of girls, quite a number of transactions, meaning girls getting in cars. what we re watching is something that happens in big and small cities across america. and for most of this country s history it s been illegal. oh, that must be the pimp. crackdowns and criminalization have been rampant. all night, all day, all night. but there was actually a time in this country when the federal government tried something different in one american city. when commercial sex was legalized. if you look at what nevada does today, it s the same thing that they were doing in nashville in the 1860s. the women registered. you paid $5. and we re going to give you a license. i mean, could a sex worker live fairly independently? absolutely. 150 years later there s a new movement to change how sex work is viewed. and this time we re talking about something that could
and how are they going to support themselves and their children? some out of pure necessity. but one city in particular stood out. union-occupied nashville, tennessee. about 1,500 sex workers descend on nashville as these 30,000 soldiers are moving in there as well. for the thousands of young union soldiers far from home nashville s bustling red light district was an irresistible temptation. but for the army it was a public health disaster. [ coughing ] how big a problem was it? if you had five men who had been treated for a disease during the civil war, two of the five it was a venereal disease. syphilis and gonorrhea were the most common. and while a course of antibiotics would easily cure them today, back then the prognosis was life-threatening.
actually look at it as something that these women are being forced into. right? they have no room for any level of autonomy or decision-making themselves. and so we re now starting to rethink this whole idea around sex work. in total the legal system only lasted two years. when the war ended in 1865 and the union army moved out, the system was abandoned. nashville returned to the status quo. but it wasn t long before a new movement swept the country. they called themselves the moral reformers. and they believed america was suffering from an epidemic of vice. their cure? laws nationwide prohibiting drinking, gambling, sexual deviance, and drugs. it was the dawn of prohibition, and the sex trade like alcohol was being pushed entirely
it was impacting the union s ability to fight because it took such a long time for them to recover from these venereal diseases, which means they were out in the hospital, not out in the field fighting. the union general tasked one of his top officers with the problem. but the solution proved problematic. so the union army way of dealing with this was to commandeer a brand new ship and to put upon that ship the most notorious sex workers in nashville and send them away to louisville. they sent a ship in to take sex workers out? they did. they did. the plan was simple, if harsh. run the women out of town. so these women are rounded up and they are bound for louisville. well, they got word that they were coming to louisville. so they are met by officials in
Nashville Moment: Kathie Lee Gifford
The former TODAY Show co-host starts her next chapter in Nashville.
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Kathie Lee Gifford doesnât like the phrase âreinvent yourself.â (âFor how can I reinvent myself when I never invented myself to begin with? God created me, and He created you too,â she says.) Sheâs not a big fan of the word âretireâ either.
So, when the beloved television host left big city life after decades in front of a camera, she was ready to âre-fireââa term she much prefers to the others. On April 5, 2019, after 11 years on the
TODAY Show with her co-host and now dear friend