In a scrapbook I have from my grandmother is a clipping from the Sunburst Sun (Montana) newspaper, Aug. 26, 1922, that reads:
Program
1:00 Parade of cowboys and cowgirls, headed by Cut Bank brass band
2:30 Tootsie Bailey will enter competition with entire field, riding wild steers with only one hand on cirsingle

     Another clipping states “Tootsie Bailey won first and Mary (Marie) Gibson second prize in the steer riding.”
Marie Gibson was a well-known Montana cowgirl and won national awards for bronc riding.
Tootsie was my grandmother and she would have been 17 at that time. I did have the opportunity to spend time with her, ride horseback, and get to know her pretty well before she died suddenly when she was only 57 and I was 12.

     I know that she was an avid horsewomen and that she was more at home on the back of a horse than behind a dust mop. My dad told me she had competed in rodeos, riding steers, when she was young. I kept thinking how courageous that was, especially as I got older and watched bull and bronc riders. Grandma was petite—five-feet two-inches and weighed a little over 100 pounds. I was amazed that she would pit herself against an animal that weighed 900 pounds or so, one whose sole purpose was to get that pesky rider off its back and then maybe stomp on her!

While my grandmother most often dressed in men’s jeans and did a man’s job, riding horseback and working cattle, she also “cleaned up nice” and dressed very feminine and fashionably when she was in social situations.

     Following is an excerpt from Cowgirl Dreams when my character, Nettie, donned a pair of her brother’s denim pants, sneaked out of the house one morning and rode in a neighbor’s informal rodeo. She loved the freedom of riding her horse Toby, wearing pants and especially riding the steer in the rodeo. The adrenaline of staying on the back of that bucking, twisting, angry beast had her hooked and the clothing allowed her to ride unencumbered by the extra fabric of a skirt, divided or not. (I don’t know that my great-grandmother was as opposed to her daughter’s rodeo riding as my character’s mother, but I know, from research, that it was often a family issue and a social stigma.)

     When Nettie arrived home, her mother was horrified to see her daughter dressed as a man. And having heard that Nettie had ridden in the rodeo against her wishes, Mama was highly upset.

     “You.” Mama stepped forward, her face dark red with anger. “You defied me.”

     Cold dread pooled in Nettie’s belly. She’d never seen Mama so mad. “No, I—”

     “Young lady, you were supposed to stay home today. Work on that pile of darning. You know Mrs. Connors wants it done by tomorrow, otherwise we don’t get paid till next week.”

     The darning. She hadn’t given it another thought after she’d decided to sneak out. Oh dear. Icy prickles of guilt stabbed at her. “But. Lola. Why couldn’t she finish it?”

     Mama stepped closer. “And, we had to hear it from the neighbor’s hired man. You. Rode. In. A rodeo.” With each word, she jabbed her finger an inch from Nettie’s face. “You know how I feel about that.”

     “But, Mama, I stayed on. I didn’t get bucked off.”

     “Don’t you sass me, girl.” Mama’s voice shook now. “And wearing pants in public, too.” She closed her eyes a moment and sighed. “You will take that basket of socks, go to your room, and don’t come out until they’re all finished. No supper. No No riding. For a month.” She turned on her heel and stalked out of the kitchen.

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     Thank you, Mary, for hosting me on Petticoats and Pistols. Today is my first stop on my virtual book tour. Please leave a comment to enter a drawing for some cool gifts. today, on Petticoats and Pistols, the drawing is for a pair of horse earrings. Perfect for P & P readers.

And join me tomorrow at L. Diane Wolfe’s Circle of Friends blog http://circleoffriendsbooks.blogspot.com/

     For the itinerary of all my stops on this tour and a list of prizes, go to my blog http://heidiwriter.wordpress.com/my-blog-tour/

Click on the book cover to purchase

I love the story I wrote for my current release.  It’s called “Home Again” and it’s a novella in the Love Inspired Historical Mother’s Day anthology. Overall title is In a Mother’s Arms.  The heroine has a 12-year-old son who’s determined to get into trouble.  He starts by throwing a rock through the church window. That act of rebellion puts him in the path of the town sheriff, the man my heroine jilted fourteen years earlier.

