William I. Goldman (1856 – 1922) was a freemason, photographer, and so-called “pillar of the community” in Reading, Pennsylvania in the late 1800s. From his studio on Penn Street, Goldman was a pioneer of the new technology and portraiture. At the same time, he was collecting portraits of the women who worked out of Sal Shearer’s brothel. He hid away these portraits of prostitutes, which in 1892 would have been considered beyond shocking in the states. They weren’t unearthed until 2010, and 100 years after his death we can see these beautiful portraits of women who were most likely forced by life circumstances to sell themselves to men. They had no idea that these images would be shared globally more than a century later, immortalizing them in a Reading brothel. Goldman’s full collection is available as a hardcover book here, and you can check out some of the more SFW ones here:
