Hi all! I'm trying to figure this out. This is the 1900 Census and I'm looking at Anne E. Smith on line 72. It says that her occupation is a prostitute and there are two other women living in her home that are also prostitutes. Finally, it says that Anne owns the home.
Of course, there will be no business record for her line of work, so whatever hypothesis I come up with will be simply that. It's just that I get the feeling that this is an actual brothel. If she took to the street for work, then she could have boarded legitimately employed roommates, right? I mean, they didn't have to know what she was doing at night.
A brothel was probably considered a safer environment, I would think anyway. There is always someone else there in case things went badly. Jack-the-Ripper was still in recent memory and street work was probably recognized as very dangerous by then.
What do you all think?
In case you all are wondering, her life improved dramatically. Once her son became of age, they picked up and moved to a new state where they could start fresh. He became very successful and his children were professionals with good jobs, such as engineers, etc. She retired to a very comfortable life and where no one would know her past.
Many thanks for your ideas.