What I loved about the story is how hard the heroine is trying to raise her son to be a good man. Here she is . . . A woman in 1890 Colorado, running a store, raising a child and divorced. She needs help and the hero is glad to give it, but the bottom line is that she’s responsible for raising her son. Like the real life women who settled this country, my heroine, by shaping a single child, contributes to the creation of the time and place we call the Old West.

When I started this column, I was going to list my five favorite Wild West women. Several names came to mind, most of which you’d recognize.   Annie Oakley… Calamity Jane . . . Caroline Ingalls of “Little House” fame. Don’t get me wrong. I’m fascinated by these women and their larger-than-life ways, but I wouldn’t call them favorites. They are complex individuals with good traits and not-so-good traits.

I thought of Sacagawea, the Indian guide for Lewis and Clark.  In elementary school I read her biography a dozen times. She’d be on the list, but I’m sure my impression has been overly romanticized. She’s a favorite, but I don’t feel strongly connected.

I broadened my search and thought of Willa Cather. A woman and an esteemed author, she was born in Virginia in 1873 and grew up in Nebraska. In college I read O Pioneers! and My Antonia. I enjoyed the stories, but I didn’t love them the way I love a western romance.

Somewhere in my search, I realized something simple. The women of the west I most admire don’t have individual pages in history books. They could most likely shoot a gun, but they weren’t in the league of Annie Oakley. They had grand adventures like Sacagawea, but their journeys had another purpose. They wrote like Willa Cather, maybe not books but letters by the dozens, even hundreds.

The women of the west I most admire were the wives and mothers who lived everyday lives. They cooked breakfast for their eight kids, did laundry in tubs with homemade soap, and tended sick children. They stared down danger, kept the faith and somehow brought civility to the wide open spaces of America. I have the deepest respect for these women and always will. They had tough lives and they persevered. What’s more, they passed that grit on to their sons and daughters.

 Mother’s Day is a few weeks away, but I’m celebrating early this year.  Home Again is dedicated to my mom.  She’s strong, smart, wise and just plain fun. Who are the women, both in history and in real life, that you most admire?  I’d love to hear about them.  Everyone who comments will be automatically entered into a drawing for a copy of In a Mother’s Arms.

To learn more about Victoria, visit her website at www.victoriabylin.com

Order now from Amazon.com   

In western romance bloomers often refers to a woman’s undergarment. I’ve been guilty of this and have used bloomers on more than one occasion. While they were originally a type of women’s trousers, bloomers have since become synonymous with under drawers and pantaloons. But in Amelia Bloomer’s day they were baggy pants gathered tightly and buttoned at the ankle. They were worn under a skirt of a shorter length that allowed the lacy bloomers to show.

Bloomers released women from their tightly laced corsets, layers upon layers of petticoats that could weigh over ten pounds, and long dresses that dragged the ground. Bloomers allowed freedom of movement. Women could at last ride bicycles and indulge in sporting activities. And it was all because of free-thinkers like Fanny Wright who first advocated a type of bloomer in the early 1800’s and Amelia Bloomer who made the garment fashionable in the 1850’s.

Amelia Jenks Bloomer (1818-1894) married an attorney by the name of Dexter Bloomer. He was also a newspaper editor. She began writing a few articles for his paper pertaining to women’s issues. After attending the Women’s Rights Convention in Senaca Falls in 1848 she founded her own bi-weekly newspaper called “The Lily” and became a voice for many women reformers such as Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.

Initially, the newspaper focused on temperance and the women’s suffrage movement. But as the times progressed the articles became more about marriage law reform, higher education for women, the right to vote, and women’s right to employment without having to ask for her husband’s permission. The health and well-being of women were also a primary focus and that’s when Amelia advocated clothing for women’s comfort and the bloomers in particular.

She fashioned them after the Turkish women’s trousers. They were intended to preserve Victorian decency while being less of a hindrance. Here’s Amelia in her outfit.

