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Vina Fields was an African American brothel madam who operated in Chicago from the 1870s to the 1910s. Her career began during the 1870s, when she established her brothel, House of Pleasure, in the Levee District of Chicago.[1] In 1893, at the height of her 30-year career, she owned the largest brothel in Chicago, housing and managing 60-70 women. This made her one of Chicago's wealthiest African Americans and one of the 50 wealthiest people in all of Chicago.[2][3]
The sex workers she employed were mostly women of color, while she "admitted only white customers".[4][2] She was described as a true "character of the red light district".[5] Not much is known about Fields' personal life, but historian Cynthia Blair details her massive impact on the sex industry of Chicago, recognizing her as an influential and important African American woman in Chicago's history.
- ^ Blair, Cynthia M. (2018-09-28). I've Got to Make My Livin': Black Women's Sex Work in Turn-of-the-Century Chicago. University of Chicago Press. p. 65. ISBN 978-0-226-59758-4.
- ^ a b Ditmore, Melissa Hope (2006). Encyclopedia of Prostitution and Sex Work. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-313-32968-5.
- ^ Miller, Donald L. (1997-04-03). City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-83138-1.
- ^ Haller, Mark H. (1991). "Policy Gambling, Entertainment, and the Emergence of Black Politics: Chicago from 1900 to 1940". Journal of Social History. 24 (4): 719–739. doi:10.1353/jsh/24.4.719. ISSN 0022-4529. JSTOR 3788854.
- ^ Blair 2010, p. 1.