Love for Sale

Elizabeth Alice Clement

Description

The intense urbanization and industrialization of America's largest city from the turn of the twentieth century to World War II was accompanied by profound shifts in sexual morality, sexual practices, and gender roles. Comparing prostitution and courtship with a new working-class practice of heterosexual barter called "treating," Elizabeth Alice Clement examines changes in sexual morality and sexual and economic practices.

Women "treated" when they exchanged sexual favors for dinner and an evening's entertainment or, more tangibly, for stockings, shoes, and other material goods. These "charity girls" created for themselves a moral space between prostitution and courtship that preserved both sexual barter and respectability. Although treating, as a clearly articulated language and identity, began to disappear after the 1920s and 1930s, Clement argues that it still had significant, lasting effects on modern sexual norms. She demonstrates how treating shaped courtship and dating practices, the prevalence and meaning of premarital sex, and America's developing commercial sex industry. Even further, her study illuminates the ways in which sexuality and morality interact and contribute to our understanding of the broader social categories of race, gender, and class.

Sujets

• Women's Studies
• Social Science
• Sociologie, société et politique
• World War I
• Première Guerre mondiale

Informations

• Publié par: The University of North Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 08 décembre 2006
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798890871794
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 6 Mo

Extrait

LOVE FOR SALE

GENDER AND AMERICAN CULTURE



Thadious M. Davis

Linda K. Kerber

  

Nancy Cott

Cathy N. Davidson

Jane Sherron De Hart

Sara Evans

Mary Kelley

Annette Kolodny

Wendy Martin

Nell Irvin Painter

Janice Radway

Barbara Sicherman

ove

oae COURTING,

TREATING, AND

PROSTITUTION IN

NEW YORK CITY,

1900–1945

ELIZABETH ALICE CLEMENT

                                Chapel Hill

©  The University of North Carolina Press All rights reserved

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The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clement, Elizabeth Alice. Love for sale : courting, treating, and prostitution in New York City, – / Elizabeth Alice Clement. p. cm. — (Gender and American culture) Originally presented as the author’s thesis (Ph. D.)— Univ. of Pennsylvania, , under the title: Trick or treat: prostitution and working-class women’s sexuality in New York City, –. Includes bibliographical references and index. -: ---- (cloth : alk. paper) -: --- (cloth : alk. paper) -: ---- (pbk. : alk. paper) -: --- (pbk. : alk. paper) . Prostitution—New York (State)—New York— History—th century. . Sex customs—New York (State)—New York—History—th century. . Courtship—New York (State)—New York— History—th century. I. Title. II. Gender & American culture. . .'—dc 

cloth paper

         

         

For my mother, Alice Regina Meehan Clement, and my aunt, Marguerite Therèse Meehan Wallace, who grew up on and love the sidewalks of New York like I do

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East side, west side, all around the town The tots sang ‘‘Ringarosy, London Bridge is falling down’’ Boys and girls together, me and Mamie O’Rourke Trip the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York

Down in front of Casey’s old grey wooden stoop On a summer’s evening we formed a merry group Boys and girls together, we would sing and waltz While Tony played the organ on the sidewalks of New York —‘‘Sidewalks of New York,’’ by James Blake and Charles Lawler, 

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CONTENTS

Acknowledgments xi .The Evolution of ‘‘Near Whores’’ and ‘‘Whores in the Making’’   .Today’s Children: Courtship, Americanization, and Modernity  .The Treat:

Transforming Sexual Values at the Turn of the Century  .These Are the People in Your Neighborhood: Prostitution, Commerce, and Community in TurnoftheCentury New York City  .A Fight on the Home Front: The Repression of Prostitution during World War I  .Doing Our Part for the Boys in Uniform: Sexuality, Treating, Courtship, and Patriotism  .Nudes Feel Pinch!:

Prostitution, Prohibition, and the Emergence of America’s Sex Industry

 .Treating, Dating, Petting, and the Class Dynamics of America’s First Sexual Revolution  .A New Type of Girl in an Old Type of Delinquency: Women, Sexuality, and Venereal Disease during World War II Notes  Bibliography  Index 