Tiffany A. Sippial. Prostitution, Modernity, and the Making of the Cuban Republic, 1840–1920

A welcome addition to the growing body of literature analyzing the place of prostitution in debates about politics, society, and progress in late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Latin America, this new volume places gender and sexuality at the center of the history of Cuba's transition from a colony to a republic. The study is organized chronologically and traces the history of attitudes toward prostitution in Cuba from the 1840s, as Havana's population began to grow, through the abolition of slavery, the wars for independence, the United States occupation, and the establishment of the Cuban Republic. Tiffany A. Sippial contends that “[w]hether understood as a threat to social order or a legitimate form of work, prostitution in nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century Cuba was a prism through which the fears, hopes, and agendas of various sectors of society were refracted” (p. 17). Her analysis sheds light on the ways in which everyday Cubans, ranging from reformers and public officials to residents of vice districts and prostitutes themselves, interpreted the place of sexual commerce in a rapidly changing political environment. As in other parts of Latin America and the Caribbean, public officials in Cuba, from representatives of the Spanish crown to the leaders of the republic, grappled with how best to contain the perceived scandal and moral decay associated with prostitution while ensuring the regular collection of tax revenues on sexual commerce.

Economic history · Human sexuality · Independence (probability theory) · Latin Americans · Modernity · Political science · Politics · Population · Sociology · The Republic · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · Gender Studies · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies