-Paris Prostitution Map

Prostitution_001.jpg

The compilation of statistics relating to moral issues was common during the first half of the 19th century. Beginning in 1825, the French Ministry of Justice systematically collected national crime reports, which provided invaluable data for the analysis of moral statistics, one of the first fields of social science. In this work, hygienist Alexandre Jean Baptiste Parent-Duchâtelet uses such crime data to explore the connection between prostitution and public health. This text contains three folded leaves of plates including two maps and a bar chart. The map on display enables the reader to visualize the number of prostitutes in each of Paris’ 48 quartiers, which subdivided the city's 12 arrondissements. This map follows the model of Dupin’s choropleth map, with darker shading representing a greater number of prostitutes, presumably based on the number of arrests. The other map is a similar choropleth showing the origin of Parisian prostitutes from across France, and the bar graph is a time series chart of also based on the extensive data tabulation in the work.

A.-J.-B. Parent-Duchâtelet (1790-1836).
De la prostitution dans la ville de Paris: considérée sous le rapport de l'hygiène publique, de la morale et de l'administration: ouvrage appuyé de documents statistiques puisés dans les archives de la préfecture de police..
Bruxelles: Et́ablissement encyclophique ... Dulas et Co. ..., 1837.

Lehigh University Catalog Record: https://asa.lib.lehigh.edu/Record/262337

A version of this text has been digitized and is available through the Internet Archive.

Prostitution_002.jpg

Image courtesy of La Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BnF)