I’ve said it often enough that it’ll sound all-too familiar, but historians of women’s history are often at a disadvantage due to a paucity of sources, especially ones written by women. This problem is multiplied when the women in question are working class and then multiplied further when those working women are sex workers.

Recently, I learned about the book Nell Kimball: Her Life As an American Madam. Somehow, unfortunately, in my years of researching my dissertation and writing a chapter on prostitution, I was unaware of its existence. I first read about it in another dissertation, “The Criminalization of Prostitution in the United States: The Case of San Francisco, 1854-1919” by Brenda Elaine Pillors (UC Berkeley, 1982), also a source I was unaware of or did not have the time to actual read while composing my dissertation.

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“Voters recall judge who sentenced Brock Turner to 6 months in jail for sexual assault.” I have had this article link in my email inbox for almost two years now with the plan to write something about it that relates to my own research. I’m on a writing roll thanks to my guest appearance on the California Historical Society’s blog. Aaron Persky was, of course, a Santa Clara County Superior Court judge that presided over the rape trial of disgraced, convicted, sex offender Brock Turner.

I have three motivations for writing about this case.

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I don’t especially identify with my Irish roots. I completely forgot this year to make corned beef and cabbage for St. Patrick’s day. But, San Francisco can sometimes make me delight in my cultural heritage.

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As I noted last time, some residents viewed the earthquake and fire that devastated San Francisco in 1906 as an opportunity. “It is well to consider,” editorialized the Los Angeles Herald just days after the city stopped shaking, “that acts of Providence–earthquake and fire–have destroyed the sore and sorry weak spots of San Francisco.” [1] In its place would be “a city that will stand in a class by itself among the great cities of the world. As the star of empire winds its way westward it will pause at the Golden Gate and there rest on San Francisco–the Twentieth Century city.”[2]

Take a look at this map of the burned areas (click on the image for a larger version):

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San Francisco is fallin, is fallin. At 5.30 this morning a terrific earthquake shook the city from its foundations by the Golden Gate–immense buildings crumbled and fell...and fire - fire - fire. Thus began the entry for Wednesday, April 18, 1906 in resident Anne (Fader) Haskell’s diary.

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