Othering Spaces: The Creation of "Deviant" Community Spaces in 19th- and Early-20th Century Brothels in Central City, CO

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Deviations: Archaeologies of Sexuality Beyond the Heteronormative", at the 2025 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

Sex work occupied a liminal space in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century heteronormative American culture. Sex workers were often perceived as outsiders within the “polite” society of their own communities. In the mining town of Central City, Colorado, there is historical evidence that further restrictions were placed on the movement of sex workers. Despite these constraints, professional spaces occupied by sex workers in the nineteenth-century, such as brothels, were multi-layered counter-spaces, resembling what Foucault referred to as “heterotopias”. Using excavated materials from the Central City Archaeological Project field school, this paper argues that the othering of sex workers was not only embodied, but also inscribed on the spaces which they occupied and reflected in the way that these spaces were constructed, decorated, located on the landscape, or used to present fantasy to the brothel customer.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for Historical Archaeology 2025   •
• Deviations: Archaeologies of Sexuality Beyond the Heteronormative

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow