MAPACA

Mid-Atlantic Popular &
American Culture Association

The late nineteenth-century Biloxi potter George Ohr has emerged as a major figure in American art with the discovery of thousands of his wares in the 1960s. Since that time critical attention has focused on his trademark collapsed and twisted forms while his smaller “trinket wares,” often deemed lesser, have gone largely ignored. This paper will focus on Ohr’s collection of six coins, frequently termed “brothel tokens.”

Ohr tokens have garnered scant consideration perhaps because very little information about them exists. Like most things about Ohr, we must consult the context in which he lived in order to gain a fuller understanding of his works. When approached as such, Ohr’s tokens become artifacts of a specific and unique moment in American history: Storyville. New Orleans’ famed Storyville district, which existed from 1898 to 1917, was the nation’s first experiment in legalized prostitution.

Storyville represents a distinctive moment in post- Civil War southern culture. In the wake of Emancipation, Reconstruction and a new post-slavery economy, New Orleans went from slave market to specialized tourist destination where all varieties of temptation and misdeeds could be found. Tourists were also drawn to the Storyville fantasy that was designed to calm growing fears about manhood, success, and the American dream, which had been destabilized by the nation’s move toward an industrial future.

Though at the time of Storyville’s existence Ohr lived and worked in Biloxi, he had strong ties to New Orleans, having lived on Basin St., which would become a main Storyville thoroughfare, for at least one year. In this light I argue that instead of mere trinkets or gags, Ohr’s tokens were specifically designed to engage and appeal to the clientele that visited New Orleans’ extraordinary destination.