"The Dance of Death"
This file appears in: The Reservation
Published in the January 31, 1912 edition of the American satirical magazine Puck, this illustration pokes fun at those who believed new dances such as the grizzly bear and the turkey trot would lead female participants to fall into the vice of prostitution. Although it is a parody, the crude caricature of the hellish landscape of the red-light district reveals many of the popularly held perceptions concerning “fallen women” and their unfavorable environments filled with darkness, disease, and poverty.
This file appears in: The Reservation
The Reservation
Though not uncommon to late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century cities, red-light districts were regarded as areas of ill repute where madams and prostitutes worked outside the law. Yet in 1889, Waco—a city lauded for its multitude of educational…