Federal Writers' Project – Life Histories/2020/Spring/Section24/Bessie Mae Boatwright

Overview
Bessie Mae Boatwright was an American prostitute in the South during the Great Depression. She was interviewed for the Federal Writer’s Project in 1939, when she was 19 years old.

Childhood and Family
Most of Boatwright’s memories from her childhood are of her dad, who was often drunk, and her mother fighting. Boatwright cited these memories as a main reason why she did not want to get married. Her parents were bootleggers and would often have Boatwright and her siblings secretly deliver the liquor to customers, especially after the police caught on to their operation. Boatwright had three younger sisters and one younger brother, who was disabled. Boatwright’s grandfather lived in a poor-house, but Boatwright never had to experience poverty because her mother worked at a laundromat, and the family was often supported by organizations such as the Red Cross.

Boatwright’s mother had many of affairs, one of which was with a married man. His wife told Boatwright’s father of the affair, but Boatwright’s father did not care. The wife’s father murdered Boatwright’s father in a truck accident but was never charged. Boatwright stated that her mother was not upset by his death.

Boatwright never completed her education, dropping out of school after or during eighth grade. However, she did take classes as an adult.

Later Life
Boatwright lived for a while in a predominantly black neighborhood in Paris, Tennessee with her mother and siblings. One of Boatwright’s lovers paid for their housing. Although there was only one room, Boatwright and her mother would often have men over, even if the children were around. Margie, Boatwright’s younger sister, often snuck out to meet men, even though her mother did not approve.

For a few years, Boatwright had an affair with a married man who was willing to divorce his wife, but Boatwright had no intention of marrying him. Marriage records attest that Boatwright married 44-year-old R G Hall in Missouri in 1942. The details of their relationship are unknown.

Career
Boatwright began prostituting herself at an early age. When she was thirteen, her neighbors reported her to the police, and she was sent to an “institution,” which only encouraged her prostitution. While in the institution, Boatwright was able to continue her education. She was sent to institutions on more than one occasion. Boatwright learned a lot from her stays, such as how to take care of herself, sex tips, and where to go to get an abortion.

Early on in her career, Boatwright did not require men to pay her for sex. Later, she would take as much as they would give her, even if it was not much. Boatwright stated that boys in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) would not pay much, but she could have sex with many of them at a time and make a fair amount of money. Due to her job, Boatwright caught and spread sexually transmitted diseases many times over the course of her career. Although there were jobs open to her, Boatwright only entertained the idea of working in an office or marrying a rich, older man.

Institutionalization of Women
In 1917, during World War I, many American soldiers had sexually transmitted diseases. In order to prevent the STDs from spreading, officials banned prostitutes from entering “five-mile ‘moral zones’” around military camps. This ban was part of wider-spread movements to decrease prostitution in general. Eventually, once the officials realized that it was not just prostitutes spreading the STDs, police were allowed to detain anyone who was suspected of having an STD. Once detained, police officers would physically examine and test the women for STDs. Although the law technically applied to men and women, women, especially prostitutes and women of color, were much more likely to be singled out. If a woman had a STD, she would be sent to an “institution,” without a legal process, and held until she was considered clean and reformed. These institutions often treated women with arsenic and mercury in order to cure them, and even more medical examinations were common.

Two movements in particular influenced these arrests and institutions. The social purity movement focused on sex work as a consequence of flawed morals and  viewed prostitutes as victims rather than as perpetrators. Over time, as the social purity movement faded, the social hygiene movement rose. The social hygiene movement characterized prostitutes as people who were purposefully spreading STDs and endangering the health of the nation. Although both movements influenced the attempt to get rid of prostitution, the movements portrayed sex workers were portrayed in very different ways. The social hygiene movement’s view of women caused stigma that lasted throughout the effort to get rid of prostitution.

John D. Rockefeller helped fund the movement against prostitution, known on the governmental level as “the American Plan,” through the American Social Hygiene Association (ASHA), which aided law enforcement in arresting women. Similar to both the social purity and social hygiene movements, ASHA claimed that their goal was to rehabilitate “delinquent” women in order to protect the health of the general population.