The Maimie Papers: Letters from an Ex-Prostitute (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series)

Maimie Pinzer

ISBN 10: 1558611436 / ISBN 13: 9781558611436

Published by The Feminist Press at CUNY, 1997

About this Item

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Bibliographic Details

Title: The Maimie Papers: Letters from an ...

Publisher: The Feminist Press at CUNY

Publication Date: 1997

Binding: Softcover

Condition: Bon

About this title

Synopsis:

In 1910, a remarkable correspondence began between a wealthy and distinguished Bostonian philanthropist, Fanny Quincy Howe, and Maimie Pinzer, a Jewish prostitute living in Philadelphia and recovering from a morphine addiction developed after the loss of an eye. The Maimie Papers is Maimie’s side of that correspondence, offering an unprecedented and still unique account of the life of a woman of the streets and her inspiring transformation.

An afterword by Ruth Rosen traces the elusive trail of Mamie’s life following the end of her correspondence, from an elegant apartment in Chicago to a new life in the glamorous Southern California of the late 1920s. The Mamie Papers introduces an unforgettable woman with a powerful writer’s voice, of whom the New York Times Book Review says, Mamie writes like a dream. . . . An astonishing book.”

Review:

This enchanting collection of brave letters charts a correspondence of more than 12 years between two 19th-century women. Maimie Pinzer was a former prostitute/nude model/actress who wanted to be a lady; Fanny Howe was a Bostonian lady with an understanding of tragedy. The match was unlikely from both sides, but Fanny offered moral support and a definition of what it was to be a "Gentle American," while Maimie contributed her honesty and a clearer view of "the human condition" that Fanny would otherwise not know. The letters intimately detail what life was like for a lower class working woman--and how one woman struggled to make something more of that life.