[LEMONS]


9.03.2003

And You Thought Capp Street Was Representin'

San Francisco History - The Barbary Coast, Chapter 2. Hounds and Harlots

During the first six months of 1850 approximately two thousand women, most of whom were harlots also, arrived in San Francisco from France and other European countries and from the Eastern and Southern cities of the United States, principally New York and New Orleans. Thereafter they came on every ship, and within a few years San Francisco possessed a red-light district that was larger than those of many cities several times its size. Moreover, it was at least as cosmopolitan as the remainder of the population; it has been said that by the end of 1852 there was no country in the world that was not represented in San Francisco by at least one prostitute. In October 1850 the Pacific News announced that nine hundred more women of the French demi-monde, carefully chosen from the bagnios of Paris and Marseilles for their beauty, amiability, and skill, were expected, and in the same issue delicately informed its readers that in the mines Indian women were available “at reasonable prices.” Unfortunately only fifty of the French women arrived, but that was a sufficient number to cause considerable commotion among the miners, who were naturally eager to determine for themselves if the ladies were as adept in the practice of their profession as was popularly supposed. Most of these accomplished courtesans were attended by their pimps, whom they called macquereaux, a designation which the forthright San Franciscans soon shortened to “macks.” These unsavory gentry are still so called in San Francisco, although the red-light district was officially abolished some twenty years ago, and the city now, of course, has no prostitutes.

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