She said, “The costume of women should be suited to her wants and necessities. It should conduce at once her health, comfort, and usefulness; and while it should not fail also to conduce to her personal adornment, it should make that end of secondary importance.”

As you can imagine, she was met with overwhelming ridicule. The garment was deemed unfeminine and a moral outrage. Gradually, the bloomers faded away. Amelia herself gave up the fight after eight years and stopped wearing them, citing that it shifted the focus away from more important women’s issues.

I can only imagine that these bloomers were a forerunner of today’s jeans. I love the comfort, freedom, and casual look of jeans. And they’re form-fitting and feminine.

How many of you are a jeans and shorts kind of gal? And do you think you would’ve worn bloomers in public if you lived back in Amelia’s day?

Talent equals talent, great art equals great art, whether done by a male or female, right?  But that wasn’t always the case.  As late as 1905,  an art dealer refused to believe the work of art in front of him was painted by a woman.   That woman was Eliza Barchus and below you’ll see some of her brilliant paintings.   A widow and a mother with young children, she supported her family by painting and teaching.

She is known in the art world now as the “The Oregon Artist” for her depictions of  the territory. By the turn of the century Eliza Barchus was the best known painter in the Northwest; she had won many awards and had exhibited at the National Academy in New York. Theodore Roosevelt placed one of her paintings in the White House, and Woodrow Wilson bought another. Eliza Barchus lived to be one hundred and two years old and passed away in 1959.

By 1890 there were over 1,100 woman artists and art teachers in the West.  Whether inborn talent or applying techniques of formal art training, women didn’t have an easy road.  Their work wasn’t appreciated in the art world.   Many pioneer women nurtured their talent even after a hard day of household chores, others braved the frontier on their own and some ventured into subzero temperatures to gain inspiration.   These female  artists needed plenty of courage and determination to create and compete in a field so dominated by men.  Yet, I find their paintings inspiring and honest. 

Helen Tanner Brodt was the first white woman to climb Mount Lassen in 1864.   Lake Helen in the Mount Lassen area is named after her.  She trained in New City City at the National Academy of Design then moved to Red Bluff in 1863.   In Red Bluff she painted landscapes, portraits, china, and ranch scenes, and also at the public school. She taught art in Oakland in 1867  and later exhibited her art at the Chicago Worlds Fair of 1893. Two of Mrs. Brodt’s pastels of Mount Shasta are in the collection of the Bancroft library at the University of California at Berkeley. 

Helen Tanner Brodt (1838-1908) – Mount Shasta Viewed through Trees
 

Grace Carpenter Hudson was born in Potter Valley near Ukiah, in California in 1865. She showed great art skill at an early age and enrolled in a local school of design. She married Dr. John Hudson in 1890 and their home on South Main, now the Grace Carpenter Hudson Museum is marked with a totem pole and is known as the “Sun House.”  She felt a kinship and great compassion for the Pomo Indians and was known by them as “Painter Lady.”  Her painting of Little Mendocino (the unhappy papoose) caused a great sensation at the 1893 World’s Fair and she focused her attention on painting the Pomos, capturing their pride and culture.  As you can see most of her subjects were babies and children.  She spent some time later in life to paint Native children in Hawaii and when she returned she earned a commission to paint the Pawnee in 1904.

I’ve always loved  VanGoghs, but until now, I’d never realized how truly talented women artists were.   I think I love the Grace Carpenter Hudson’s depictions the best so far. They show the humanity and innocence of the Pomo children. There were so many other female artists I’d learned about while doing this research that it would be impossible to post it all. Maybe  next time.   Do you have a favorite artist?  How about a favorite artist of the west?  Any other women artists that you’d care to share?  What do you think of these incredible paintings?

Before the Civil War, most businesses were small with only a few dozen employees, and a clerk was most often a young fellow starting out in a business by keeping records and transcribing letters. The 1870s and 1880s brought the growth of corporations and trusts and employment for tens of thousands of workers. Management and labor divisions were created, and paperwork flourished. None of my research showed this, but I couldn’t help wondering if the growth in record keeping was also partly due to the influx of former slaves suddenly being on payrolls.

