Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan

Book Description

Mildred Clark Cusey was a whore, a madam, an entrepreneur, and above all, a survivor. The story of Silver City Millie, as she referred to herself, is the story of one woman's personal tragedies and triumphs as an orphan, a Harvey Girl waitress on the Santa Fe railroad, a prostitute with innumerable paramours, and a highly successful bordello businesswoman. Millie broke the mold in so many ways, and yet her life's story of survival was not unlike that of thousands of women who went West only to find that their most valuable assets were their physical beauty and their personality. Petite at five feet tall with piercing blue eyes, Millie captured men's attention by her very essence and her unmistakable joie de vivre.

Born to Italian immigrant parents near Kansas City, she and her sister were orphaned early and separated from each other. Millie learned hard lessons on the streets, but she never gave up and she vowed to protect and support her ailing older sister. Caught in a domestic squabble in her foster home, Millie wound up in juvenile court with Harry Truman as her judge. This would be only the first of many brushes in her life with prominent politicians.

When physicians diagnosed her sister with tuberculosis and recommended she move West to a Catholic home in Deming, New Mexico, Millie moved with her. Expenses ran high and after a brief stint waiting tables as a Harvey Girl, Millie found that her meager tips could easily be augmented by turning tricks. Thus, out of financial need and devotion to her sister, Mildred Cusey turned to a life of prostitution and a career at which she soon excelled and became both rich and famous.

Customer Reviews:

Great story, poorly written.......2003-06-14

I met Millie once when I was a youngster, this book was of immense interest to me.
This is a very good story and it is hilarious at times.
Other times it is heart wrenching. Kind of like life.
My only criticism is that the biographer was weak in the delivery of the story.
Nevertheless, I express thanks to Mr. Evans his perseverance in writing this book. I am certain it was not an effortless undertaking.

This book is one that I will save as a gem between gems on my bookshelf.

Wild, Ribald, Funny, Great!.......2003-03-29

Absolutely great book if you want to read about one of the truly fantastic madams of the recent period, read this! She crowded more 'living' into her life than most people do in 6 lifetimes. She had friends in all the right places, and knew everyone. On her own from the age of 14, she was a quick learner and knew all the 'tricks'. In fact, as she put it, "We turned a good trick". Had houses from Alaska to the bottom of New Mexico. Top notch- 5 stars.

Read as social history.......2002-08-09

Ignore the book's subtitle, cover and back cover copy. Madam Millie is not about bordellos or lurid sex detail. It's about a tough, wise, loveable woman. There are a few funny incidents -- as when a cat attacks a delicate portion of a bishop's anatomy -- but today they seem rather tame.
Millie's long life was never ordinary. Orphaned at a young age, she was saved from juvenile justice by Harry S. Truman, then a Kansas City judge. When her sister Florence was diagnosed with tuberculosis, Millie accompanied her to Deming, New Mexico, where she worked as a Harvey Girl at the train station.
Millie entered her new profession to pay her sister's medical bills. And the rest is, literally, history.
Readers will appreciate Madam Millie on two levels: as the biography of a legend and as a social history of women, work and early life in the southwest. Millie entered the business to pay medical bills for her sister. In one night, she would earn more -- and have a pleasanter life -- than she would in the other occupations open to women at the time.
Millie was first and foremost a businesswoman. She built her success not on her looks but on her charisma, executive skills and ability to read people. It was no accident that her houses attracted high-powered clients. She was their equal.
Millie managed bordellos but she also bought and sold real estate. If she had been born forty years later, she would be a player in business or politics -- a very different but equally challenging game.
Readers can debate the morality -- and inevitabilty -- of Millie's "business." Millie herself believed there would always be a need, whether legally met or not. As Millie acknowledged, in the end what she had to sell soon became available for free, thanks to birth control and a changing society.
Millie ran clean houses, with no drugs and no disease, and her contributions to the community must have set a record. There were no rescue agencies back then. She *was* the Red Cross. Her last houses on Hudson Street -- site of the current Silver City post offices -- closed in 1968.
Madam Millie is fast-paced and easy to read. We get a sense of her wit and style, though not a great deal of her thought processes. Then again, Madam Millie does not come across as an introspective gal. She's all action. The pictures help us see history: the "girls" come across as more humorous than provocative.
Give this book to your favorite Silver City newcomer. Buying stamps and mailing a letter will take on a whole new meaning after they read Madam Millie.

