From the Ringo Kid’s girlfriend Claire in Stagecoach, through Miss Kitty in television’s Gunsmoke, to the waif-like Diane Lane in Lonesome Dove the prostitute has been among the more enduring images of the literary and cinematic West. She was called “soiled dove”, “shady lady”, “fallen woman,” “lost sister”, “saloon belle”, and a host of other appellations. She was quite simply the ubiquitous whore, and her portrait has been painted on many different canvases and in a generous and imaginative assortment of colors.
She was the fallen woman with a heart of gold, selfless to a fault and ready at a moment’s notice to do good for those in need. She was the woman with a heart of ice, ready to deceive, cheat, steal and murder for her lover, her husband or her pimp (often one and the same). She was the innocent waif forced into a degraded life by circumstances beyond her control and ultimately rescued from her degradation by a passing cowboy, lawman, miner, or prospector who fell in love with her and selflessly ignored her past.
She was the successful madam who ran a string of whores in a magnificent Victorian mansion on the edge of town and catered to the community’s well-to-do and “respectable” men. Or, conversely, she put her “girls” in a wagon and dragged them from mining camp to mining camp and often became wealthy in the bargain. She was, though not too often, a woman who found a vocation she liked and pursued it with gusto, enjoying both the hours and the remuneration. She was, in point of fact, what our mixture of fact and fantasy made of her. She was an almost perfect blend of myth, legend and history.
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