The world of prostitution in late imperial Austria

289 Pages·2017·4.199 MB·English

by  Wingfield, Nancy Meriwether

THE WORLD OF PROSTITUTION
IN LATE IMPERIAL AUSTRIA

The World of
Prostitution in Late
Imperial Austria
NANCY M. WINGFIELD
1
3
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Acknowledgments
This book has had a very long—elephantine, even—gestation. It began totally
accidentallyonecoldJanuarymorningin2002attheÖsterreichischesStaatsarchiv
inVienna.IopeneduptheboxofdocumentsthatIhadorderedthepreviousday
expecting to find material on reaction to the Badeni language ordinances in
Moravia.ImaginemysurprisewhenIdiscoveredfilesonprostitutionandtraffick-
ing in late imperial Austria. The ever-prescient Scott Spector, who was working
alongsideme,onlyjuststoppedmefromreturningthebox.Herightlypointedout
that there was noway I was getting the anti-Badeni material until the next day at
the earliest, so I might as well read what I had. And so I did. By the time the
documents I had actually ordered arrived late the following day, I was hooked on
the topic of prostitution, and I have been researching and writing about it ever
since. Of course, I still had to finish my monograph, Flag Wars and Stone Saints:
How the Bohemian Lands Became Czech, which was published in 2007, and a few
otherprojects.
The author of any book that involves as much archival research as this one did
incurs many debts. In my case, they are far too numerous to list, but I will try.
Maureen Healy, Rebecca Johnson, Lisa Kirschenbaum, Mark Lewis, Tamara
Scheer, and Keely Stauter-Halsted (my in-house editor and partner in crime)
have read the entire manuscript, some chapters more than once. Paulina Bren,
whoisamongthebestnarrativewritersIknow;PeterM.Judson,JillMassino,and
CynthiaPacesalsoreadsectionsofthemanuscript.Ithankallofthemprofuselyfor
theirusefulcommentsandsuggestions.Mydoctoralstudent,JourneySteward,and
formergraduatestudentKateDensford,whoisnowcompletingherdissertationat
theGeorgeWashingtonUniversity,aswellasfriendsandcolleaguesLaurenceCole,
Cate Giustino, Maura Hametz, Catherine Horel, Borut Klabjan, Rudolf Kučera,
Tamara Scheer, and Rok Stergar, drew my attention to fascinating archival and
secondary sources. Peter Becker, Benita Blessing, Tomáš Cvrček, John Deak,
JeremyKing,MarkLewis,ErwinA.Schmidl,ScottSpector,andAndriyZayarnyuk
patientlyansweredavarietyofquestionsabouttheHabsburgbureaucracy,consti-
tution, economy, geography, legal system, and policing over the years. I am very
gratefultoMariusWeigelforprovidingmeaplethoraofarchivalmaterial.Finally,
thankstoalloftherestofyouwhohavelistenedtometalkaboutprostitutionand
sextrafficking,repeatedly,andsometimesforyears.Youknowwhoyouare.
AcrossHabsburgCentralEurope,archivistsandlibrariansatthenumerousarchives
andlibraries,largeandsmall,whereIworked,wereuniformlyhelpful.Someofthem
surprisedme byferretingoutmaterialsthatIhadnotknownexisted.Amongthese
patientsouls,MichaelWinteroftheLandespolizeidirektionWienArchivstandsout.
HealwaysmadesurethateveryfileIhadrequestedwaswaitingformewhenIarrived
atthearchiveandimmediatelybroughtmeanydocumentIrequested.Whoknewone
could feel so at home in a police archive? Harald Binder’s entire team—past and
vi Acknowledgments
present—attheCenterforUrbanHistoryofEastCentralEuropeinL’vivensuredthat
my research trips to that city were very productive. I am especially grateful to the
Center for sponsoring the path-breaking interdisciplinary workshop, “Sex in the
Cities: Prostitution, White Slaving, and Sexual Minorities in Eastern and Central
Europe,” in June 2009. The following people were instrumental in making my
research in Chernivtsi in autumn 2010 run smoothly: Andrii Goncharuk, Oksana
Ivasiuk, Ivanna Liakhovych, and Misha Skoreyko. Borut Klabjan kindly helped
menegotiatethelocalarchivesinTrieste,whereIbeganworkingin2012.Moreover,
