Ah, a subject of endless fascination to me! I believe that in Findings: The Material Culture of Needlework and Sewing, by Mary C. Beaudry, there is a reference to a lace pillow excavated from a privy in the Five Points Section of New York, a location that was a house of prostitution, seeming to indicate that at least one prostitute made lace to fill her time between customers. In fact, my impression is that many of them were actually doing "piece-work" between clients, just like most poor immigrants in New York. I seem to recall reading elsewhere that much of the blindness attributed to lacemaking was caused by sexually transmitted diseases and that many of the port towns were lace towns as well. It has been my hunch that there were lacemakers who were prostitutes when necessary, and there were prostitutes who made lace between clients, but I am always eager to hear of any evidence. I mentioned this theory once to someone and I recall she made the comment that lacemakers tended to sit outside the door of their dwelling for the light. It hadn't occurred to me, but that would be a convenient place to be if you were open to a proposition, but not wanting to draw the attention of police. Perhaps if we had a better historical understanding of prostitution, the answer would be obvious to us. The question is probably "what is the relationship between poverty, prostitution and the needle trades?" Devon
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