Saloons have become synonymous with our perception of the Wild West. When we think of a saloon, images of a long, oak bar might come to mind. Behind the bar sits copious amount of alcohol that’s served to outlaws, cowboys, and miners scattered about the room. We might see a flirtatious woman walking around the saloon once in a while, but our thoughts mainly consist of male dominant, whiskey drinking men whose violent temperaments might get them into trouble from time to time. Though we must not let our predominant male westerners fuel our understanding of what old saloons were like in the Wild West. Typically, “proper” women were excluded from stepping forth into a saloon, but other types of women were welcomed. It was common to see saloon girls or prostitutes mingling with customers. It was through a saloon that men could let lose and be completely enthralled by the lustful entertainment of alluring saloon women. Interestingly enough, saloons functioned as more than just places to drink and enjoy the presence of women. They offered lodging, food, pool, billiards, gambling, card playing, and sometimes prostitution. The role that saloon girls played in society goes beyond the provision of entertainment. In this blog entry, I am going to take an extensive look at what these roles were and how saloon girls reshaped the gender boundaries of men and women in the Old West.
A saloon girl was employed for entertainment purposes by a saloon to fill the void of lonely, working men. In a world where men outnumbered women, men lacked female intimacy that was almost always found at the hands of a saloon. Saloon girls would sing, dance, and talk to men. They would also coax men to spend more money by persuading them to stay at the bar and buy more drinks. It was also common to see saloon girls encouraging men to gamble.
It is important to understand that saloon girls were completely different than prostitutes. Though some saloon girls did offer paid sexual favors, saloon girls and prostitutes occupied a separate realm in the American West. Prostitutes were looked down upon by “proper” women and men alike. However, saloon girls were not. Though some “proper” women lacked any respect for saloon girls, it was expected that men treated these women with politeness and courtesy while in a saloon.
Additionally, saloon girls were treated with a different degree of respect than their Eastern counterparts. In the East, the mistreatment of women, both physically and emotionally, was common. However, not all saloon girls in the West were treated with disrespect. In fact, “Any man who mistreated these women would quickly become a social outcast, and if he insulted one he would very likely be killed.” Women of the Wild West were now seen as more than just domesticated, weak individuals. From an economic standpoint, saloon girls represented a new wave of working women who didn’t need to depend upon a man for financial survival. This in itself may have served as a means of empowerment for women in the West. No longer relying on a man gave women a sense that they, too, could be all that a man was perceived to be – hard working, strong, and financially stable. In a social sphere that once grouped men and women separately, saloon girls demanded a new level of respectability that began to unite men and women. Women were now expected to be treated with the same degree of respect that any woman would have treated a man with in the past. This alone feeds my belief that saloon girls helped to close the social and gender gap between men and women. The respecting of saloon girls puts into perspective the way women should be treated and drew attention to the mistreatment of women pre-Western migration. In other words, it is clear that gender inequality was prevalent in the West but saloon girls helped society take the first steps towards a gender equal world. They showed people that women deserve respect just as much as men do.
Saloon girls famously broke free from the Eastern dress codes that governed the clothes women wore. In one description of a traditional saloon girl’s outfit, one author writes,
Saloon girls wore brightly colored ruffled skirts that were scandalously
short for the time – mid-shin or knee length. Under the bell-shaped skirts, could be seen colorfully hued petticoats that barely reached their kid boots that were often adorned with tassels. More often than not, their arms and shoulders were bare, their bodices cut low over their bosoms, and their dresses decorated with sequins and fringe. Silk, lace, or net stockings were held up by garters, which were often gifts from their admirers. The term ‘painted ladies’ was coined because the ‘girls’ had the audacity to wear make-up and dye their hair.
In contrast, Eastern women wore dresses that epitomized elegance and grace. Victoriana Magazine describes Victorian dresses as, “…a mysterious combination of the ‘uncomfortable and inconvenience’ with the ‘frivolous and decorative.” An entire Victorian dress was composed of heavy petticoats, layers of underclothes, a metal hoop skirt, and tight corsets worn under bodices of whalebone and steel. It was customary for Victorian Era dresses to restrict movement for the women who wore them.
As observed above, traditional women of the East wore completely different clothing than saloon girls. The differences in styles of women’s clothing are enough to make it a metaphor for changing societal and gender norms. The many components that make up a Victorian style dress are representative of the countless rules that limited women’s rights in the East.
The restriction of movement due to these dresses is evocative of what little control women had over their lives. Eastern women’s roles were minimal. They revolved around domestic work while men held more prominent, laborious jobs. Women were not allowed to own property, make their own money, or vote. To men, women did not embody the strength or worth that they did.
Saloon girls shed these Eastern rules and Victorian ways of dressing. Their scandalous, revealing outfits can be seen as a rebelling against the nature of Eastern values and dressage. Saloon girls wore clothes that allowed for free movement, absent of constraints. This can be interpreted as a newly created sense of independence. In other words, some of the rules that restricted women in the East were no longer in existence in the West. Women were thought of as exhibiting more than just domestic qualities in Western society. Saloon girls were now making their own money independently of men, owning land in their own name, and dressing in more expressive clothing. In short, women of the East dressed in a way that symbolized their repressed freedom but the clothing that saloon girls wore depicted a breaking down of previous societal norms and the adoption of independence.
Although saloon girls appeared to be sex symbols of the Western Era, their role in society exceeded the duties of entertaining men. These women were economically independent and made a living absent of a man’s support – something unfathomable in the East. Saloon girls gained a sense of independence that wasn’t granted to women in the Victorian Era. Furthermore, their risqué way of dress represented a breaking from traditional social restraints. Saloon girls demanded a new level of respect that men were not accustomed to. Everything that saloon girls represented in the West helped to close the gender and social barriers that kept women at a disadvantage in a man’s world.
Westward 