A surprising find at the library turned out to be a pretty interesting history of San Francisco madams and their relationship with the city as it grew over the years. As this was written way way before the internet, Curt Gentry had to do good old fashioned real research and dig into newspaper archives, interview people, and read through scores of histories of the area in search of tidbits about the women he was covering. As you might think, much of the blue history of San Francisco is undocumented, because good people just didn’t talk about things like that. Of course, surviving scandal papers and full page ads by various madams will testify that the “good people” are once again a giant pack of liars. Go wet your pants, good people!

Presenting both quick overviews and more detailed biographies of various madams, we get history lessons about the city as we go. Gentry gives us the actual addresses of the various houses of ill repute he talks about, though sadly many of the buildings were either destroyed by the earthquake or later torn down and turned into apartment complexes. As someone who lives in the city, I could easily whip up a walking tour of former prostitution houses, and it would be hilarious to see what businesses or houses now dwell on those fabled addresses.

Beginning with Irene McCready in 1849, we follow up with Ah Toy, the first Chinese prostitute in the city (and one of the two women tied for first Chinese woman in the city, the other being a non-professional maid who as far as everyone knows spent zero time with Ah Toy.) For years, Ah Toy and the other woman were the only Chinese women in the city, which had hundreds of male Chinese workers. Eventually, several more prostitutes were brought over, but it was a while before more non-prostitute women from China reached San Francisco. Ah Toy was immensely popular, and there are many court records and newspaper stories discussion her various run-ins.

Several chapters are spent on Belle Cora involved in shooting and Vigilance Committee drama, a summary of the whole affair can be found here. Other fine upstanding women include one known as Madam Mustache – which no one would call to her face, Jessie Hayman, Tessie Wall, Maude Spencer, Dolly Fine, and Sally Stanford.

There is also an interesting history about the Reverend Paul Smith, who was an anti-prostitution crusader and helped get laws passed that brought down a lot of madams. There was even a huge protest of prostitutes against Reverend Smith. Smith then went into the movie business, making his own film, Finger of Justice, that detailed his fight against prostitution, even recreating the March of the Madams. Reverend Smith’s film was subsequently banned in many cities as being obscene, and Smith became less and less Godly as the power of movie fame-dom became his next obsession. That eventually crashed and burned and he became a car salesman. Interesting side note, one of the prostitutes that marched against him eventually found Jesus herself and became a traveling preacher. It is unknown if the now civilian Paul Smith ever went to one of her shows. A good portion of Finger of Justice still exists, but I haven’t found a copy easily available.

While cities such as Denver and New Orleans had definitive underground activities guidebooks, San Francisco instead had weekly scandal rags where houses would advertise. Papers include:

The Varieties – a four-page scandal rag beginning May 20, 1856 with J. Walter Walsh listed as owner, the editor listed as “The Recluse”, and contributors with wacky names such as Paul Pry, Night Owl, and Viper – all writing in the same style as Mr. Walsh. Hmmmmm… stories were mostly vague rumors with just enough details to scandal people. Items often repeated
was feed lots of info by Belle Cora on Vigilence Committee members. The Illustrated Varieties appeared on Saturday, The Sunday Varieties showed up the next day. Sunday a paper had almost identical content, but was switched around with new photo on the cover. Issues were stapled together so you didn’t get the scam until after you bought it.

The Phoenix – published out of Sacramento but SF focused, Belle Cora also feed info here, including some that brought down The Bulletin and editor Tom King (brother of James King of William) by using the name of King’s abandoned ex-wife to shame him out of town

There is plenty more information, such as the former Madam who ran for city council in Sausalito, and information on how girls were brought to SF to begin life as prostitutes (some were volunteers, but others were basically human trafficked in with scams almost identical to ones used to get Eastern European girls to Japan in the 1990s, as documented in Tokyo Vice)

An enjoyable read, and the kind of information you just don’t find in history books.