Miss Kitty Russell invites readers into the Long Branch Saloon to deconstruct Hollywood’s “saloon girl” stereotypes and reveal the nuanced history of frontier working women. By distinguishing between drink-servers, performers, and “ladies of the night,” the blog honors these independent trailblazers who sacrificed social comfort to forge their own paths in the Wild West.
“Hey, Bartender, give me a drink,” a bedraggled, scruffy cowhand shouts across the room.
You find yourself standing at a long, mahogany bar, shoulder-to-shoulder with a line of dusty strangers. The hazy room, thick with smoke, echoes with raucous laughter and the clinking of whiskey glasses. In the corner by the swinging batwing doors, a player-piano plinks out a jaunty tune.
Welcome to the Long Branch Saloon, the most famous establishment in Dodge City, Kansas. Allow me to introduce myself – I’m Miss Kitty Russell. That name may sound familiar to some of you…the red-haired proprietress from the TV Western, Gunsmoke?
You may be wondering why I’ve brought you here. Well, with March being Women’s History Month, it seems only fitting for me, as an enterprising woman myself, to shed some light on the ladies who chose to abandon the comfort, safety and dependence of the well-trodden path of homemaking, to instead pursue careers while holding their own in a world dominated by men. I’m talking about the women who, quite literally and figuratively, found themselves in saloons.
Let me turn your attention to the staircase. Do you see that young woman coming toward us? The one with the bright, scarlet dress? She doesn’t look so different from the other actresses you see around here on the Gunsmoke saloon set. And if you were to take a walk next door to the studio’s other Western sets, chances are you would find very similar-looking saloon girls. The flashy dresses, hair piled atop a head of perfectly curled ringlets, headpieces with colorful feathers…why, even away from the television industry, moseying through many a group of Old West reenactors, you don’t have to look far for those lacy corsets, fishnet stockings and ruffled skirts, symbolic of the women synonymous with dance halls, gambling parlours and, well…let’s just say, other “shady” businesses.
This is the image of the “saloon girl’ we have come to know and recognize…Hollywood’s “saloon girl.” However you may know them – “dance hall girls,” “painted ladies” or “soiled doves…” I’m referring to the women who, over the decades, have been deemed the “shady ladies” – perhaps one of the most misunderstood groups of working women. Why, you may ask? Well, if we turn back the yellowed pages of time, a glimpse into the bygone past reveals that our understanding of what these ladies stood for may not be all that it
seems…
Careful research and historical exploration show these enterprising women entered into professions usually quite distinct from one another. Let’s start with the most well-known, the saloon girl. Contrary to what Hollywood depicts in their movies and television shows, saloon girls were not always one and the same with “dance hall girls” or “ladies of the night.” While some may have chosen to overlap professions, many decided to stick to serving drinks.
First and foremost, the primary expectation of these saloon women was companionship…sitting and talking with the lonely male patrons. Some would sing or even dance with the customers, accepting their drinks and tips. However, before you envision glasses of beer or shots of whiskey, the women, more often than not, would merely enjoy a glass of sugar water or tea. And you might be surprised if you saw an old photograph of a saloon girl…no bright-colored dresses or towering feathers…instead, you would find long skirts, modest blouses and an elegant hat. Not so different from the garments worn by “proper” women.
The striking gems and ruffles belonged to a different group entirely…the “dance hall” girls. As you might imagine, women who worked in dance halls would…well, dance. Similar to saloon girls, they might provide companionship to patrons through conversation, but there was more of a focus on the live entertainment with numbers such as the Can-Can. These ladies were the ones who often looked more like the stereotypical modern-day “saloon girl.”
And then, of course, there were the “ladies of the night”….to put it gently, women who chose to pursue other, shadier ways of earning an income. Most often, they would not be found in saloons at all, but instead in little shacks or “cribs” in districts considered by respectable society to be the “wrong side of town.” It was only in the more seedy or dodgy saloons where these women found work. In fact, many of the saloon and dance hall girls who worked at the higher-class establishments did their best to avoid these rather questionable women, not wanting to be associated with such a profession.
However, the more…accepted citizens of the town often blurred the lines of these different groups of women, considering any female who found herself in a saloon to be under the same lowly heading. The “fallen” women who painted their faces or hung around the bars earned the nicknames of “saloon girl,” “soiled dove” and
“ladies of the night.” Thus, they became known as one in the same, whether a woman was serving drinks or taking on a more…disreputable enterprise.
Now, I imagine you may be wondering why shedding light onto the true roles of these women is so important. It can be easy to see a picture of a glamorous lady in a ruffled skirt and think only of the image which Hollywood has led us to believe, but by knowing only the narrowed history portrayed on TV, we diminish the legacies and impact realized by the real women of this time. For, these ladies were, after all, trail blazers. And when I was permitted the honor of writing and performing the introduction to Wild West City’s Can-Can number, I tried to bring attention to these women who were ahead of their time: the first to pave the way for female independence, rejecting the societal expectations of marrying and raising a family. While it can be easy to look at these “working women” from a modern perspective as lacking respectability or class, these were the leaders who had the courage, grit and resilience to sacrifice a life of comfort and safety, to instead forge their own path in the ruthless terrain known as the Wild West.
And so, while there is nothing wrong with settling down to watch a good old-fashioned Western, next time you do, think of the true stories of those fearless and enterprising women blazing the trail, unafraid to hold their own. As I go about my work in helping to preserve the stories and legacies of the Wild West, I remember to keep alive not simply what the golden age of the Hollywood Western has conjured up as the stereotypical “saloon girl,” but also the stories of those who were so much more than glamorous ladies in a colorful costumes. The women who shaped, and defined, the American frontier.