A Hillarious Read!.......2002-06-25

I found the story of Madam Millie very fascinating and funny at times. I've lived in Silver City for two years and its interesting to read about the town in its heyday. Especially now that I know that the post office is where her infamous whorehouse once sat.
The story is told as if Millie was still alive and Max Evans makes her real and not just some unreachable figure in Silver's past. What I enjoyed most was learning about the people who would visit her brothels and I rolled on the floor with laughter at the story of the Mormon bishop.
I recommend this book to anyone, especially if you live in or near Silver City, because most of the places she talks about still exisit and it makes you think twice about downtown Silver City.

An intriguing biographical history.......2002-06-05

Mildred Cusey was a madam, an entrepreneur, and a survivor: Max Evans's superbly written biography, Mildred Cusey, tells of an orphan and waitress who rose from prostitute to bordello owner, in the process charting the rise and influence of bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan. Madam Millie is an intriguing biographical history.

Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan.(Book Review) : An article from: The Historian

Average customer rating:

Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan.(Book Review) : An article from: The Historian
Benson Tong
Manufacturer: Thomson Gale
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000B9DVOC
Release Date: 2005-09-03

Book Description

This digital document is an article from The Historian, published by Thomson Gale on June 22, 2004. The length of the article is 467 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Madam Millie: Bordellos from Silver City to Ketchikan.(Book Review)
Author: Benson Tong
Publication: The Historian (Magazine/Journal)
Date: June 22, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 66 Issue: 2 Page: 347(2)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

Paul, born the morning of Halloween 1945, began a life-long struggle with self-image, self-esteem and attention duration. With Attention Deficit Disorder in full throttle, his life was challenged from the very beginning. By age 17, he was a high school drop-out with questionable prospects. He joined the United States Air Force, believing it could lift him out of his current predicament. Managing to get through USAF tech school, he served his country for four years. Discharged and now married, he decided to attempt college and continue his struggle. One evening a friend invited him to a karate class held in a friend's garage. Paul's wife encouraged him to try it out. Paul's world changed forever. He spent the next twenty-five years pursuing excellence in his art, dodging and weaving through the political maelstroms and personalities existing in the martial arts. This is the story.

Book Description

Ivor Novello's lasting influence on film, theatre and music extends far beyond the music awards with which he has become synonymous. A giant of the early twentieth-century stage and screen, Novello was unrivalled in popularity and hailed as an "ambassador of the British Film" starring in such classics as The Rat, Downhill and The Lodger. In Ivor Novello: Screen Idol, Michael Williams examines how British film magazines shaped his star persona, while classical Greek imagery and myth informed his iconography. This study broadens the scope of star studies, examining Novello in relation to a number of issues, including the trauma of World War I, gender and sexuality, and the devlopment of British silent films.
Through an exploration of the screen idol's associations with romance, glamour and sentimentalism, this first major study provides a fascinating insight into the British Cinema's 'Valentino' and one of its first iconic figures. The Ivor Novello that emerges is a modern, paradoxical and disturbing product of his time.

Customer Reviews:

Utter Driviel. Bargain Bin ONLY!!!.......2003-10-24

For someone who is supposed to be an historian, Burke makes
some surprising blunders. He makes constant and poetic references such as ". . . scattered islands of light in a sea of darkness. . ." p 95 or ". . . papal mind control . . ." p104 and talks about the "dark ages" p93.
The "dark ages" as well as the *Fall* of the Roman Empire. Both the "Dark Ages" and the *Fall* are discredited terms, not used by serious historians. The so called "Dark Ages" were actually quite active in terms of science, technology and philosophy, while the Roman Empire never actually fell, but rather transmuted in the West and flourished in the East.

Burke and Ornstein both seem to ignore the fact that there was another world besides the Greek and Roman one. There is brief mention (*very* brief) of other civilizations, Chinese, Indian, etc. but the general thrust of the book seems to imply that the entire world began and ended with the Roman West.

NONSENSE! During the periods he is talking about, trade flourished, technology and pure science were vigorous and innovative and the arts were respected and supported. Certainly there were times and places dominated by poverty, intolerance and ignorance. Even without the "Axemaker's Gift" there are still periods of famine, drought and disease. Populations crash quite nicely without any human intervention.

Then there is the nonsensical theme that technology (the "axemaker's gift") is bad or detrimental. This is something that could only have been written by someone who has never had to work, really work, in their life. Certainly technology
can be abused. Nor can it be disputed that individuals have been exploited and abused by ruling elites. But these same large technological civilizations have also provided the wealth and leisure time to support philosophers and artists. If not for
the "axemaker's gift" Burke and Ornstein wouldn't have had the ability to even think about the *problem* of the "Axemaker's Gift", let alone been able to write it. They would have been too busy trying to gather and store enough food to last through the winter. Or would have died of old age at 40, never having had the time and leisure to accrue the knowledge and experience to even worry about the ills of technology.

This book is worth a $1 from the `Bargain Bin'. Otherwise, don't waste your money.