heandhiscolleaguesandtheirgraduatestudentsintheDepartmentofHistoryatthe
UniversityofPrimorskainneighboringKoper,Slovenia,alwaysmademewelcome,
andhelpedmaketheAustrianRivieracomealive.
Theopportunitytopresentmyresearchatconferences,seminars,andworkshops
helped me hone my arguments and better frame my discussion. I thank the
following people in Europe and the United States for inviting me to speak or
participate in workshops: Muriel Blaive, Gerhard Botz and Philipp Ther, Mark
Cornwall, Sofia Dyak, Robert J. W. Evans and David Rechter, Dagmar Hájková,
Borut Klabjan, Luda Klusáková, Rudolf Kučera, Anita Kurimay, Irina Livezeanu,
Marek Nekula and Jindrich Toman, Mary Neuberger, Tamara Scheer, Hanna
Skoreyko,andVolkerZimmerman.Theopportunitytogivethekeynotelectureat
theUniversityofRegensburgmeetingoftheWissenschaftlichesNetzwerk“Sozial-
fürsorgeundGesundheitinOst-undSüdosteuropaimlangen20.Jahrhundert”in
November2013andtoparticipateintheworkshopthatfollowedstandsoutasone
ofthemostenrichingexperiencesofmyacademiccareer.ManythankstoFriederike
Kind-Kovacs,whoinvitedme,andtoalloftheotherwomenwhotookpart.
I am grateful to the entities that helped facilitate my research. Funds from
Erasmus Mundus TEMA, the Fulbright Commissions of the Czech Republic
and Ukraine, the International Research and Exchanges Board, Northern Illinois
University, and the Slovenian Granting Agency were instrumental in supporting
the numerous trips to archives and libraries across throughout Habsburg Central
Europethatmadethisbookpossible.
I am also grateful to Robert Faber, formerly senior commissioning editor in
history at Oxford University Press, for his enthusiasm for my project. Cathryn
Steele, Assistant Commissioning Editor for Academic History at the press, deftly
andpatientlysupervisedthe publication.This includedansweringquestions. Lots
ofquestions.ItwasapleasuretoworkwithcopyeditorCamillaRockwood.Finally,
I thank Mario Brandl for producing the book’s maps, and Sophia Varcados,
Graphic Design Manager at Northern Illinois University, for help with some of
thebook’simages.
SomeofthematerialthatappearsinChapterSixwaspreviouslypublishedinmy
article,“Destination:Alexandria,BuenosAires,Constantinople;‘White-Slavers’in
Late Imperial Austria,” in Journal of the History of Sexuality 20/2 (May 2011):
291–311.Copyright©2011bytheUniversityofTexasPress.Allrightsreserved.
Iappreciatepermissiontouseit.
Myhusband,anon-academic,maybeunawarethatitdoesnottakemostpeople
morethanadecadetoproduceabook.ItistohimthatIdedicatethisone.
OUPCORRECTEDPROOF–FINAL,10/5/2017,SPi
Table of Contents
ListofMapsandIllustrations ix
ListofTables xi
Abbreviations xiii
NoteonPlaceNames xiv
Introduction 1
1. TheRiehlTrial 17
2. ReformingProstitutioninPost-RiehlVienna 47
3. Peripheries:RegulatingProstitutionintheProvinces 79
4. BrothelLife:ToleratedProstitutes,theirClients,theMadams,
andtheVicePolice 110
5. ClandestineProstitutes:WomenoftheStreets,theirPimps,
theVicePolice,andthePublic 137
6. TheTraffickingPanicinLateImperialAustria 171
7. MoralsandMoraleduringtheGreatWar 209
Epilogue 245
SelectBibliography 257
Index 267

List of Maps and Illustrations
MAPS
1. BrothelsinthecenterofViennaatthetimeoftheRiehltrial 18
2. CisleithanianAustria,circa1908 78
3. CentralPrague 87
4. Vienna,SecondDistrict(Leopoldstadt) 148
5. HabsburgCentralEurope,circa1923 244
ILLUSTRATIONS
I.1. OlgaKoprivec 2
1.1. DefendantsintheRiehlTrial,OesterreichischeKriminal-Zeitung(1907) 33
3.1. Anežskáulice,OldTown,Prague 88
4.1. BudweisHealthBookInformation,AnnaFantová 117
4.2. to4.7.BudweisHealthBookPhotographs:RosaCimicky,AnnaFantová,
AnnaMüller,AntonieReitknechtová,MarieŠíma,andMarieŠroubková 118
5.1. Nordbahnhof,Vienna 146
5.2. ViewofLaibach’sTivoliPark 154
5.3. Taborstrasse,Vienna 165
5.4. CrowdgatheredatLeopoldinePiller’sfuneralinVienna,IllustrierteKronen
Zeitung,May1910 167
7.1. “Nightmare,”WienerCaricaturen(1915) 212