Women on the Comstock, 1860-1880
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When discussing the documented history of Virginia City, Nevada from 1860 to 1900, scholar Susan Armitage noted that although mining has always been considered menÆs work, the task of building and maintaining mining communities has always required the efforts of women. Nonetheless, Armitage maintains that documented histories of mining towns, similar to much of western history, often focuses on the activities of the men as town, city and nation builders and, thus, focuses on men as the subjects of history while ignoring or stereotyping the contributions of women. This paper attempts to aid in the process of establishing not merely the existence of women in Virginia City, but also to explore and examine their contributions to town life from the period of 1860 to 1880, the period immediately following the discovery of the cityÆs famous, or infamous, Comstock Lode.The mining towns of Virginia City and Gold Hill sprung up atop the Comstock Lode in western Nevada, after miners discovered the worldÆs richest silver lode in 1859. Virginia City would always be the main social, commercial and industrial hub with Gold Hill essentially operating as its working class suburb. By 1880, miners would extract more than $300 million in silver and gold from the Comstock Lode. Marion Goldman argues that although the Comstock community was unique in its enormous wealth and large population, it nevertheless resembled other well-established
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ample, Sayers was accused of kidnapping a minor and Benjamin was involved in an action related to an infant that had been ôdeededö to her. These actions only support GoldmanÆs thesis that prostitutes were viewed as commodities by the larger society. Specifically, these madams, who represented both asexual women and men with purchasing power, were involved in actions that suggested they did in fact view other people as commodities.
In the level below the madams in this subculture were the ôhigh status prostitutesö who managed their own sexual commerce. It is not surprising that little information is available on these women, given that they do not fit into any of the acceptable or mythic gender roles for Western women. These women, however, seemed to be able to exercise some level of control over to whom they sold their sexuality. Julia Bulette, discussed above, was one such woman.
These high status prostitutes were, more often than not, Caucasian. Many of the prostitutes were foreign born, and prostitutes from the United States and European countries were considered to be a better class of prostitute than all others. For example, Goldman notes that French and German prostitutes were particularly valued because of ôa mys
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Approximate Word count = 5611
Approximate Pages = 22 (250 words per page)
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