If you want to get an idea of what the "Axemaker's Gift" was
really like during the "Dark" ages:

1) Cathedral, Forge and Waterwheel
by Joseph Gies

2) The Medieval Siege by Jim Bradbury

3) Technology in World Civilization by Arnold Pacey
4) The Medieval Machine by Jean Gimpel

5) Engineering in History by R. S. Kirby et al

6) The Ancient Engineers
by Lyon Sprague De Camp

Great Beginnings..........2001-09-20

An important, timely & vital point is being made by these authors. I listened intently to their ideas, mostly while jogging. I loved the prehistoric stuff, but after that it all became pretty familiar. I agreed with their thoughts on controlling our technology instead of it controlling us, but there's not much we can do about it when, in so many ways, we *are* our technology. Still, it is good & inspiring & true. Everyone should read it. I just gave it three stars because in the middle sections my running pace slowed considerably, indicating non-involvement.

Axemakers Gift audio.......2000-11-12

Axemakers Gift is the world's best kept open secret. Very enjoyable sound on only two cassettes is multiply distilled encyclopedic overview of the most significant and interesting things that have happened in the entire history of the world. Each world-changing phenomenon leads naturally to the next and shows their possibly hopeful implications for the future If I had my life to live over I would wish very early to hear Axemakers Gift to become instilled with its attitudes of confidence, cheerfulness, fearlessness, compassion, good will, hopefulness and unpretentious incredible erudition. It would give me a sound foundation for facing life instead of trying to think there was something wrong with me because I couldn't see things the way people told me to. I always knew somehow that when I was dying I would figure out what things had been all about but young people who hear this tape can start out from the first with a grounding that will give them enthusiasm for looking for new ideas and, even if they go down the tubes, I guess at least they'll have a sublime understanding of their real part in the great scheme of things. I listen to it again every few weeks to get my fix of sanity and truth and good will in the seeming hopeless of a "gotcha" world. All my thanks for Axemakers Gift, The Day the Universe Changed, and Connections.

Starts out strong, runs out of gas.......2000-01-09

I love Burke's books, especially Connections and The Day The Universe Changed. Combined with the author's great presentation, they are some of the finest non-fiction audio books in existence.

Unfortunately, this one really loses its way about half way through its course. What starts out as an excellent outline of prehistoric human development devolves into a meandering, unrealistic plea for changing human behavior.

Of course, you could just ditch the second tape in the set and listen to the first cassette several times. It's quite good on its own.

What a disappointment!.......2000-01-08

First let me say I like James Burke. Currently I am watching his series "The Day the Universe Changed" It's excellent. The problem with this tape is his premise with evolution, It's only a theory, but Mr Burke goes on for the whole of side one about evolution as if it were fact. Then with side four it's nothing but doom & gloom. Mr Burke stick with history. Science & telling the future is not your forte.

Average customer rating:

Excellent
Burke & Ornstein's Gift to Us
5 stars IF you are ready to change the way you think.
An Axe to Grind...
Interesting Parallels, Well Written, but Pop Oriented

The Axemaker's Gift
Robert Ornstein , and James Burke
Manufacturer: Tarcher
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0874778565

Customer Reviews:

Excellent.......2005-09-30

As a future technology teacher, this book really brings out the points that I would like students to contemplate. As you can see from the rest of the reviews, their work does provoke quite a discussion. However, it is definitely not the last book you'd want to put down on the subject, but a great overview and set of opinions to get you started. I only wish my professors would invest in it.

Burke & Ornstein's Gift to Us.......2002-12-02

Technology began as soon as humans determined to use tools. Burke and Ornstein call these people the axemakers. The axemakers' talents offered us a bargain, and we took it, despite its multifarious effects. "In our ancient past, the all-powerful axemaker talent for performing the precise, sequential process that shaped axes would later give rise to the precise, sequential thought that would eventually generate language and logic and rules, which would formalize and discipline thinking itself" (p. xii). Accordingly, with every invention and modification of technology, humans learned to adapt to the effects of that change. The authors of this book argue that for the first time in human progress, "we can consciously take our development in our own hands and use it to generate talents that will suit the world of tomorrow"

Easy reading--interesting -- consistent message. The authors may bend the historical discussions to maintain the metaphor, and how well its double edge works. Language, a primary gift, diminished the elders' responsibility to teach, but offered the opportunity to learn from many sources, past and present. For today's leaders, a warning remains clear: Evaluate what is new and its consequences before rushing to embrace it. The Axemaker continues to hone a double edge of hope and hurt. Burke and Ornstein call upon us to take care -- to avoid the "cut and control" concepts that separate people, ideas, scientific thought, emotional well-being, and society. Technology can work for us if we seek the wholeness of life.

