Fancy Ladies
A mapped history of Nashville's prostitutes
The Price of the Pleasure
Anyone can name Gettysburg as a key location of the Civil War. But most cannot recall that Nashville, too, was among the most coveted strategic locations.
Under Union occupation, Nashville probably counted with no less than 40,000 troops at any time. At some points there could have been over 100,000.
These were young men, away from home for perhaps the first time. They were also stationed in a city that was home to at least 250 prostitutes, according to the 1860 census. Nashville's red-light district, "Smoky Row," was its worst-kept secret.
With all that pleasure came an epidemic of disease. Generally lumped together as "venereal disease," STDs like syphilis and gonorrhea plagued thousands of soldiers in Nashville.
In June of 1863, it became clear that Union officers in Nashville would have to do something about this crisis, which beset them and their troops “daily and almost hourly.”
Peculiar Problem, Peculiar Fix
Gen. Granger decided that the city’s many hundreds of prostitutes were to blame for the epidemic. As such, he tasked Lt. Col. George Spalding, Nashville’s Provost Marshal, with ridding the city of its “public women.”
The Provost Marshall, a military police force, was well-equipped for the job. Spalding's men rounded up as many prostitutes as they could, then forced them to board the USS Idahoe to be shipped upriver.
After several stops, from Louisville to Cincinnati, the riverboat turned back toward Nashville. At every port where they tried to dock, officials refused entry to the diseased women of "dubious profession."
And so, Provost Marshal Spalding once again had a problem on his hands. His next approach was beyond novel: he legalized prostitution in Nashville.
The strictest requirement of the new system dictated that prostitutes were to report weekly to a medical professional for examination. If a woman was deemed healthy, she could continue to work. Otherwise, she was given treatment and isolated in the hospital.
This photo is believed to show Hospital No. 15, where prostitutes with STDs were treated.
Within a year of the system's implementation, cases of venereal disease in Nashville had dropped dramatically. So successful was the scheme that Memphis officials caught on and applied the same remedy to their city's sexual health crisis.
A Survey of Sin
After digging in the Tennessee State Library Collections and the National Archives, we found a register of women, compiled by Lt. Col. Spalding. The document listed one hundred sixty unique women who enrolled in the legalization program in its first two weeks. Most of the first enrollees were probably also aboard the Idahoe, since authorities would already know where they were living.
This register included addresses. We wanted to know how the prostitutes of Nashville were geographically distributed, and so we mapped them. All of the locations should be considered approximate, but together they should accurately reflect the situation. One red dot represents one prostitute on the register.
Licensed Prostitutes of Nashville | Late August, 1863
Play around with the map! Note the close proximity of the prostitution hubs to the State Capitol, the Supreme Court, and Market Square. The area along present-day Church St. from 2nd to 4th Avenues was the infamous "Smokey Row," where men from across the Union flocked to see Nashville's women. On the map below, see what the red-light districts would look like on modern-day Nashville.
Nashville, 1860 vs. 2023
Medical Offices
On this map, see the starred locations of two important offices. Note the proximity to the State Capitol (top left) and Market Square (top middle).
The gold star to the left represents Dr. Coleman's Dispensary for "Special Diseases," where men could go for venereal disease treatment. Just to the right is the Office of the Provost Marshal's Department of Medicine. Here Lt. Col. Spalding doubtless served many hours when working on the STD crisis in Nashville. The proximity to Smoky Row was not likely an accident.
Mollie May's brothel(s?)
Mollie May
A young woman by the name of Mollie May was "one of the most influential brothel owners in the West," born in 1850. Curiously, another Mollie May was to be found in Nashville in 1863. Though these two were almost certainly not the same woman, the coincidence in alias is curious. According to Chambers's register, Nashville's Mollie May resided at 78 Line Street (star right). However, the November 22, 1863 edition of Nashville Union and American cites Mollie May as proprietor of a brothel on the corner of Line and McLemore (star left), far from the original location. But the Sept. 29th edition of the same paper cited her brothel as being along Smoky Row (cluster bottom right). Did Mollie move? Did she own more than one brothel? A most peculiar case...
Sarah Morgan
How old is too old for prostitution? According to surgeon Chambers, 38! Sarah Morgan registered to be a prostitute in Nashville on August 29 th , 1863, approximately among the first hundred women to do so. Upon examination, however, Surgeon Chambers determined that she was “[c]onsidered too old to injure either her Morals or the health..." Her age is not listed in the report, but we used census data to count Sarah's birthdays. On the subject of age, the prostitution profession was one that unfortunately counted many minors among its ranks. The youngest girl who was issued a license in the first two weeks of Chambers's program was just fifteen. Nevertheless, she was almost certainly not the youngest prostitute in Nashville.
Old-Timey Party Busses
It seems that party busses have plagued Nashville's downtown since the 1860s, at least. “Infantryman John Watkins wrote to his wife from Nashville with common sentiments: 'It seems though there was nothing else here [but prostitutes]. For they monopolise everything. All the public hack and drives. The front seats of all places of amusement I have seen 6 & 8 in a carriage driving by drinking and carousing singing and hollering like so many drunken men.”
Success Sells
A year after its implementation, Nashville's system of legalized prostitution had been so effective at alleviating the venereal disease crisis that Memphis officials employed a system based on Nashville's. Meanwhile, officials in D. C., Norfolk, Virginia, and New Orleans were largely unsuccessful at fighting disease in their cities by traditional legal enforcement.
The Tennessee public was certainly not happy with its public health officials, but military status meant that those officers were not concerned with reelection. They simply made military calculations and found that legalization was best for the public health, public opinion be damned. Wartime powers are certainly not to be desired in times of peace, but perhaps we could learn from just how effective some measures could be, if we could only get over our hesitations.
