More than a Word: Intimacy, Race, and Power in Seattle, 1880-1910

Paying for sex. It remains controversial. For sex workers in burgeoning Seattle, Washington, in the late 1800s, engaging in commercial sex was only one of the challenges they faced. The purpose of my research is to analyze the relationship among gender and race through a focus on 19th-century prostitution. My research focuses on the newly founded city of Seattle from 1880 to 1900, from the height of the native population in Seattle, commonly referred to as the village period, to the advent of railroads. The relationship between race, class, and sex workers has been established by many scholars. However, little research focuses on Seattle and the impact of race on social interactions in the village period. The focus of my study explores what prostitution can reveal about racial interactions, norms, and customs of Seattle in the late nineteenth century. Seattle, isolated from the East, is exposed to increasing immigration from California and East Asian countries. This placements as both isolated and worldly, impacts the creation of race in Seattle. Understanding the function between sex work and race in Seattle is about more than history. Informing past complete with racial interactions and social awareness of race in intimate and sexual interactions, the larger context raises questions of the United States as a sexually controlling state. Through an analysis of census data, print media, and government documents, I begin to unravel the connection of race, state, and gender to better understand social belonging and interethnic communities.