Fanny White

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In ante-bellum New York most brothels were owned and controlled by women. The average prostitute entered the business before age 21 and lasted four years. Most practiced the trade part-time; few continued past age 30. Many contracted tuberculosis or syphilis.

Fanny White had the business sense and good luck to beat the odds. A few months after starting work at 120 Church Street, White moved up to Julia Brown's brothel on West Broadway, near the National Theater. By 1847, the 24-year-old White was managing the brothel at 120 Church Street where she used to work.

Also by 1847, she had met lawyer and Tammany Hall brother Daniel Sickles. White's staff considered Sickles to be her "man". Nineteenth century prostitutes commonly had a "man" or a "friend" with whom they developed a romantic attachment. A prostitute's paramour did not normally pay for her attention, although Sickles did give White generous gifts of jewelry and money.

In 1851, White purchased a building at 119 Mercer Street, which she outfitted as a discreet, high-class brothel. "[H]er customers were merchants, Congressmen, and those belonging to the diplomatic corps on visits to New York." White carefully maintained good relations with the police so her establishment would escape official notice.

White's indiscreet relationship with Daniel Sickles, however, attracted considerable notice. After Sickles was elected to the New York State Assembly in 1847, he brought White to his hotel in Albany, where he introduced her around the breakfast table to the dismayed guests. He took White to visit the State Assembly Chamber, for which action he was censured by the Whigs. Another evening the two of them went out on the town with White illegally dressed as a man, and ended up spending the night in jail. Sickles almost certainly arranged the mortgage on White's Mercer Street brothel, using the name of his friend (and future father-in-law) Antonio Bagioli. Rumors that White contributed her own earnings to Sickles' election campaign would haunt Sickles for the rest of his political career.

In September 1852, Sickles hastily married sixteen-year-old Teresa Bagioli. White was rumored to be so angry that she followed him to a hotel and attacked him with a riding whip. But in August 1853, when Sickles traveled to England as the secretary to James Buchanan, the U. S. Minister to the Court of St. James, White accompanied him in lieu of his wife. One source alleges that Sickles arranged for her passport. Fellow madam Kate Hastings moved to 119 Mercer to manage White's brothel in her absence.

In England, White accompanied Sickles openly to theaters, operas, and diplomatic events. Most sources agree that White made her curtsey to Queen Victoria at a reception at Buckingham Palace, where Sickles introduced her as "Miss Bennett of New York."

Historians speculate that White talked Sickles into the introduction, and that Sickles was further motivated by his intense dislike of both the monarchy and of the editor of the New York Herald, James Gordon Bennett, Sr. Queen Victoria apparently never learned the truth, but Bennett was furious at the use of his name. The Life and Death of Fanny White, however, alleges that White legally changed her name before she left for Europe. And after 1853, White signed bank drafts and business contracts with the name "J. Augusta Bennett."

When Teresa Bagioli Sickles arrived in London in the spring of 1854, White left. One source claims that White made a tour of the Continent – she "visited Paris, Baden-Baden, Vienna, and other interesting and fashionable aristocratic resorts," and was removed from the Paris Opera by gendarmes after making a drunken scene – returning to New York later in the year. Back in New York, White established a second brothel behind the St. Nicholas Hotel and also resumed management of 119 Mercer Street.

By 1856, White was seen riding around New York in the carriage of the wealthy, much older Jacob Rutgers LeRoy, one of the LeRoys of the Triangle Tract in western New York. In 1856, she also turned management of 119 Mercer Street over to Clara Gordon and moved into a house she owned at No. 108 Twelfth Street, accompanied by two "lady boarders."

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