Contrary to common myth, the West was far more urban than rural. Frontier urban areas, especially mining towns, possessed a particular demographic profile: There were many more young, single men than single women and a far greater number of all-male than familial households. The mining West was, in short, a man’s world. As a result, men found it necessary to pay women for domestic services, such as cooking, laundry, and housekeeping, which they might otherwise have received gratis from their wives. Likewise, female companionship was at a premium.

Although women were few in number, those present well understood that their traditional roles could be turned into cash. They opened boardinghouses or took in boarders; they established restaurants and bakeries; and they set up laundry operations. Women, in short, moved their domestic skills and labor from the home onto Main Street and profited accordingly. In similar fashion, women catered to men’s desire for female companionship and sex. Seeing profits to be made in mining towns, women both professional and amateur took up work in the “demimonde” or “half-world” (meaning the part of the West that operated outside of mainstream social conventions). According to most historians, some so-called fancy ladies were successful; most were not. But both the winners and losers came to bad ends because of their chosen vocation. Whatever the conclusion, most historical interpretations overlook women’s own decisions to become public women.

Why would a woman choose to “work on the line,” given prostitution’s inherent dangers and the likelihood of social ostracism? Did most prostitutes actually choose the work, or were they forced into it? (Other work was available, even if it paid less.) Were prostitutes entirely without family? Where did the women come from? What were their ambitions and aspirations? Were the West’s madams and public women really financially successful? And if they were, how did they achieve their affluence? Finally, was prostitution in the West a matter of “once a whore, always a whore”?

Western Mining, 1848–1890