Peggy Leeson
1700s Irish sex worker, brothel-keeper, and memoirist
Category Archives: Sex worker
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Ella D Wilson
African American sex worker living in Skagway, Alaska during the gold rush
Veronica Franco
1500s Italian courtesan and poet
Neaera
Ancient Athenian courtesan
Nina Clifford
Nina Clifford, a child of immigrants who evolved into the “richest woman of the underworld,” made a name for herself as an affluent sex worker who contributed to the buildup of St. Paul’s downtown Red Light District in the late 1800s. She invited other women to establish their businesses nearby while police sanctioned an environment in which vice could thrive.
Ida Dorsey
Employing the racial prejudices and fantasies of elite male clients once used against her, Ida Dorsey established herself as one of the Twin Cities’ most notorious madams, running multiple brothels between the 1880s and the 1910s.
Liang May Seen
Liang May Seen was the first woman of Chinese descent to live in Minnesota. She overcame an impoverished childhood in China and teenage years spent in a San Francisco brothel to become a respected leader in the Chinese immigrant community in Minneapolis.
Polly Adler
New York madame and author
Barbara Erni
Renowned Liechtenstein con artist and thief
Mary Duignan
Irish criminal and prostitute known as Chicago May