Date of Award
8-2017
Degree Type
Creative Project
Degree Name
Master of Science (MS)
Department
English
Committee Chair(s)
Keri Holt
Committee
Keri Holt
Committee
Rebecca Walton
Committee
Colleen ONeill
Abstract
This work examines the regulation of prostitution in Butte, Montana during the 1910-1911. Butte, in particular, stands out in terms of researching how the regulation of prostitution worked to support the economic structure of a mining town in the American West because it offered a different response to Progressive Era regulation of red light districts during the early twentieth century. While there was an attempt to implement the eradication model of regulation sweeping the rest of the nation, Butte rejected this model in favor of tolerating prostitution's involvement in its mining culture and economic structure. Examining the social and economic reasons for Butte’s alternative model of regulation changes our understanding of the history of regulating prostitution in the American West. Instead of dismissing the role of prostitution in the West’s history, Butte’s pragmatic tolerance model of regulation respects the economic and social roles of prostitutes and the red light districts they occupied in the mining towns of the American West.
Recommended Citation
Johnson, Anne Marie, "It's Good Business: Regulation Models in the 1911 Closure of Butte Montanas Red Light District" (2017). All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023. 1009.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/gradreports/1009
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