Julia Brown was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 madam

Madam

Madam, or madame, is a polite title used for women which, in English, is the equivalent of Mrs. or Ms., and is often found abbreviated as "ma'am", and less frequently as "ma'm". It is derived from the French madame, which means "my lady", the feminine form of lord; the plural of ma dame in this...

 and prostitute

Prostitution

Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...

 active in mid-nineteenth century New York City. Brown has been described as "the best-known prostitute in antebellum America". She became a popular subject of tourist guidebooks, and her name appears often in diaries from the period.

In the 1830s, Brown entered a brothel

Brothel

Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...

 owned by Adeline Miller

Adeline Miller

Adeline Miller, alias Adeline Furman, was an American madam and prostitute. According to her contemporary George Templeton Strong, Miller had been active in New York City prostitution since the late 1810s. By 1821, she was running a bordello on Church Street, where she had accumulated personal...

, a well-known New York madam. She did not stay long, however; soon Brown was running brothels of her own on Chapel and Church Streets

Church Street (Manhattan)

Church Street is a short but heavily travelled north/south street in Lower Manhattan in New York City. It runs along the eastern edge of the site of the World Trade Center destroyed in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Its southern end is at Trinity Place, of which it is a continuation...

. One brothel was partially destroyed when the neighboring National Theater burnt down in 1841. By the next year, Brown had opened a new house on Leonard Street, stocked with furniture she had salvaged from the ruined playhouse. This quickly became the most famous brothel in New York City.

Despite her illicit occupation, Brown was a darling of the New York upper class

Upper class

In social science, the "upper class" is the group of people at the top of a social hierarchy. Members of an upper class may have great power over the allocation of resources and governmental policy in their area.- Historical meaning :...

. She received invitations to social galas across New York City, and her admirers nicknamed her Princess Julia. She sometimes threw balls

Ball (dance)

A ball is a formal dance. The word 'ball' is derived from the Latin word "ballare", meaning 'to dance'; the term also derived into "bailar", which is the Spanish and Portuguese word for dance . In Catalan it is the same word, 'ball', for the dance event.Attendees wear evening attire, which is...

 of her own in the winter as a way to attract new patrons. Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...

 reportedly visited her on a trip through America. The penny press

Penny press

Penny press newspapers were cheap, tabloid-style papers produced in the middle of the 19th century.- History :As the East Coast's middle and working classes grew, so did the new public’s desire for news. Penny papers emerged as a cheap source with coverage of crime, tragedy, adventure, and gossip...

also followed her exploits; the major criticism levied against her was that the cut she took from her girls' earnings was too large.