Madams under the Big Sky

Press release

Even when viewed through the misty lens of history, the subject of prostitution tends to tickle people’s preconceptions and prejudices.

Women in that profession are typically seen as among the lowest on the social ladder, wholly lacking in morals, virtue and redeeming qualities.

But as Montana author Nann Parrett said, “We have to work through our knee-jerk sentiments and get past them, because these women were complex. They had to be, given their circumstances.”

Parrett’s book and Farcountry Press’ newest release, “Montana Madams,” explores those circumstances— and society’s judgment of them — in great detail.

“The 23 madams profiled in the book were scared, brave, quiet, opinionated, smart as all get out and often sorely lacking in judgment,” Parrett said. “They were trusting, skeptical, trustworthy and deceitful. Miserly and generous. Often inebriated and sometimes remarkably sober-minded. In a word, they were human, and that’s reflected in the messy lives they led.”

  Parrett’s insights were gained through painstaking research.

“I obsessed on compiling stacks and stacks of information,” she says, “sifting through the clues, and developing conclusions about what these women’s lives must have been like.”

  The stories in “Montana Madams” reveal intimate glimpses of the women’s personal lives — their loves and losses — while also documenting their influence — often in surprising ways — on the communities they lived in. In the early 1900s, when Bozeman officials sited a new library in the red light district hoping to improve the neighborhood, madams cheekily provided many of the books for the shelves. In Miles City and other Montana towns, the taxes paid by madams contributed a significant portion of local school funding.

“Of necessity, madams operated in tension with the more respectable elements of their communities,” Parrett says, “so, contrary to the stereotype, they tended to be women of unusual character—intelligent and witty, often shrewd and ruthless in business, and perceptive and politic.”

Parrett’s in-depth research tells the stories of many lesser known madams, such as Fannie Spencer, Maggie Burns, Mattie Lee, and Alice Edwards, aka Etta Feeley. Parrett also uncovered a number of previously unpublished historical photographs of madams in more candid moments. “Montana Madams” includes a meticulous list of sources and a detailed index.

Parrett earned her Bachelor of Science in journalism at the University of Oregon and her Master of Arts in teaching at Concordia University, Portland. After working in publishing as a writer, editor, graphic designer and web developer for over a decade in Idaho and Oregon, she switched careers to teach high school in Oregon. Since moving to Montana in 2009, she has been on the faculty at the University of Great Falls, where she teaches grammar, composition, writing for mass media and writing for business. She is married to author and professor Aaron Parrett and is the mother of a 6-year-old girl who, like her mother, is interested in everything.