A sapphic love story as a window into sex work and rebellion at the turn of the Twentieth Century

Through newly discovered archival sources, including love let-ters, police records, hospital files and censuses, this articletracks the love story of two young women, Flora and Agnes, asame-sex couple at the turn of the nineteenth century, workingin the sex trade. Their story takes us through police arrest,forced hospitalisation and leisure spaces such as dance halls.Historically, Flora and Agnes represent the many sex workers,who engaged in same-sex relations. It has been estimated thatas many as 25% of women selling sex in European metropoleswere in sapphic relationships, at the turn of the nineteenthcentury. The article describes the historical entanglement ofsapphic love and sex work and provides example of howsapphic love and sapphic communities could provide solidarityand emotional support for sex workers, as well as enable classmobility and fertilised conditions for collective resistancetowards authorities. Differently from male same-sex activities,female same-sex engagements were not criminalised in coun-tries like Britain, Germany and Denmark. However, youngwomen, like Flora and Agnes, were heavily surveilled by policeand medical doctors, due to contemporary aims to controlvenereal diseases. We employ the notion of a “disobedientarchive” to explore the ways in which historically marginalisedsubjects, such as young, working class, sapphic sex workers,contested structures of control, power, violence and confine-ment. Here, we pay attention to everyday acts and practicesthat challenged oppressive or disciplinary forces, as well as tofailed or unsuccessful attempts of resistance. This permits areading of the archive as a record of struggle and resistance,documenting previously silenced subjects’ assertions of pres-ence and agency against institutional control and erasure