5 stars IF you are ready to change the way you think........2002-01-20

If you are ready to pay attention, and I mean really pay attention, The Axemaker's Gift will alter your perception of the world --- specifically humankind's relationship to the natural world --- forever. In the relatively few pages of this book, James Burke and Robert Ornstein take us on a journey from humankind's beginning to present day, maintaining all along the way their metaphor of the double-edged axe (Every advance has a price).

Books like The Axemaker's Gift (New World, New Mind by Ornstein and Paul Erlich is another) go beyond interesting reading. This material is important. We need to read it; we need to think carefully about it; and we need to act on the sharp (pun intended) insights provided.

The subject matter is essential, the point of view realistic, even if a little dark, and the authors make The Axemaker's Gift an interesting and enjoyable read. As a non-fiction author, I am always impressed with the ability to make serious matters fun, without losing the message.

My recommendation: read it, enjoy it, learn from it.

An Axe to Grind..........2001-08-24

Burke and Ornstein provide a fascinating historical narrative, but never seem to really justify their implicit claim that roads not taken due to technological advance and correlated reliance on linear rationality might have been preferable. Their focus on unforseen consequences of technologies coupled with a critique of political technocracy in varied forms seems a good framework for understanding our present global woes(though not at all a new approach--refer to any of John Dewey's writings on culture from the 20s and 30s). Their contrasting of natural and unnatural modes of human behavior and cognition, though, seem philosophically untenable(the natural being our Paleolithic hard-wiring, the unnatural any cultural addition), as do their prescriptions for solving our ecological/political problems. They advocate direct democracy in small communities with access to excellent education, health, and new arational information systems, a formula almost identical to the old Greek axemaker notion of the Polis(except arational as opposed to hyper-rational). Why the direct democracy of these hypothetical communities would be more accepting of other communities, more willing to recognize the need to share/conserve resources and think in global/holistic ways, more intelligent in their recognition of the deleterious potential effects of new technologies is not clear. "Expert" knowledges have clearly brought horrible consequences in the past few centuries, but the Cultural Revolution brought more tragedy than the AMA ever has. Hegel, axemaker icon though he was, wrote that the Owl of Minerva only spreads her wings at dusk, by which he meant that as mere humans we are always condemned to only understand history retroactively, if at all. We can, of course, do a better job of evaluating technologies in more democratic ways with more of an eye to a sustainable future. Insofar as Burke and Ornstein point to this path, I applaud them.

Interesting Parallels, Well Written, but Pop Oriented.......2000-06-05

Burke's examination of the technologists' mentality, and the effects of such thinking on the construction of culture is very intriguing. However, much of the parallels that he draws, or developments he seeks to explain, are speculative, tenuous, or accidental at best. For this reason the book reads like a pop science article from Omni magazine: seeking to be entertaining rather than truly scholarly.

Another "sigh" emerged from this reader towards the final chapters. Seems Burke too has fallen into the politically correct mode of analysis, in overtly warning the readers of the 'limited vantage point of Western science and reason'. Yawn...rather than being one of several valid congnitive styles, the Western scientific tradition is the most effective intellectual program/strategy to date, amongst any culture. If you are interested in the anthropological effects of technology, try reading something from an anthropologist. I can readily recommend Ernest Gellner (Plough, Book, and Sword.).

Burke's book is cute, entertaining, and full of juicy nuances. In linking the tool-making mentality with the creation of mathematics, logic, and the alphabet ( a masculine system of communication, in the essence of Burke's words, which suffocated the more feminine oral traditions), Burke demonstrates he is more interested in extrapolating some half-supported ideas than in true research.

Its a good read, but it is hard to take seriously.

Average customer rating:
The Axemaker's Gift: a Double-Edged History of Human Culture
James Burke
Manufacturer: Putnam Publishing Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000NWJF1A

Book Description

The "Mortgage Professor" answers critical homemortgage questions

This value-packed consumer reference by a nationally syndicated mortgage columnist is indispensable for anyone looking to secure a home mortgage. The Pocket Mortgage Guide answers 50 of the most commonly asked mortgage questions, including:

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The book also provides valuable interest amortization tables and is the perfect resource for home buyers.

Customer Reviews:

Another Great Book From Guttentag!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.......2004-09-14

I have posted a review of this author's Mortgage Encyclopedia. Just as you should not be without that book, neither should you be without this one if you are getting into the mortgage business, are a mortgage veteran, or you are thinking about buying a home.

This book is invaluable, and I say that as the owner of more than a hundred mortgage and homebuying books. It is pocket-sized, covers all the issues you could want to know about, and is written in an authoritative yet accessible style. Buy this book before all other homebuying books.

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