A box house was a combination of low-class theater and

brothel A brothel, strumpet house, bordello, bawdy house, ranch, house of ill repute, house of ill fame, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in Human sexual activity, sexual activity with prostitutes. For legal or cultural reasons, establis ...

, found in western

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. It offered light entertainment "such as magic acts, singing, dancing,

minstrel show The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of portraying racial stereotypes of Afr ...

s," as well as sexual services.Summary for 423 2nd Ave Extension / Parcel ID 5247800595
Department of Neighborhoods, City of Seattle. Accessed online 19 November 2007. Box houses were an antecedent of American

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which began in France in the middle of the 19th century. A ''vaudeville'' was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a drama ...

Meaning

Murray Morgan describes a box house as "a saloon with a theater attached," which "competed with establishments offering even rougher entertainment."Morgan 1960, p. 119. Many of

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

's box houses in the wide-open "restricted district" below Yesler Way were located in basements and operated only in the dry season, because they flooded in the wet winter. Others were built over the tideflats and would dump over-rowdy customers into the water through trap doors. Morgan quotes a contemporary article in ''Coast Magazine'' describing the Theater-Comique, a typical box house:

A nervous
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-eating individual was hammering away at a piano. … Not a woman was to be seen in the row of seats… Around the sides of the room and at the end opposite the stage were built out of thin pine boards apartments with an opening toward the platform and a barn-like door leading into the narrow passageway along the wall. In each room was an electric torch button which communicated with a bar set up behind the stage. The boxes were unlighted… In these boxes were women, one in some, more in others. … Women with dresses eachingnearly to the point above their knees, with stained and sweaty tights, with bare arms and necks uncovered halfway to their waists

Some of the box houses were not as "low" as this: at least one, run by a supposedly titled Englishman featured women in evening gowns and humor at the level of the ''

double entendre A double entendre (plural double entendres) is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to have a double meaning, one of which is typically obvious, and the other often conveys a message that would be too socially unacc ...

''. The "king" of Seattle's box houses was John Considine, originally an actor, who raised the level of entertainment and eventually became a pioneer of vaudeville.Morgan 1960, p. 120–128, 144 ''et. seq.''

Notes

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References

* Murray Morgan, ''Skid Road'', Ballantine Books (1960). Culture of the United States Entertainment in the United States Theatrical genres Vaudeville theaters Sex industry in North America