11 Facts About Vina Fields

Vina Fields was an African American brothel madam who operated in Chicago at the turn of the century.

Vina Fields's career began in the 1870s when she established her brothel, House of Pleasure, in the Levee District of Chicago.

Vina Fields was described as a true "character of the red light district".

Vina Fields began her career with only eight black women and one white servant working for her.

For example, in 1898 Vina Fields was renting a house for 175 dollars a month that would have normally only gone for about 40 dollars a month.

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Vina Fields moved with the transition, leaving her resort on Custom House Place after 25 years.

In 1907 the Health Department quarantined Vina Fields' house declaring the outbreak of smallpox; this public declaration was clearly bad for business and prompted Vina Fields to again move to a new place.

Vina Fields' career ended soon after the push to this new region, and the way she spent the rest of her days is not well documented.

Vina Fields singlehandedly put her daughter through a convent school, sent money back to her sisters living in Missouri, and proudly owned a home in an almost all-white neighborhood south of the Levee.

Vina Fields gave them the opportunity to earn their own money, offering lucrative employment opportunities outside of the hard, low-wage jobs that were available to black women in the more traditional economy.

Vina Fields navigated the tough racial divisions of her time and curated a unique space for herself to prosper in a world where the intersectionality of her status as a black woman made it that much harder to achieve the level of success she did.