Hijas de la alegría en lugares sórdidos

Source

Civil War prostitution gave rise to any number of euphemisms that speak to the morality of the times. In addition to the courtesans and mistresses there were: horizontal refreshment; riding the Dutch girl; waiter girls; femmes de pavé, femmes du monde; filles de joie; fallen angels, daughters of eve, gay young ducks, public women, painted Jezebels and unclean birds. The cities they gravitated to were: sordid places, pestiferous holes, Sodom and Gomoroah’s and meccas of filth. They appeared whenever and wherever the soldiers did; Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital had more prostitutes than Paris or New Orleans combined, according to one observer, and New York was “the most profligate city in all Christendom,” according to a noted diarist. ²