The idea behind the typewriter applied Johann Gutenberg’s concept of movable type developed for the printing press to a machine for individual use. Descriptions of such mechanical writing machines date as far back as the early eighteenth century. In 1714, a patent something like a typewriter was granted to a man named Henry Mill in England, but no example of Mills’ invention survives.

In 1829, William Burt from Detroit, Michigan patented his typographer which had characters arranged on a rotating frame. However, Burt’s machine, and many of those that followed it, were cumbersome, hard to use, unreliable and often took longer to produce a letter than writing it by hand.

The typewriter began at Kleinsteuber’s Machine Shop in Milwaukee, Wisconsin in 1868. A local publisher-politician-philosopher named Christopher Latham Sholes and his fellow workers spent hours tinkering on a machine to automatically number the pages in books. Someone suggested a similar device to print the entire alphabet. An article from Scientific American was passed around and a machine that printed the alphabet resulted. It even had the QWERTY keyboard we still use today. The prototype was eventually sent to Washington as the required Patent Model.

Sholes licensed his patent to famous gun maker Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York. In 1874, the Remington Model 1, the first commercial typewriter, was placed on the market. No more than 5,000 were sold, but the invention founded a worldwide industry and brought mechanization to time-consuming office work. The original still exists, locked in a vault at the Smithsonian. Probably a couple hundred or so survived time, and those are valued from $1000 for a black model to $5000 for an ornately decorated model on a treadle stand.

Remington and his sons were already in the sewing machine business, as well, and in fact the early typewriter models with stands look like sewing machines with the same iron scrollwork. The Remington type writing machine was first displayed to the public at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876 along with Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, Heinz Ketchup, the Wallace-Farmer Electric Dynamo, precursor to the electric light, and Hires Root Beer.

The Franklin Typewriter was a make popular around the turn of the century. Its type bars stood erect at the front of the machine and swung down to the platen. Its radical semi-circular keyboard characterized this down strike machine. Many survive today.

Other models were created and patented over the years, some which struck the back of the paper to print. Some had two complete sets of letters – uppercase and lowercase. Funny that double-keyboard promoters thought it was confusing to have to press two keys when you wanted capitals. The Smith family of Smith Premier later became Smith-Corona. It was the longest-lived name in the typewriter business.

After this practical invention became widely available, typing became a more specialized skill, requiring training other than that of a company manager moving through the ranks. New positions developed in the forms of stenographers, file clerks and typists, and the jobs were quickly seen as women’s work. In 1881 the Young Women’s Christian Association (YMCA) offered typing training.

Based on Sholes’ mechanical typewriter, the first electric typewriter was built by Thomas Alva Edison in the United States in 1872, but the widespread use of electric typewriters was not common until the 1950s. The electronic typewriter, a typewriter with an electronic “memory” capable of storing text, first appeared in 1978.

So there’s everything you always wanted to know about typewriters, but didn’t think to ask. I always enjoy learning that something I thought was a more recent discovery had actually been around for far longer.

Milestones:

1714 The first patent for a ‘writing machine’ was given to Henry Mill of England

1829 William Burt of the US patented his typographer machine

1868 Christopher Sholes, Carlos Glidden and Samuel Soule patent type writing machine

1872 Thomas Alva Edison builds first electric typewriter

1873 Remington & Sons mass produces the Sholes & Glidden typewriter

1978 Olivetti Company and the Casio Company develop electronic typewriter

I did my first writing on a Smith-Corona portable. When I think back on the changes I make by using White Out – what a nightmare. But it was easier than writing by hand, and the finished pages were far easier to read. When I got an IBM Selectric, I thought I had hit the big time. No more White Out because it had an eraser tape! Whoo hoo! We didn’t realize that those were the dinosaurs of the inventions to come, did we? Hey, they were better than anything we’d known previously.

Author and friend Victoria Alexander collects old typewriters, and she has some really awesome specimens in her office. Will anyone else admit to having written or typed letters on a standard typewriter? Do you remember the strikers getting crossed when you went too fast?

