Katie N. Johnson is Associate Professor of English and an Affiliate of Film and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Miami University of Ohio. She is the author of Sisters in Sin: Brothel Drama in America (Cambridge, 2006), Sex for Sale: Six Progressive-Era Brothel Drama Plays (University of Iowa Press, 2015), and numerous articles and book chapters on theatre, performance, film, and U.S. culture. Her research for this essay was supported by a Wardlaw Research Fellowship from the Texas Collection, Baylor University.