Kathy Peiss,
“’Charity Girls’ and City Pleasures: Historical Notes on Working-Class Sexuality, 1880-
1920” Summary
In “Charity Girls’ and City Pleasures”, the historian Kathy Peiss focuses on bringing to light the
history of working-class sexuality in New York City during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
During this time, prostitution and working-class sexuality became subjects of public scrutiny and
concern. Peiss refers to journalists’ and reformers’ pieces which illustrate middle class’
perspectives and argues that although working-class women did not meet middle class’
standards, they were not necessarily promiscuous. However, the concept of "chastity" was used
as a measure of respectability for young women, and those who engaged in premarital
intercourse or were perceived to have were considered promiscuous.1This gave rise to the term
“charity girls” which alludes to women who did not accept money in their sexual encounters
with men2. Peiss also enlightens the socio-economic environments of the middle and working
classes. While the middle-class was sex-segregated, with women confined to the household, the
working-class worked in mixed environments where privacy was often lacking: “many factories
lacked privacy in dressing facilities, and workers tolerated a degree of familiarity and
roughhousing between men and women.”3 In fact, Peiss’ article provides historical insights into
the ways in which class, gender, and sexuality intersected and were regulated in this time period.
Her work clarifies the complexities and contradictions of working-class sexuality during a time
of great social change and upheaval in the United States.
1 Kathy Peiss, “Charity Girls’ and City Pleasures: Historical Notes on Working-Class Sexuality, 1880-1920”, 75.
2 Peiss, “Charity Girls’ and City Pleasures”, 81.
3 Peiss, “Charity Girls’ and City Pleasures”, 79.