One of the reasons I love to set my books in Alaska is because of the history of the women. When gold was discovered in the Klondike in 1896, a hundred thousand people from all over the world flocked to Skagway, Alaska, headed for the Klondike. Only thirty thousand made it over the mountains. A small fraction of them were women, and their stories are often overlooked in history.

A few weeks ago, I blogged about Skagway and its famous criminal, Soapy Smith. Today, the topic is women.

That’s me at the border between Alaska and the Yukon. I like to think I’m standing at the top of the world.

My novel, WANTED IN ALASKA, starts off in Skagway. It was a remarkable town because of the freedom that women had to pursue their goals. At the start of the gold rush, it’s estimated that only 2 to 4% of the population was made up of women. The percentage  climbed quickly. By 1900, just a short four years after it began, women made up roughly 20% of the town. Because the land was uncivilized and lawless before they arrived, the women of Alaska had fewer constrictions than their sisters in the lower states. They owned their own property, ran businesses and shops without the help of men, and some even traveled to the Klondike and struck gold on their own.

Hooray for Alaska! Women weren’t coddled–unless they wanted to be. There were the prostitutes who earned their living, but there were many more law-abiding, hardworking women who opened jewelry stores, sandwich shops, cafés, laundry houses, and even those who tried their hand at casinos. Women knew how to look good in a corset and gown, but many also knew how to chop wood, balance a ledger, hire and fire workers, and get a house built. Many of them became wealthy in their own right.

In WANTED IN ALASKA, my heroine, Autumn MacNeil, is a singer in a hotel who’s desperately trying to get a business loan from one of the male bankers in town but, so far, is unsuccessful. Her goal is to open up a hotel of her own. Along comes the hero and distracts her from her troubles. At a masquerade ball, he mistakes her for the town nurse, and in an act of desperation to help his wounded brother, kidnaps her. This sets them on a wild collision course. It was a fun one to write. The novel hits bookstores this week.

Over the years as I’ve researched and written my Westerns, there are other things about the Wild West that I’ve found fascinating. For instance, when the Western frontier first opened up, the average ratio of men to women was roughly 10 to 1. Women were cherished and respected because they were scarce. Consequently, a married woman who was being abused by her husband wasn’t as afraid to get a divorce and leave him. She would be quickly snatched up by a kinder man, and she and her children would be well taken care of. Therefore, the divorce rate in the West was slightly higher than the Eastern seaboard. Depending on the state, women had more freedom in property rights, voting, and marriage. It’s that freedom that I love to write about.

Is there anything that surprises you about the West, when you read our novels? Do you enjoy the many different occupations in our storylines?

Or, if you’re a Western writer yourself, what draws you to this era? Is there a particular time period, or state, you love to write about?

“In all her books set in the icy wilderness of the northern provinces, Bridges brings strong, admirable heroes and independent-minded women to life. There’s nothing hotter in these cold locales than her stories laced with humor, passion and danger.”  4 Stars! Romantic Times magazine on WANTED IN ALASKA

www.katebridges.com

Click on the cover to link to Amazon.

Do you ever wonder what it would be like to live without your lipstick?

Cosmetics have been around for thousands of years, promising to make our lips rosier, eyes brighter and complexions clearer.

In 4,000 B.C., Egyptian women lined their eyes with leaded paints and copper. This was poisonous to their health but they didn’t know it. For nail polish, the Chinese used beeswax, egg whites and gelatin, dating back to 3,000 B.C.. Certain colors were restricted to royalty. Using the wrong color nail polish was punishable by death.

In Greco-Roman times, the Middle Ages, and Elizabethan times, pale faces were much more desirable for women than any skin touched by the sun. A tan was considered crude and reserved for women who worked the fields. Unfortunately, this led to various creams applied to the face to reduce blood flow, such as lead paint or arsenic face powder, which caused illness.

In the mid 1800s, Queen Victoria declared that wearing makeup was vulgar, and should be reserved only for actors. Prostitutes used it, too. This rigid attitude carried over to North America, and so women rarely wore cosmetics until the late 1800s, toward the end of her reign. By the time her son King Edward VII became king in 1901, makeup and its manufacture was beginning to flourish.

