By Miss DaMeaner

While taking a women's history class, I became interested in the "bad girls" of our fair city's days of old. I compiled this brief history for my women's ride of January 1999. The riders received a full color zine for their participation of this glorious yet grueling trip through time. Here are some naughty bits for those who missed out! -MDM

PUSSY POWER

San Francisco was once famous for brothels and there were many on the old Morton Alley (now called Maiden Lane to clean up its reputation) between 1849 and the 1890's. Men were known to pay up to $500 per "encounter."

In 1884, Chinatown criminals cashed in by exploiting slave girls from China. Some were kidnapped, or sold by their families. These 10-16 year old girls spoke no English and were kept in dungeon-like rooms until they were to be brought out for sale to brothel owners. The girls were stripped, examined publicly by a doctor who may have been paid to say they were in good health. The bidding began and depending on their age and beauty they could be sold for as much as $2000. The girls could buy themselves out of slavery but this could take years and by then they were usually diseased or dead.

One woman named Donaldina Cameron in 1874 worked to free the young slave girls by offering them a place to hide as well as heal. The Cameron House at 920 Sacramento Street still serves the Chinatown community by providing social services, education and counseling for teens.

Ah Toy was among three Chinese prostitutes who arrived as a slaves in 1849. At the age of 20, she attracted block long lines of lusty men who would fall over each other to get to her crib. Armed with brains as well as beauty, by 1850 the alluring Ah Toy bought her freedom and operated her own parlor houses at 34 and 36 Pike Street (now called Waverly Place). She hired two Chinese women fresh off the boat to entertain. Our industrious madam was not intimidated by the male-dominated world! She took customers to court when they tried to pass brass for gold. You go girl!

Mary Ellen Pleasant (1814-1904) was best known as the "Fabulous Negro Madame" with rich and influential clients. Born a slave in Georgia, she was bought and educated by an abolitionist and later worked to free slaves herself. Earning a bounty on her head in Louisiana, she fled to lovely San Francisco becoming a highly paid cook and a wise investor. By placing runaway slaves in jobs as domestics to the wealthy, she developed an information network that made her both feared and respected. On the corners of Bush and Octavia Streets, (right there at the old abortion clinic) you will find a large plaque dedicated in her honor. Also there you will find trees that Mary Ellen herself had planted.

Wild Women in the City

Maude Younger (1870-1936) organized, lobbied and helped win the eight-hour work day labor law in California during the 1911 campaign. She drove a team of six horses pulling a suffrage float down Market Street in San Francisco's Labor Day parade.

Alma de Bretteville Spreckles (1881-1968) was born to a poor farming family in S.F.'s Sunset District. Because of her father's distaste for work, Alma's mother Mathhilde was the sole supporter of the family and urged her (good for nothing) husband to move the family in to the inner city to a small flat on Francisco Street where she turned the front room into a Danish bakery. HOORAY for delicious snacks!

Tired of being dirt poor and inspired by her mother's ambition, Alma set out on her own at 14. Her good looks were stacked six feet tall, and she found herself working as a nude model for artists and paying for classes in art and piano herself. Atop of the column in Union Square, you will see beautiful Alma sporting a trident and wreath, a sculpture dedicated in 1902 to Admiral Dewey and President McKinley.

Being a rich man's wife as her goal, Alma married her "sugar daddy," Adolph Spreckels in 1908. She accomplished building a huge house at 2080 Washington Street, and The Legion of Honor to house the largest collection of Auguste Rodin sculpture.

Alma also provided relief to both world war efforts, as well as aid for victims of the 1906 earthquake. If that were not enough, we have Big Alma to thank for inventing the garage sale!

Beauties of the BEAT

Helen Adam (1909-1992) was known to Beat poets as the "Godmother of the San Francisco Renaissance" Born in Glasgow, Scotland, she was hailed for her ability to read at the age of 2 and having an extraordinary sense and handling of rhythm and rhyme. Helen, with mother and sister moved to S.F. in 1948 into an apartment on 17th Street. (DA Mission!) Helen wrote plays such as "Initiation to the Magic Workshop", and "San Francisco's Burning" which went on to Broadway. It has been said of Helen Adam when she chanted her poetry, the haunting blur of her voice was so magical it could cause a mist to rise in the air.

< Helen and her sister in NYC

Ruth Weiss (b. 1928) escaped Nazi Germany in 1933 with her parents to Vienna and began schooling and wrote her first poem at age five. Seven years later the family fled to the United States. After much moving around, Ruth hitchhiked from Chicago to San Francisco's North Beach and lived at 1010 Montgomery Street where she began to write Jazz and Haiku poetry creating an innovative style that would effect the S.F. scene forever. Ruth's other accomplishments include published works in Beatitude and Semina magazines, and a series of filmpoems and plays. Ruth Weiss still reads her poetry in North beach at The Gathering Café on Grant Ave. on the last Monday of every month (as of 1996 - mdm).

©2003 Stephanie Royston. Contact the authoress.

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