizing brothels; non-Mormons accused Mormon polygamists of indulging themselves in similar ways while disguising their lust by calling it a new form of marriage. To each side, the other seemed hopelessly hypocritical.	1
In such an atmosphere, prostitution flourished alongside plural marriage. Nichols's study is the first scholarly treatment of the topic; it combines meticulous documentation with clear sympathy for the "women [who] sold sex" (p. 49). As Nichols pieces together the shards of prostitution's history in Salt Lake City, a fascinating (if largely familiar) picture emerges. By the late 1860s, prostitutes were present and earning profits in the city. Like other western cities, Salt Lake City's prostitutes were predominantly cribworkers or streetwalkers; parlor houses provided a safer harbor for more fortunate women, and a few even rose to the rank of madam. Police generally treated madams and the inhabitants of their brothels with far more consideration than women of lower status, especially those of African or Asian ancestry. Equally important, Nichols finds that prostitution was commercially viable, and that madams developed property and took out loans from Salt Lake City banks. In this way, they created a downtown prostitution district—complete with elegant brothels—"which thrived for decades" (p. 57).	. . .

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