Selling Sex in the Silver Valley
A Business Doing Pleasure
Once the largest silver producer in the world, Wallace became notorious for labor uprisings, hard drinking, gambling and prostitution. As late as 1991, illegal brothels openly flourished because locals believed that sex work prevented rape and bolstered the economy, so long as it was regulated and confined to a particular area of town.
The madams enjoyed unprecedented status as influential businesswomen, community leaders and philanthropists, while elsewhere a growing aversion to the sex trade drove red-light districts underground. Dr. Heather Branstetter’s research features previously unpublished archival materials and oral histories as she relates the intimate details of this unlikely story.
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The publisher ran out of my book before it even came out. That means that the book sold around 1,000 copies before its official release day even arrived. This is a good thing, I keep reminding myself as I’m pushing the prepaid preorders out the door. Get your own personalized, signed copy! As of May […]
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I just wanted to spread the word on a few local reading and signing events coming up. My first event will be in the Wallace Brewing Company‘s tasting room on Bank Street, Friday, May 19 at 7 pm. Please join us for a reading, question and answer session, and signing/meet-and-greet. Plus, there will be delicious […]
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It’s finally here! My book, Selling Sex in the Silver Valley: A Business Doing Pleasure, is now available! Order a personalized, signed copy for $25.00. Thank you for supporting my work!
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Dolores’s story, like her identity, an invented persona she assumed for forty years is a mix of fact and fiction that became its own reality.
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A week from today, I’ll be reading an excerpt from my work on the history of sex work in the Silver Valley! Please come join us at the Wallace Brewery (610 Bank St., Wallace, Idaho) on Wednesday, January 13, beginning at 7:00 pm. I’m actually the opening act for the Idaho-raised author, Keith Lee Morris, […]
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It’s about the size of a book or iPad, understated for a woman who was the most famous and beloved madam in Wallace’s history.
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…what you really ought to do is get up there and get to know these folks. Get to know why they do what they do. Get to know the history of the community. Get to know why they have to have poker machines in their bars to survive. You know I said, ‘It’s a different world up there, and maybe that will help you understand this, and maybe we can get this case dismissed.’
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And in Wallace, the economic symbiosis of the brothels and local government would ultimately increase as a result of this propaganda campaign.