Working Girls chronicles the unique and artful private photographs of commercial photographer William Goldman, whose collection of work captures the deep appreciation and understanding of the group of women who lived and worked at a brothel in Reading, Pennsylvania, circa 1892. Taken two decades before the famous E. J. Bellocq photographs of the 1913 sex workers in Storyville, New Orleans, these beautifully produced photographs are the earliest known body of work on this subject in the United States, only now seeing the light of day. The project began when author Robert Flynn Johnson visited an art fair and became captivated by the beauty and originality of a group of nineteenth century photographs of women. Curious to know more, Johnson began an investigation into their origin, authorship, and purpose. Now, nearly a decade later, he has unearthed more than two hundred vintage photographs of the Reading women, which paint a full picture of the environment that they inhabited--from inside the brothel, posing artistically for the camera, to their off-duty routines, such as reading, smoking, and bathing. Johnson, a noted photography curator, uses these photographs to detail their historical and sociological importance in the history of photography, alongside essays from feminist scholars Ruth Rosen and Dennita Sewell that provide an insightful historical overview of these images in context of the period in which they were taken. The work here also speaks to Goldman's extraordinary aesthetic vision. As burlesque star and foreword writer Dita Von Teese notes, "This fascinating collection of found images more than a century old could not have originated just as a case study on the women employed at a brothel. The local photographer and his anonymous muses appear to straddle an artful titillation, at times striving toward Degas nudes and at another, more in the spirit of a strip and tease. There is beauty in even the most mundane moments."
About the Author: Robert Flynn Johnson is a curator emeritus, Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. His books include The Face in the Lens: Anonymous Photographs, Anonymous: Enigmatic Images from Unknown Photographers, and Being Human.  His book published in 1998, Plant Kingdoms: The Photographs of Charles Jones was named one of the best photography books of the year and was also a historical photography book. He is widely acknowledged internationally as a leader in this segment of the photography world. He lives in San Francisco, California. Ruth Rosen, a professor emerita at the University of California, Davis, teaches history and public policy at UC Berkeley. She is the editor of The Maimie Papers and author of Prostitution in America. She is a former columnist for the Los Angeles Times and editorial writer and columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. A cofounder and senior fellow of the Longview Institute, she writes for a wide variety of magazines and journals, including TomDispatch.com, The History News Network, TomPaine.com, The American Prospect, Dissent, The Nation, AlterNet.org, and is a regular contributor to the online political Web site Talking Points Memo Café. She lives in San Francisco, California. Dita Von Teese is the brightest star in burlesque since Gypsy Rose Lee. As style icon and muse to artists, designers, and photographers, she has appeared on magazine covers and runways for Jean Paul Gaultier, Moschino, and Giambattista Valli, and is the performer of choice for Marc Jacobs, Christian Louboutin, and Louis Vuitton. Her DIY beauty ethos and entrepreneurial ventures--designing award-winning perfumes, lingerie, gloves, and clothes, and as directing producer on her touring stage extravaganzas--have established her as a role model to women. Her books include the bestseller Burlesque and the Art of the Teese/Fetish and the Art of the Teese and Dita: Stripteese. Dita and her feline, Aleister, live under the gaze of the star-viewing Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. Dennita Sewell has been Curator of Fashion Design at Phoenix Art Museum since January 2000. She received her MFA in Design from the Yale School of Drama and BA in Textile and Apparel Management from the University of Missouri. Prior to Phoenix, Sewell was Collections Manager at The Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. At Phoenix Art Museum she has organized exhibitions on topics ranging from motorcycle jackets to contemporary designers drawn from the Museum's comprehensive collection, international fashion houses and private collections. Her exhibition catalogues include Way Haute West, Garden of Eden, Extending the Runway: Tatiana Sorokko Style and Fashion Independent: The Original Style of Ann Bonfoey Taylor. She lives in Phoenix, Arizona.