“Women of the Happy Life”: Prostitution, Public Morality, and Venereal Disease in US‐Occupied Nicaragua, 1912–33

ABSTRACT During the years of the US occupation (1912–33), Nicaragua's government legally regulated prostitution. Convinced of their objectives to protect society's moral and public health, politicians embarked on a long struggle to apprehend, quarantine, and segregate female prostitutes nationwide. Through a comparative analysis of these codes, this article discusses the language and changes in these regulations to examine the extent to which the broader context of US intervention shaped local perceptions and actions regarding non‐elite female sexuality. Mostly ineffective in its enforcement, the control of prostitution reinforced a model of femininity based upon ideals of modesty, discretion, and sexual purity.