Love for Sale

By Elizabeth Alice Clement,

Book cover of Love for Sale: Courting, Treating, and Prostitution in New York City, 1900-1945

Book description

The intense urbanization and industrialization of America's largest city from the turn of the twentieth century to World War II was accompanied by profound shifts in sexual morality, sexual practices, and gender roles. Comparing prostitution and courtship with a new working-class practice of heterosexual barter called ""treating"", Elizabeth Alice Clement…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked Love for Sale as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Clement explores the working class environment that produced what we think of as “normal” relations between young men and women.

The commonly used term at the time, “treating,” has disappeared. But in the early 20th century this practice, which shared some features with prostitution, turned a search for fun, gendered scripts, and wage discrepancies between men and women into the general model of what would become the classic practice of dating.

Want books like Love for Sale?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like Love for Sale.

Browse books like Love for Sale

Book cover of From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America
Book cover of Bad Girls: Young Women, Sex, and Rebellion before the Sixties
Book cover of Coming Of Age In New Jersey: College and American Culture

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,433

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in New York State, prostitution, and courtship?

New York State 563 books
Prostitution 79 books
Courtship 13 books