2022-11-04T12:00:00
2022-11-04T14:00:00
This presentation addresses changing attitudes towards prostitution related to the founding of the Dublin Magdalene Asylum in 1767. In the first half of the eighteenth century most rhetoric surrounding prostitution focused on portraying prostitutes as dangerous, immoral, and diseased. The middle of the century began to see a shift in this rhetoric related to the founding the Magdalene Asylum, a charity intended to rehabilitate penitent prostitutes. This paper will examine how and why that shift took place and discuss the origins and operation of the first Magdalene Asylum in Dublin.
Dr. Karen Sonnelitter is an Associate Professor of History at Siena College. She's the author of Charity Movements in Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Philanthropy and Improvement (2016), The Great Irish Famine: A History in Documents (2018), and Irish-English Relations: A History in Documents (Forthcoming).
Ithaca College Campus
Clark Lounge