Prostitution in the 19th Century

'Words have the power to shape our thinking about human worth in profound ways.' Historian dr. Katie Hemphill said it perfectly in her new book . It reminded me of a publication where women who provided sexual services for payment were consistently referred to as whores . A phrase that in current times has the same negative association as tart, floozy, tramp, fallen woman, or hooker. For that reason, I always preferred: prostitute . But nowadays this word has become synonymous with trafficking and violence towards women. Governments, therefore, have adopted the expression sex worker .  These terms can be found when accessing government records in the archives. It does not mean, however, that through time, the definitions have been similar. For this reason, it is vital to understand past interpretations. How are the women who provided sexual services described in formal Dutch archive resources? 

I was asked to give a talk at the yearly symposium of History Students in the Netherlands   ( Studenten Geschiedenis in Nederland ). It was held in Amsterdam in June of this year. The overall theme was taboos. Below you will find my introduction text and the slides. 

Prostitution was legal in the nineteenth century. As part of the General Local Regulations (AVP), municipalities could determine the regulations on this topic themselves. It is quite a search in a municipal archive to find such an ordinance. So when I came across a bounded collection with no less than forty nineteenth-century prostitution regulations from various municipalities at an online antiquarian bookshop a year ago,  I was overjoyed . My delight disappeared, however, quickly when I noticed the price tag. Shortly afterwards I discussed my beautiful findings with colleague Frank de Jong of the International Institute of Social History (IISH). He immediately had an interest in purchasing the collection and also wanted to scan it and make the data online available. The findings turned out to fit perfectly with the local regulations of various municipalities from the same period that the IISH already owned. The idea of adding and digitising the regulations has recently been ...

Where to go for a night in town? In nineteenth-century Amsterdam leaflets with tips on where one could have a 'peek at lady servants' or meet  "greek nymphs" were handed out on the streets. (1) In other metropolia, newsstands offered pocketbooks with addresses and reviews of local brothels and prostitutes. The old guides are still popular. In 2020  The pretty women of Paris , printed in 1883, was sold for  6.000 dollars  at an auction. For historians, these urban pleasure guides are interesting resources. Not because the given reviews provide new insights into what men considered important qualities of  'women of the night'. Those remarks have not changed much during the centuries. What is of interest is where public women and houses were located in a metropolis, the prices of services and descriptions of establishments. Fortunately, the originals can still be viewed in libraries or online and contemporary reprints can be bought at reasonable prices. (2)  ...

If you were a foreigner arriving in late nineteenth-century Amsterdam, intending to live there for a period of time, then you were by Dutch law (Vreemdelingenwet) required to apply for a travel and residence pass at the police station. With this official document, you could reside in the city for three months, after which you could extend it three times. If your occupation was, however, related to prostitution the request would be denied by default. Although prostitution was a legal profession in the Netherlands, a Dutch municipality had to make its own regulations on the topic. Attempts in Amsterdam were made, but each proposal of regulating prostitution was rejected by the council, claiming this would only increase illegal prostitution in the city. (1)   The Amsterdam City Archives has a separate registration with the rejected application data of foreign women from 1874 to 1897. A considerable amount of requests were made by prostitutes. And it has been suggested that this regi...

Looking at an old photograph of a person really brings the past to life. If you are lucky enough to find one from the 19th Century at an archive, then chances are that the depicted person was having problems with the law. And if he or she was added to the Dutch  secret register of released prisoners , it was even worse. Because then they had committed a serious offence and were considered dangerous for society . Access to the register was in those times limited to people working in specific professions. Nowadays you can  find the old register online  at the Provincial Archives of Brabant ( Brabants Historisch Informatie Centrum - BHIC). (1) Among the listed, I found brothel owners and prostitutes, like the grim-looking man you see on the right. His name was Gerardus Mulder.  The initiative for a secret register came from the Minister of Justice at the time, Anthony Modderman .  (2) From 1882 to 1897 all persons that had been convicted for serious offences wer...