Jan MacKell. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, In Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls, preservationist and historian Jan MacKell, director of the Cripple Creek District Museum, explores a range of primary and secondary sources that illuminate the history of female prostitutes in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Colorado.
Focusing on Denver and the Colorado Springs and Cripple Creek areas, MacKell uses probate records, legal decisions, newspaper clippings, and previously collected accounts and interviews to reconstruct the stories of sex workers, dance hall girls, and madams. She cites many individual cases and, significantly, acknowledges the unknown women who either passed through or settled in Colorado to ply their trade. While MacKell's effort reveals a respect for her subjects and their descendants, as well as a dedication to uncovering their stories, the book's shortcomings complicate its usefulness for an academic audience.
The realities of drug and alcohol addiction, suicide, broken marriages, and violence that marked prostitutes' lives are ably recounted in Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls. As a counterpart to the grim circumstances of the sex trade, MacKell takes pains to point out the relationships friendships and rivalries that grew up among her subjects, noting that these connections may have ameliorated some of the harshness of their circumstances.
Many of the author's accounts come from previously published works, but they are well deployed to demonstrate local conditions. The stories of Laura Bell McDaniel, Isabelle Martin Pearl DeVere , and Mamie Majors--somewhat familiar to Colorado historians--are combined with snippets from local newspapers that help pull the stories of anonymous working girls into her narrative.
Brothels, Bordellos, and Bad Girls will surely appeal to local history enthusiasts in Colorado: its lack of jargon and MacKell's obvious affection for the region make the well-written, engaging volume a very accessible read.
