“WOMEN OF THE UNDERWORLD

Let us look more closely at the kinds of women who follow the calling in a city like Pittsburgh.

WORLD-WIDE ASPECTS.  While organized vice lays tribute on the youth of both sexes in every community,the prostitute, like the pickpocket and the yegg, is not confined to any city.  The trade can be thrust out of any locality; but its sources are international.

It is  far cry, for example from the ‘Big Number’ houses of Pittsburgh to the dives of Hong Kong.  In the fall of 1907 Pittsburgh brotheldom of the prosperous class was full of excitement over reports of the murder at Hong Kong of a woman we will call Gertrude Ware by a former United States sergeant of marines.  The motive of the crime was robbery evidently, as the murderer soon afterward opened a dive at Chefoo with the proceeds.  The story of this girl, who was from Youngstown, was not without its human appeal.  She had some ability as a singer, and had become a favorite with such rich men as these girls are able to win.  She was a ‘boarder’ in a Second Avenue house when in 1905 Beattie S. had come to Pittsburgh to recruit girls for ‘American houses’ in Manila, Shanghai, Chefoo, and Yokohama.  Beattie S. had herself once been one of Cleo T’s boarders, but now had wonderful stories to tell, wore bizarre costumes, was waited upon by a Japanese maid, and had a number of small Japanese dogs…”

Note:  I don’t believe Gertrude Ware was the real name of the woman in this account, but I thought it an interesting anecdote.

Reference Data:

Wage-earning Pittsburgh, by Russell Sage Foundation, 1914, page 352