Adeline Miller

Adeline Miller, alias Adeline Furman, was an American madam and prostitute. According to her contemporary George Templeton Strong, Miller had been active in New York City prostitution since the late 1810s. [Gilfoyle 70-1.] By 1821, she was running a bordello on Church Street, where she had accumulated personal effects worth at least $500.Gilfoyle 71.]

Over Miller's 30-year career, she became quite wealthy. At one point or another, Miller ran houses on Duane, Elm, Orange, and Reade streets. She owned but did not manage another brothel on Cross Street. Rumors suggested that in the 1840s, she charged her girls $14 a week to stay in her brothels. [Gilfoyle 169.] By 1855, she had many personal residences; the one on Church Street alone contained effects valued at $5,000.

Miller was a celebrity as well. Her name appeared in tourist guidebooks and in the diaries of rich New Yorkers. [Gilfoyle 84.] The "Libertine" opined that she and Phoebe Doty, another madam, should rent New York's Park Theatre and talk about their exploits. The paper predicted that "the house would be crammed if the "entrance" was five dollars a "head". The bigger the harlot now-a-days the more money is made." [Quoted in Giilfoyle 73. Emphasis in original.] By the 1840s, the aging Miller had become the subject of negative press, particularly from the "Whip". The paper called her a "grey-haired hag" and "the most wicked procuress in the city." [Quoted in Gilfoyle 71.]

Miller had children, though all entered more mainstream professions.

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.