Sex Work in the American Revolution

About this episode

This episode explores the role of sex workers during the American Revolution and their interactions within army camps.

Where the American War of Independence raged, the camp followers...followed. Among them were sex workers, for both the American and British troops. What was life like inside army camps where sex workers mixed with wives, soldiers and generals? How did race and slavery factor into sex and sexuality in this time? And how did each side view queerness in the camps? Joining Kate today is the wonderful historian and author, Professor John McCurdy, to take us back to this time. This episode was edited by Tim Arstall. The producer was Stuart Beckwith. The senior producer was Freddy Chick. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe .   You can take part in our listener survey here . All music from Epidemic Sounds. Betwixt the Sheets: History of Sex, Scandal & Society is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

People in this episode

Host: Kate

Guest: Professor John McCurdy

Topics covered

• American Revolution
• sex work
• camp followers
• race and slavery
• queerness
• military history

Keywords

• American Revolution
• sex work
• camp followers
• queerness
• race
• slavery
• military history

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: History Hit, Epidemic Sounds, Acast

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