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Many sex workers were previously employed as seamstresses and domestic workers.

1858

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A study conducted by William Sanger on sex workers in New York finds that "half of the women had worked as domestic servants before entering the sex trade, and another quarter had worked as seamstresses. (Married women who were abused or abandoned made up the remaining one-fourth.)

"According to Sanger’s study, one-fourth of the women who were admitted to the Lunatic Asylum on Blackwell’s Island reported being destitute before entering the sex trade" (Jabour, 2016). About a quarter of those interviewed entered sex work voluntarily and others entered through a mix of coercion and financial need.