Comparative Prostitution: A Study of Ways and Means (1890) by Thomas Spencer Jerome

Thomas Spencer Jerome's first known published work Comparative Prostitution: A Study of Ways and Means was written for the Witenagemote Club, that he was a member of along with Charles Lang Freer and probably other Yondotegans. Penned in 1890 it is an odd choice of spent resources for a men's club which was determinedly literary, artistic and cultural. Though the so-called white slavery epidemic was in full acceleration at that time, prostitution itself was a decidedly different species than human trafficking.

The problematic part of the paper itself is that Jerome and Freer moved to Capri where not only was prostitution legal but they were part of the friend circle of unabashed pederast Norman Douglas who was a fugitive sexual predator of children. Most of what I have read concerning Douglas is monstrous and was a known aspect of his presence in Capri.

Another writer in their friend group Edward Irenaeus Prime-Stevenson wrote a book called The Intersexes: A History of Similisexualism as a Problem in Social Life which Jerome owned and supposedly notated heavily. The copy on haithitrust shows Jerome's bookplate but none of the alleged marginalia. It would be interesting to see what Jerome thought of the works since he has been posthumously labelled a likely gay man along with Charles Lang Freer. I'm not particularly interested in reading the 600 page book without Jerome's input but I will do some pointed searches in the text to get some understanding of what it's about and why Jerome was intrigued by it. Not that it makes him gay to have owned a copy, especially since the author was likely a friend, but his interest level would likely be telling towards his own mindset.

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P. O. Surveying Detroit Needs

Detroit News , October 8, 1929 This is a long article about the Postal Service but our concern is with Arch Coleman, the first Assistant Postmaster-General, who recalled in his visit back to the town that he grew up in, that he was born in the house which was the first Yondotega Club at 302/518 East Jefferson. An article by the Free Press seemed to suggest that he was born nearby.

Yondotega Club Beginnings Told

Detroit Times , March 12, 1939 I will start this blog at the same point of introduction that I had to the Yondotega Club: this short snippet in the Detroit Times from March 12, 1939 that I dug up while researching the Sign of the Mermaid bookstore which opened in 1925 and was owned by Doris McMillan Pittman (later Hoover), daughter of William McMillan and granddaughter of Senator James McMillan. Not only had she reclaimed the home that she grew up in from obscurity but she revitalized and made it a profitable venture. Unfortunately for Doris, her eleven years of ownership came with widowhood, the accidental shooting death of her teenage son, a second marriage to her store manager Clayton Morse, Jr. that failed and ultimately her own untimely death in 1936. The Yondotega Club would have been afterthought to that very research had it not been for the fact that her father founded the club in that very house and her first husband, grandfather, uncle and business partner - Phelps Newberry...

The Ex-Libris Bookplates of James Frederic Joy and His Son Henry Bourne Joy

These are the ex-libris platesreally things found in volume (IV.) of Turner's History of England from 1830 featuring at least one Yondotega Club member: Henry Bourne Joy, who was the first president of the Lincoln Highway - which built roads from New York to San Francisco - and later became president of the Packard Motor Company. His father James Frederic Joy was a railroad magnate, friend of Abraham Lincoln and congressman from Michigan. To boot, there is a main road in Detroit and the western suburbs named after him (Joy Rd.). Besides the plates, the most interesting thing in the book is the marginalia, which I've yet to determine exactly whose it is. It would be great if it were one of the Joys but nearly a hundred years has passed between the latter's death so the likelihood is probably 50/50. Maybe not so ironically, I found this book at an estate sale just off of Joy Road (8634 Hazleton) in Dearborn Heights five years ago or so.

The Yondotega Club

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