Northwest Vista College adjunct faculty member Jennifer Cain‘s research caught the attention of Texas Public Radio.
Her research, titled “For Those Seeking a Good Time while in San Antonio, Texas” – The Restrictions and Permissions of Bawdy Houses from 1889 – 1941 encouraged the news radio network to create a podcast series (Listen to it here).
TPR said:
“Running Red-Lights” is a limited series podcast about the untold history of sex work in San Antonio and the women who ran the industry, but who weren’t allowed to make history.
We talked with librarians, pastors, archivists and sex workers to help uncover San Antonio’s red-light district. It was one of the busiest in the country.
City government, the military, the church — all institutions that still loom large in the city today — played a role in the making and breaking of the district. But the madams’ stories are mostly unknown. Today the sex industry operates underground. History will repeat itself if we lose these stories forever.
Jennifer said that her work is featured in the first two podcasts. Her research was part of a pro-seminar course she took when completing her master’s degree at UTSA. It was a year-long process and she presented on it at several conferences.
A shorter version of her paper appears in the Journal of Life and Culture of San Antonio at UIW. Jennifer helped to “discover” Emelia Garza, who stands out as the only Mexican madam who — not only took a case to one of the highest courts in Texas — but actually won when the city tried to charge her licensing fees.
“One of the most difficult parts was combing through the San Antonio archives and finding sources,” Jennifer said. “It’s not digitized and interestingly enough, they have an index in each of the city council minute books so I suppose people could find information later (they created the index at the time) but they did not create an index for “prostitution” or “bawdy houses” or anything of that nature. So, I literally had to go through every city council meeting minutes to find information on it. I transcribed quite a bit myself. I finished the paper in 2016. I shared all of the minutes I transcribed and other information with TPR last year when they began putting together the podcast.”
Jennifer has been teaching as a Dual Credit teacher for four years and an adjunct for three years. She teaches both Hist 1301 and 1302.
