But only in a couple of cases. We busted out our history books, mythbusters and trips to the San Francisco Library History Center to determine which San Francisco streets are named after prostitutes and which streets are named after your typical garden variety non-sex-working socialite females of the s.
It is not possible to prove whether or not a person ever took money for sex years ago. Furthermore, prostitution was fully legal at the time and one or two occasions of taking money for sex did not make you a prostitute. In fact, letting a wealthier man pay for sex with your wife was a perfectly acceptable way for men to get ahead in the female-starved San Francisco of the Gold Rush era. Some of the women named below have established historical records as famous sex workers.
I respect that. But by citing historical law and record, I cannot write this article without using that word. It was exciting to get confirmation that Minna St. Her name full name was Minna Rae Simpson.
No copies of her memoir still exist today. It was ghostwritten anonymously, probably by one of her male clients. While the book was used as a rallying point by temperance and anti-sex work campaigns of the WWI era, Minna remained a prominent local courtesan into her adulthood. Some elected official liked Minna enough to name a street for her in the s that still bears her name today.
But it was called Morton Street at the time. Belle Cora was technically a madam, not a courtesan. These streets are named after wives, sisters and daughters of powerful Gold Rush-era landowners. But these women have no historical record of sex work. By the end of World War I, prostitution was illegal in nearly all of America and streets were no longer being named for sex workers.
