Born in 1885, May "Maimie" Pizner was an American sex worker and social worker. Pizner was born to an affluent Jewish family in Philadelphia. However, following her father's murder, Pizner dropped out of school and began work as a sex worker and salesgirl. She spent her teens in and out of jail, eventually losing an eye. Despite these challenges, she spoke five languages and was a talented writer.
In 1913, Pizner moved to Montreal where she left sex work and attempted to join the business world. She found many deterrents to being a woman in business in Montreal, owing in part she believed to a recent land boom.
By 1915, she began labour organising for sex workers in Montreal. Here she established an apartment in the Redlight district for sex workers to gather, socialise, and rest. Pizner viewed sex workers as “proud, dignified, autonomous women.” Her benefactors gave the apartment the name “Montreal Mission for Friendless Girls,” however Pizner found it to be derogatory.
The Mission was aimed at both Jewish and Protestant sex workers. Pizner wrote, "what help is extended to girls at all here is thru the Catholic Church." All early social work efforts in Montreal at this time were part of Catholic missions. Jewish herself, Pizner’s Mission was unique in attempting to reach across the religious lines that divided the city at the time.
Located at 350 de Maionneuve Ouest, the Mission ran until 1917.
The Mission represents the first recorded instance of sex worker labour organising in Montreal, perhaps the first in Canada.
More information can be found in Selling Sex edited by Emily van der Meulen, Victoria Love, and Elya M. Durisin (2013), and in this article by Sarah Woolf.