On the Western frontier in the 1800s, wearing no makeup was often the preferred look, but there were little tricks women used to make themselves look better. Makeup that looked natural was usually the goal.

Blush: Pinching the cheeks made them rosier, also pinching the lips. Rouge was available to buy in small tins.

Mascara: Some women used beeswax on their lashes to make them look thicker. Kohl is a mixture of soot and other ingredients and was used on the eyelids and eyelashes to darken them—first used by  Egyptian queens. Darkening the area around the eyes also helped protect the eyes from sun glare.

In France, Eugene Rimmel was the first to develop a non-toxic mascara in the late 1800s, sometime before his death in 1887. It was a cake-like substance. Modern mascara as we know it was invented in 1913 by  T.L. Williams, a chemist, for his sister Mabel. He saw his sister applying coal dust and Vaseline to her lashes, and so he made and marketed the stuff. He named his company Mabelline as a combination of her name and Vaseline.

Eyeliner:  Some women used burnt matches once they cooled.

Petroleum jelly:  Vaseline petroleum jelly was patented in the 1870s.

Hair removal: From about 3,000 B.C. women were removing body hair with scary ingredients they made from things like arsenic and starch. By 500 B.C. Roman women were removing body hair with razor blades and pumice stones, and using tweezers to pluck their eyebrows. By the early 1800s, European women were making homemade depilatories—walnut oil was one popular ingredient. From 1895 to 1904, Mr. Gillette perfected the development of his safety razor.

Underarm deodorant:  Mum deodorant was the first invented in 1888 by an unknown inventor from Philadelphia.

Lipstick: Egyptians used a type of henna to stain their lips—back then it was a poisonous substance made of plant dye, iodine and bromine. Cleopatra wore lipstick made from crushed carmine beetles, which gave her a deep red pigment. Lipstick became popular as we know it during the 16^th century by Queen Elizabeth I, where lipstick was made from a combination of beeswax and red plant stains.

Acne fighters: Pharaohs in Egypt used a combination of mineral water mixed with sulphur. Ancient Romans bathed in hot sulphurous mineral water. During the 1800s, sulphur treatments were applied to the skin but it was very drying and didn’t always work.

Hair: Sheen was created by brushing the hair a hundred times at night; using lemon rinses; adding eggs to shampoo. Hennas have been very popular since Egyptian times to color the hair. Hair dyes were often used discreetly in England and America during the 1800s, although one didn’t admit it in public.

Max Factor is often referred to as the father of modern makeup. He was born in Poland in the 1870s (original name was spelled Faktor). Later, he moved to Moscow and worked with theatrical groups, where he created cosmetics, fragrances and wigs. He became the cosmetic expert for the Russian royal family. In 1904, he immigrated to New York with his family, and that year at the St. Louis World’s Fair, he introduced his handmade rouges, lipsticks, wigs and creams to American women. His items became so popular he developed his own line of cosmetics.

Besides my list, do you know of anything else women used for personal makeup and grooming? Do you recall anything your grandmother used? I once found an old curling iron in a trunk that didn’t have an electrical cord, but it was obviously intended to be heated in coals. I was shocked they thought of that way back then.

Is there a certain cosmetic that you couldn’t live without?

Visit me at www.katebridges.com

Click on the cover to link to Amazon.

I’m delighted to be a part of Petticoats & Pistols as a guest blogger this weekend! It’s like stepping right into the middle of all the action in the Old West, so “pucker up,” and “load up,” heh heh. Thank you to Karen Kay and Cheryl St. John and all of the wonderful writers in Petticoats & Pistols who’ve allowed me this platform so I might blog about my newest historical romance, THE PARLOR HOUSE DAUGHTER. You already know a great deal about prostitution in the Old West, but you might discover a few things here you didn’t know. Tune in and let’s have fun, finding out! (There IS something in it for you, heh heh . . . winning one of TWO hardcover giveaways!)  

