My job isn't so bad after all

The Murder of Helen Jewett: The Life and Death of a Prostitute in Nineteenth-Century New York - Patricia Cline Cohen

Sometimes a good cast isn’t enough to get me to continue to watch a show.  Copper was such a show.  I tried.  I really did.  I tried again when I heard that new actors were being added to the second season.  I mean, Alfre Woodard.  But no, couldn’t get into it.  I was always left with a feeling that the show, if not the staff, really didn’t like women.  Granted, it took place in Five Corners during the Civil War, but in terms of female characters you had the evil whore (she killed one of her girls out of jealously), the spy (the upper class woman who becomes addicted to opium as well), the vamp (the child prostitute), the one who killed her daughter (it is a long story, and it was accident), and the other one with mental issues (who say her brothers killed, and this character actually got much better in the second season).

                It seems, after reading this book, Copper was far more accurate than it intended to be.  Helen Jewett was a whore.  She lived and worked in a brothel.  She was not a street walker, but it she was whore.  A nice and educated whore, who sold more than just intercourse, but the whole idea of a relationship.

                One of her clients killed her and got away with it because she was a whore.

                Cline looks at Jewett’s past, as much as she possibly could, as well as the factors that went into working as a whore at that time as well as how society would have viewed such women.  Additionally, there is a look at how the newspapers reported the killing.

                What’s the saying?  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

                It ties into Copper, even though there is at least 30 years difference because of the portrayal and buddy system between the cops and whores in that series.  In fact, you could also go argue that Copper showcased the male privilege that allowed for such an environment – for instance, get rid of that wife who accidently killed her daughter and then two male heroes can be buddies again.

                Okay, maybe not that bit because sharing women, at least those who sold favors, was one of the ways that men seemed to bond.    Homoerotic doesn’t begin to describe it.

                An interesting look at a criminal case that still is, sadly, relevant today.