HAA Fall Lecture Series — Dr. Jennifer Le Zotte
The HAA Guest Lecture Series invites you to the second installment of our 2024-25 lecture series on Thursday, October 17th at 6:30 PM.
Jennifer Le Zotte, Associate Professor of History and Material Culture at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, will present a lecture entitled “From Mother Hubbards to Feather Boas: Dressing Up Sex Work in Storyville.”
Associate Professor Jennifer Le Zotte charts a sea change in the expectations of lascivious feminine dress during the years when New Orleans had a decriminalized sex district, Storyville. In the 1880s, prostitution in the United States was commonly associated with a dowdy shift called a “Mother Hubbard gown” or later, a prairie gown. Between 1897 and 1917, the advertising dress of “octoroon” madams in New Orleans helped shift popular perceptions of sex workers from less Little House on the Prairie (1870-1894) to much more Pretty Woman (1990). From early vaudeville chippies to Mae West’s bawdy personas, New Orleans’ sex workers first drew from, then influenced, depictions of promiscuity that still inform perceptions of lavish, glitzy dress today.
The lecture will be held at Boston University, 725 Commonwealth Avenue, Room 132.