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Madam Millie
Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan
Max Evans
Softbound
344 pages
Profusely Illustrated
Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
Date Published: March 1, 2004
Mildred Clark Cusey was a whore, a madam, an entrepreneur, and above all, a survivor.
The story of Silver City Millie, as she referred to herself, is the story of one
woman’s personal tragedies and triumphs as an orphan, a Harvey Girl waitress on
the Santa Fe railroad, a prostitute with innumerable paramours, and a highly
successful bordello businesswoman. Millie broke the mold in so many ways, and
yet her life’s story of survival was not unlike that of thousands of women who
went West only to find that their most valuable assets were their physical beauty
and their personality. Petite at five feet tall with piercing blue eyes, Millie
captured men’s attention by her very essence and her unmistakable joie de vivre.
Born to Italian immigrant parents near Kansas City, she and her sister were orphaned
early and separated from each other. Millie learned hard lessons on the streets, but
she never gave up and she vowed to protect and support her ailing older sister.
Caught in a domestic squabble in her foster home, Millie wound up in juvenile court
with Harry Truman as her judge. This would be only the first of many brushes in her
life with prominent politicians.
When physicians diagnosed her sister with tuberculosis and recommended she move West
to a Catholic home in Deming, New Mexico, Millie moved with her. Expenses ran high
and after a brief stint waiting tables as a Harvey Girl, Millie found that her meager
tips could easily be augmented by turning tricks. Thus, out of financial need and
devotion to her sister, Mildred Cusey turned to a life of prostitution and a career
at which she soon excelled and became both rich and famous.
Madam Millie contains sordid details and frank language that will make many readers
blush. It is unvarnished language, as recorded directly from Millie by Max Evans over
a period of almost twenty years. It presents a complete picture of the business of
prostitution as it was practiced in the west from the late 1920s to the mid 1970s,
told by the most successful madam in the business.
This volume came from the collection of a discrete owner.
The book has been gently read, and the pages are clean and bright
with gentle light wear to it's cover.
Order by ITEM #BKS-221-08
THIS BOOK IS SOLD
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