Soiled Doves: Prostitution in the Early West (Women of the West)

Rating:
Summary: An interesting view of prostitution in the Wild West
Review: This book provides a glimpse into a fairly unusual topic: prositution in the "Wild West" of the 1800's. It covers the gamut, from the elite sophisticated brothels with the top-notch "girls," to the hovels near the mining towns and the Chinese slave-girls which catered to men near Chinatown of San Francisco. It is chock-full of photographs, excerpts from old newspaper articles and other interesting side-bars.

This is not a dense, academic study, but an easy-to-read overview. At times it is a tad disorganized, but it is such a quick read that this does detract much. The only criticism that I have is that the writer waffles between glamorizing the life of some of the "luckier" prostitutes, and asserting that they most led lives that ended with suicide.