The Maimie Papers: Letters from an Ex-Prostitute (The Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women's Series)
This enchanting collection of brave letters charts a correspondence of more than 12 years between two 19th-century women. Maimie Pinzer was a former prostitute/nude model/actress who wanted to be a lady; Fanny Howe was a Bostonian lady with an understanding of tragedy. The match was unlikely from both sides, but Fanny offered moral support and a definition of what it was to be a "Gentle American," while Maimie contributed her honesty and a clearer view of "the human condition" that Fanny would otherwise not know. The letters intimately detail what life was like for a lower class working woman--and how one woman struggled to make something more of that life.