Julia Brown

Julia Brown was an American madam and prostitute. In the 1830s, Brown entered a brothel owned by Adeline Miller, a well-known New York madam. She did not stay long, however; soon Brown was running brothels of her own on Chapel and Church streets. One brothel was partially destroyed when the neighboring National Theatre burnt down in 1841. By the next year, Brown had opened a new house on Leonard Street, stocked with furniture she had salvaged from the ruined playhouse. This quickly became the most famous brothel in New York City.Gilfoyle 71.]

Despite her illicit occupation, Brown was a darling of the New York upper class. She received invitations to social galas across New York City, and her admirers nicknamed her "Princess Julia". She sometimes threw balls of her own in the winter as a way to attract new patrons.

Brown was, as Gilfoyle calls her, "the best-known prostitute in antebellum America". She became a popular subject of tourist guidebooks, and her name appears often in diaries from the period. [Gilfoyle 84.] Charles Dickens reportedly visited her on a trip through America. The penny press also followed her exploits; the major criticism levied against her was that the cut she took from her girls' earnings was too large.

Notes

References

* Gilfoyle, Timothy J. (1992). "City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1790—1920". New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.