Ruby Friedman Orchestra

This song “Music Row” memorializes the plight of 19th Century s*x workers. Did you know Nashville was the first city in the U.S. to legalize prostitution?

The street called Music Row was once called Smokey Row and it was Union-held Nashville’s red light district. During the Civil War, sec workers received the blame for the scourge of STD’s and officials thought the best remedy was to kidnap 100 of the affected ladies and send them upriver on a riverboat (incidentally called The Idahoe). When no port would allow them to disembark, and since troop morale plummeted, The Idahoe returned back to Music Row/Smokey Row whereby prostitution became legalized and regulated for the remainder of the war.

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