If, in the mid-19^th century, women traveling west didn’t happen to be married, they “happened” into the world of prostitution. How difficult it must have been for either path chosen, given the restrictions and dictates of the Victorian Era in America. It’s no wonder that moral women feared sex and intimacy and so-called “immoral women” benefited from such fears. Acceptable for men—the double standard being alive and well in the 19^th century—it was common for men to frequent bordellos and parlor houses or to take on a mistress. Two of the most famous men in Colorado’s colorful, turbulent history, Horace Tabor and William Byers, were linked with rumors of having a mistress. More than rumor, Willam Byers’ mistress tried to shoot him on his front lawn in front of his wife, Elizabeth.  Horace Tabor fared better, marrying Baby Doe.

In Denver, the Queen City of the Plains, it was common for the legislature to let out early if a new parlor house was opening for business. Remnants of the old tunnel system leading from the state capital, used for such nefarious, pleasurable activities, are still in evidence today. This fact, however, is not what led me to write about the shadowy world of prostitution in historical Colorado in my latest Five Star-Gale release, THE PARLOR HOUSE DAUGHTER, but the fact that in 1880, along a six block stretch of what is today Market Street—over one thousand women “worked the line.”

I had to find out about these women! I had to find out how they survived violence and drugs and disease and melancholy. I needed to know the “how” of their survival. Call it the nurse in me, but I wanted chapter and verse on how a prostitute made it through her day; whether in a crib at the “end of the line” in some rugged mining camp, or in a fancy parlor house at the “top of the line.”  Until I involved myself in research for this book I never realized where the saying came from, “the end of the line.”

Another term that popped out of my research is the term, “hippie.” I discovered that the term likely comes from the fact that customers frequenting Hop Alley in Denver were led to a cot with a little table on which drug necessities were placed. A basin was provided as well. The customer would be placed on their “hip” and left alone. Placed on their side, often getting sick from the toxicity of the opium pill, the customer would often throw up in the basin. Placed so, the customer wouldn’t suffocate. Thus the term, “hippie.” As many of you likely know, there was a symbiotic relationship between prostitutes and the Chinese, each watching out for the other, each having a shared interest in their livelihood.

As many of you also know, most men loved to love a prostitute, and treated them with respect, even in the most bawdy and rugged mining towns. I must say, I was surprised to learn, however, that in the mining towns, on a Friday—pay day—it wasn’t unusual for one prostitute to turn 50 to 80 tricks! The men lined up outside, never taking their boots off (those rascals) once inside. In the lesser bordellos, and certainly the one room cribs, sheets were rarely changed, certainly not in between tricks. Prostitutes would place a rubber sheet or oilcloth over the bottom of their cot to keep their customers’ muddy boots from doing even more damage. There was little to no washing done in between customers. Imagine the disease transmission of the day!  Imagine, too, the level of fear and violence many women faced on a daily basis. It wasn’t an easy environment on any account.

Streetwalkers and those women relegated to cribs represented the “end of the line” for prostitutes, earning twenty-five to fifty cents a trick. These women were either too old, too ugly, cut up, diseased, or hooked on opium to secure a place in any of the higher-end brothels. Hurdy-Gurdy gals did not turn tricks, but rather, did take a “turn” on the dance floor with customers. Hurdy-Gurdy gals and prostitutes, in fact, hated each other. No friendly camaraderie here! Bartenders and professors (piano players) were revered by all the women, hurdy-gurdies and prostitutes. To catch the eye of a bartender or professor was a lucky day, indeed. To marry a bartender or professor was “the mother lode!”

Prostitutes who worked in fine parlor houses represented the “top of the line,” earning fifty dollars a customer, and usually only entertaining one customer a night. Their madam—who never missed a trick or detail about her “girls” or their guests—and any bouncers hired, protected them. They made good money but usually didn’t see much of it. Most went for clothes and monthly doctor exams and expenditures related to the up-keep of the house and their rooms and entertainment costs. A good house usually had ten to fifteen rooms for the “girls” located upstairs. Downstairs was decorated like a palace, with parlors and dance floors and mirrors and a fine piano … serving the best food and champagne the city could offer.

To address my initial statement as to how prostitutes survived during such tough times and under such conditions … the true answer is that many did not. The average age to enter the profession was fifteen, as this was usually when a girl started her cycle. Today it’s much earlier, but in the mid-19^th century it was fifteen.

