|
|
|
Book Review
| Jeffrey Nichols, Prostitution, Polygamy, and Power: Salt Lake City, 1847–1918, Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2002. Pp. viii + 247. $34.95 cloth (ISBN 0-252-02768-x).
|
| In Prostitution, Polygamy and Power Jeffrey Nichols argues that the history of prostitution in Salt Lake City is quite similar to histories of prostitution in other American cities as well as uniquely situated in the history of Utah. Nichols's work, as he notes, stands in line with other histories of prostitution written by Ruth Rosen, Ann Butler, Baker Barnhart, Paula Petrik, Mary Murphy, and Marion Goldman. While Nichols's study draws from categories and structures similar to these other histories of prostitution, the strength of the text lies in its investigation of what made the existence of prostitution in Salt Lake City distinct. Because of its position as both a U.S. territory turned state and a Latter Day Saint Zion, Salt Lake City serves as an average western city as well as a rare case study. This text uses "the history of prostitution as a lens through which we can view many changes in Salt Lake, including women's public activities; the city's physical and economic transformations; religious, ethnic, racial, and class relations; the construction and interpretation of gender systems and moral codes; and the relationship between citizens and the state" (6). |
1
|
|
Nichols's work begins in the Salt Lake City developed by LDS exiles in the mid-nineteenth century and ends in the second decade of the twentieth century when conflicts between LDS and non-LDS citizens had abated and together these groups deregulated prostitution. He develops a model that not only takes a social history approach, examining the lives and circumstances of Salt Lake City prostitutes who left little historical record, but also explores the discourse of prostitution that became key to the political, legal, and economic power plays of three groups in Salt Lake City: the federal government, the local LDS church, and the non-Mormon locals. Non-LDS members argued that Mormons had profaned Christian values and the purity of womanhood by having plural wives, whereas LDS members asserted that Gentiles had done so by practicing prostitution and thus degrading women. For all debaters prostitution became the grounds on which to argue theological, political, economic, and moral contestations. |
2
|
|
The primary weakness of Nichols's study surfaces in this latter discussion. Nichols acknowledges that for LDS members "faith was central to all aspects of the new settlement"(10). This assertion is extremely important to understanding how all participants constructed their positions in the debates over prostitution. While Nichols does address the generalized Protestant Christian theology that supported both middle-class morality and concepts of women's purity, concepts that then were used to structure laws, he does not delve into the theological positions that made the LDS unique. To fully understand these differences it is necessary to examine how the LDS theology of celestial marriage conflicted with other Protestant views of marriage. These different theological concepts of marriage allowed the non-LDS Utahns to attack polygamy as a form of prostitution guised in revelation. |
3
|
|
The strengths of this work lie in Nichol's ability to pull from multiple historical methodologies to construct a narrative that gives voice to the prostitutes who left little to no record while at the same time providing a detailed analysis of how the prostitute became a contested metaphor in cultural debates over politics, law, and social norms. He juggles the various intersections of ethnicity, race, gender, and religion in these debates over political and economic control of the city. Within this framework, Nichols is able to pull from a variety of sources creating statistical analyses alongside vignettes of numerous historical figures. For example, Nichols uses the story of Brigham Young Hampton, an LDS member who set up sting operations, luring non-LDS members into prostitutes' quarters in order to prove the immorality of the opposing political forces. The example of Hampton illustrates one of the few instances where the male visitor, rather than the female prostitute, took the primary blame for the sexual interaction. On the whole, "Those who benefited most from regulated prostitution—sexually or financially—were male" (87). From these detailed discussions, Nichols shows that prostitutes and prostitution stood neither at the geographical nor social periphery of the history of Salt Lake City, but played a crucial role in community formation. |
4
|
|
Discussing the legal debates surrounding prostitution, Nichols shows that the narrative of prostitution regulation up through the early twentieth-century formation of the Stockade (a centralized and regulated prostitution complex under one manager, Belle London) and its closure and deregulation in 1911 is an excellent lens for examining the political tools in community debates between LDS members and non-members in Salt Lake City. The study ends in an era where the death throes of polygamy convinced non-LDS members to find common ground with LDS members in their attempts to end prostitution. In this era debates over the morality of prostitution were based less on political grounds and more on ethnicity, age, and gender. Once these two forces combined, the lives of prostitutes became more difficult, because prior to this time, "The antipathies created during the struggle over polygamy may have made it somewhat easier for women to sell sex by hampering effective cooperation" (214). Nichols does an excellent job providing insight into the lives of Salt Lake City prostitutes while at the same time pointing to the larger political, economic, and social trends that influenced the course of their lives. |
5
|
| Sara M. Patterson
|
| Claremont Graduate University |
|
Content in the History Cooperative database is intended for personal, noncommercial use only. You may not reproduce, publish, distribute, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, modify, create derivative works from, display, or in any way exploit the History Cooperative database in whole or in part without the written permission of the copyright holder.
|