Damned good read
Nov. 1st, 2007 03:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
wendyzskiContinuing my interest in "History they didn't teach you in school...I recently bought and finished Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul.. A rousing good read about some of the larger than life personalities that populated South Dearborn Street in the early years of the 20th century.
The Everleigh club was arguably the classiest, most luxurious, and most expensive brothel in the world. This was a time where there was an actual price list of necessary bribes on the wall of the local police station, under a picture of the crooked alderman. "Resorts" from the Bucket of Blood to the fine establishment of Vic Shaw advertised openly. But the "Everleigh" sisters came from Omaha with the idea to "give the customer what they want" - lavish settings (including a gold-plated piano!), beautiful women in fine clothes, gourmet food, and sky-high prices. And they were astoundingly successful. The girls were gowned in couture, fed well (Minna in particular was big on vegetables and fruits), coached in poetry and movement, and saw a doctor once a week, and could leave at any time they wished. There was a nationwide waiting list to become an "Everleigh Butterfly".
But this success made them a target, for bitter "also ran" madams like Vic Shaw but also for the burgeoning purity movements (that eventually led to prohibition) and the wild tales of "White Slavery". Despite the best efforts of cheerfully crooked politicians like "Bathhouse John" and "Hinky-Dink Kenna", the club was closed in 1911.
The author uses interviews and anecdotes so that it really reads more like a novel than history. I rather liked the comment on Amazon "It's like "The Devil in the White City," but with prostitutes instead of architects".
The Everleigh club was arguably the classiest, most luxurious, and most expensive brothel in the world. This was a time where there was an actual price list of necessary bribes on the wall of the local police station, under a picture of the crooked alderman. "Resorts" from the Bucket of Blood to the fine establishment of Vic Shaw advertised openly. But the "Everleigh" sisters came from Omaha with the idea to "give the customer what they want" - lavish settings (including a gold-plated piano!), beautiful women in fine clothes, gourmet food, and sky-high prices. And they were astoundingly successful. The girls were gowned in couture, fed well (Minna in particular was big on vegetables and fruits), coached in poetry and movement, and saw a doctor once a week, and could leave at any time they wished. There was a nationwide waiting list to become an "Everleigh Butterfly".
But this success made them a target, for bitter "also ran" madams like Vic Shaw but also for the burgeoning purity movements (that eventually led to prohibition) and the wild tales of "White Slavery". Despite the best efforts of cheerfully crooked politicians like "Bathhouse John" and "Hinky-Dink Kenna", the club was closed in 1911.
The author uses interviews and anecdotes so that it really reads more like a novel than history. I rather liked the comment on Amazon "It's like "The Devil in the White City," but with prostitutes instead of architects".