Many prostitutes stayed in the business until the age of thirty, give or take. If the girls were lucky enough to reach thirty, that is. You can imagine that in some of the lesser houses, and certainly in cribs or on the street, many of the women took their own lives due to severe melancholia. Often without the support of family and friends, and often alone during holidays, many ended their lives, swallowing a vial of opium. Violence was common, too, and many were killed, either by accident or on purpose. Disease afflicted many prostitutes at the end of the line, due to unsanitary conditions; not to mention lack of nourishment.

Two things about prostitution in Colorado’s colorful history surprised me. I didn’t realize there were so many levels of prostitution, and I never before realized that we all owe them a debt of gratitude for truly softening the West and bringing some degree of civility to an uncivil territory. These wonderful women are our true heritage here in Colorado. I say “hazzah” to Mattie Silks and Jenny Rogers in Denver and “hurrah” to “the lady on the barroom floor” in Central City!

I would love to know if any of you—if you could—would step back in time now, right onto the pages of THE PARLOR HOUSE DAUGHTER, and trade places with vulnerable, determined Rebecca Rose … and put your life at great risk, daring to fall in love with unreachable, aggravatingly handsome Morgan Larkspur? What has your research led you to discover about prostitution in the Old West? Were any of you like me, and thought all Legends in Lace were like “Miss Kitty” on Gunsmoke? Can any of you imagine how tough it had to have been to “work the line?”  Do any of you have questions re other aspects of prostitution? Brass check, anyone? heh heh

I appreciate so much the opportunity to guest host today. Petticoats and Pistols is such a prestigious, wonderful, informative blog, and I’m so happy to be included! I look forward to your comments. Let’s “hook up.” (term from the Civil War: “hookers”) 

Joanne Sundell

THE PARLOR HOUSE DAUGHTER, Five Star-Gale, 12/08

ISBN: 978-1-59414-722-7 (available on Amazon or on-line at any bookstore or call 1-800-877-4253. ext 8119)

“This is historical romance of a satisfying order.” PUBLISHERS WEEKLY

“A classic western story of the good, the bad, and the ugly.”  BOOKLIST

author@joannesundell.com,

www.joannesundell.com,

www.myspace.com/joannesundell

I was pleasantly surprised to find a stunning vintage calendar in my mailbox the other day from Harlequin.  Celebrating 60 years in the business, they compiled some of their covers in a glorious depiction of what those early days in publishing looked like.

Harlequin has made strides in the roles and relevance woman have played for the past 60 years.  The covers are a reflection of the times and they depict the marvelous advances women have made over the past six decades. 

My biggest “oh wow” moment came when I read the subtitles for some of these books.   In the above cover titled Anna, the subtitle reads: “She lived like a wicked little animal.”  Anneke De Lange 1952

Or “Men cast a net for her” in Virgin with Butterflies.  Tom Powers, 1949

And “The private affairs of not-so-private secretaries” in Nine to Five. Harvey Smith, 1952

Color me naïve, but I had no idea that these early books started out with such flair!  I also noticed that men wrote the majority of the books depicted the calendar!  That’s another “oh wow” moment. 

Fun facts:

The books sold for 35 to 50 cents. 

Harlequin sells over 4 books every second.

1 in every 6 books sold in North America is Harlequin/Silhouette

More than 1/3 of American females have read a Harlequin book at some time in their life.

Harlequin publishes in 107 countries and 29 languages

I believe great covers sell the book.  I’m sure back in those early days, these covers were controversial, the cutting edge in bookselling.  I love a good cover, while I’m not a fan of sexy “clench” covers, I do like to see a man and woman interacting on the book.  And for westerns, I love a “man only” cover. 

What kind of cover attracts you the most?  What stops you in your tracks when you’re passing by a shelf of books?  Do any of you have one of those “old” Harlequin books hanging around? 

In the spirit of the Christmas holiday, post a comment today and I’ll pick two readers to win a copy of Do Not Disturb Until Christmas (one of my favorite covers). 

Suite Reading and Happy Trails!

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