Salomania: Maud Allen
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Salomania: The Shocking Bare Midriff Amazes America

ByBill LeFurgy

The following is adapted from the introduction to my book about Salomania, Sex, Art, And Salome: Historical Photographs of a Princess, Dancer, Stripper, and Feminist Inspiration. Check out the book for more detail, including over 130 historical photographs. I spent many years working with historical documents at the Library of Congress and other cultural heritage…

Prostitution in Baltimore; Picture of Storyville prostitute
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Prostitution in Baltimore: Shocking Report Kept from the Public

ByBill LeFurgy

In 1915 a government study on illicit sex left Baltimore “naked and exposed.” The Maryland Vice Commission, in the words of one excitable observer, had spent “three years stripping the clothes off” the city, and the official report presented a mountain of evidence about prostitution and other furtive sexual activities. The immediate public reaction was…

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The Autism Spectrum: Has it Always Existed?

ByBill LeFurgy

What we now call autism has long existed among humans. But medicine only began noticing the particular set of physical and mental traits associated with autism within the last 100 years. This issue has special relevance to me. I have an adult child diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (the diagnosis has shifted over the years…

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Women Doctors Faced Profound Discrimination A Century Ago

ByBill LeFurgy

Women doctors now make up about 60 percent of practitioners under 35. The situation was very different in the past. In her book “Doctors Wanted, No Women Need Apply”: Sexual Barriers in the Medical Profession, 1835-1975, Mary Roth Walsh recounts the terrible difficulty women faced in studying medicine and in working as physicians. During the…

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Viral Song From 1909 Turned American Music Sexy, Rude, and Violent

ByBill LeFurgy

Posted on February 20, 2020 by billlefurgy A viral song elbowed sex into American popular culture during the early years of the twentieth century. I learned more about this while researching my novel, Into the Suffering City, which is set in 1909 Baltimore. Romance had, of course, long been a staple of music played in the home and…