The Evangelists and the Brothel
In 1887, a group of women conducted prayer meetings inside Seattle’s houses of prostitution, confronting the grim reality of life for the women living and working within.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The tragic death of Mollie Flippen has directed the attention of the religious element to the people of her kind in the city. It has resulted in many incidents of interest with reference to this class. Since the funeral, a party of ladies, headed by Mrs. Hemus, the evangelist, have visited all the houses of prostitution in the city—there are four of them of a strictly public nature—and held prayer meetings in each. They first went to the house kept by Mollie Bonancranz, on C Street, which wears a badge on the outside as the 'Star Lodging House.'
Inside, the ladies courageously rang the bell. It was answered in a moment by the mistress herself. When the ladies explained they wished to sing and pray, the woman hesitated, then swung open the parlor door. After a short delay, the Bonancranz stood in the doorway, ushering in five others, introducing them as 'Miss Daisy,' 'Miss Blanche,' and 'Miss Maud.' They were arrayed in silks and satins, though two little fresh-faced girls were also brought in, filling the visitors' hearts with dismay.
This scene was repeated elsewhere. At the house of Annie Walker, where the recent tragedy occurred, Ed. Kennedy, the mistress's alleged husband, undertook to entertain the visitors by describing the peculiar features of life in such places: how the inmates became addicted to morphine, illustrating the dire effects by showing the blue marks upon the bed-ridden body of Annie Walker. He explained how young girls were led away by 'cappers,' who kept familiar with the habits of girls and lured them with promises of an easy life, only to trap them. Annie Walker added that she was 'more honorable' in her conduct than others, as she did not lure young girls, but rather cared for those already poor and unable to make a living. In the course of their rounds, one of the ladies encountered a young girl who had been a bright member of her Sunday school class just months before. Her father had taken her from the place several times, yet she had always promptly returned.
“Two of the silk clad women knelt down, but the others remained sitting, and the little girls looked on in wonder.”
While the social dynamics of 1887 Seattle differ from the present, the intersection of housing precarity, substance use, and exploitation remains a persistent struggle in our city. The 'cappers' of the 1880s find a grim modern equivalent in the sophisticated mechanisms of contemporary human trafficking that still haunt the Pacific Northwest.
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