Chinese Prostitution in San Francisco, 1870s-1910

A 1897 article in North American Review by Charles Frederick Holder* described the composition of the approximate 20,000 Chinese in San Francisco

The shocking finding that of the 2,500 adult females, 1000 are wives but the other 1,500 were in effect, slaves. They were here because they were kidnapped or tricked with promises of matrimony.  Below is a detailed description of a common method of deceiving young women to come to America.

The Pacific Mail Steamship Company which transported thousands of Chinese between Hong Kong and San Francisco in both directions was in on the fraud as it made considerable profit from tickets for the illegal women. To circumvent immigration obstacles, fake documents were created naming a woman as native born.

These women were sold at auctions to owners who profited by forcing them to work as prostitutes. 

The statistics for earlier decades were even more alarming. In the 1870 census, there were 2014 Chinese women, and over half, 1,413, were prostitutes. Alarm over the high rates of prostitution led to requests for intervention by the President of the Unirted States.

Below is a small sample of prostitutes in San Francisco listed in the 1900 U.S. Census.

The San Francisco Call newspaper ran many articles describing the terrible living conditions of the prostitutes who were trapped without much hope of escape.

Missionaries and other social reformers were concerned about the plight of the prostitutes from both humanitarian and moral concerns. Their testimony was helpful to authorities and police in their efforts to curtail prostitution.

A mission house in Chinatown became a sanctuary for rescued prostitutes. Donaldina Cameron, a dedicated fighter, worked with the police in breaking into brothels and hiding them in the mission house. Now the mission house is named after Cameron, and it serves as a community center with ties to the nearby Chinese Presbyterian Church.

A popular adventure magazine of the period, Old and Young King Brady, often had fictional stories situated in Chinatown, including the rescue of Chinese slave girls from opium dens dramatically illustrated on the magazine cover.

*Charles Frederick Holder, the author of the 1897 article on Chinese prostitution in San Francisco was a remarkable "renaissance man" whose many interests and talents make him an improbable author on the topic of Chinese slavery. He was a naturalist, conservationist, and scholar writing over 40 books. Holder was an expert fisherman and pioneer of "big game fishing." He created the Tournament of Roses parade held in Pasadena on New Year's Day.