Riachuelo st., 42: Angelina Ilha's Pension and the Prostitution Business in the South of Brazil (1915-1922)

Abstract

The present work seeks to contribute to the understanding of prostitution as an economic practice in the early 20th century, in the city of Santa Maria. To achieve this goal, we look at Angelina Ilha's "house of tolerance", in the central part of the city, known as a "prostitution zone". Through three crime cases that directly or indirectly involve this business place, we observed how a woman organized the exploitation of prostitutes by renting rooms in a pension, what her strategies were for managing her business and acting in an illicit market, which involved criminal activities. Other sources such as almanacs of the region and the city's main newspaper helped us to understand the dynamics of the city in which a large number of women practiced the most diverse forms of commercial sex. The look at economic aspectsof this kind of activity shows that economic history can make important contributions to the understanding of the phenomenon, such as illuminating the women's agency by managing businesses.