Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul by Karen Abbott.
I downloaded this book onto my Kindle last winter and can't believe I've read 24 other books prior to getting to this one. I'm not totally surprised as I have a hard time getting into most non fictions books as they often read more like text books stating strings of facts rather than tying them together into a cohesive story. My largest exception to that has been Erik Larson with his book Devil in the White City. This book has the same great way of keeping focus on the large story and telling the events in a way that have a flowing narrative. Maybe I'm just a sucker for Chicago around the turn of the 20th century but I don't think so. I honestly think Karen Abbott is an amazing author and was stunned to find out this was her first book. The book itself is about the sex industry in Chicago at the turn of the 20th century. The city took the stance that brothels, gambling houses & saloons were a necessary evil and the best way to deal with it was segregation to 1 part of town they called the Levee. The best brothel at the time was The Everleigh Club run by Minna and Ada Everleigh. Ada is on the left and Minna on the right;
The sisters goal was to run the best high end brothel in the city and from all accounts they did. The story tells about the religious reformers who sought to close the clubs, crooked politicians on the take, competing madams & white slavery that other brothels exploited to get their prostitutes. As I've said the book is fantastic and I can't say enough good things. I found myself highlighting a lot of quotes throughout the book that I'd like to share;
"If it weren't for the married med we couldn't have carried on at all, and if it weren't for the cheating married women we would have earned another million." -The Everleigh Sisters
"The sisters knew, from their own history, that those who subverted the official rules often created better ones, that the right sort of lies could become the bones of truth."
A former prostitute who had harmed the Everleigh sisters wrote in her suicide note "I've made mistakes all my life, and the only persons to forgive me were two sisters in a sporting house. Kindly tell, for me, all the psalm-singers to go to hell and stick the clergymen in an ash-can. That goes double for all the parasites who talk a lot but don't do a damn thing to help a girl in trouble."
"The Tribune has come out against syphilis. Bet you 8-5 syphilis'll win." - Anonymous
"I do not mind mankind's crimes, but I do mind it's hypocrisy." Minna Everleigh
"A Republican is a man who wants you to go t'church every Sunday. Bathhouse John pointed out. A Democrat says if a man wants to have a glass of beer, he can have it."
"You can get much farther with a smile, a kind word, and a gun than you can get with a smile and a kind word." -Al Capone
On a side note, as you can see from her picture below Karen Abbott is an absolute knock out. I assume the Everleigh sisters would be thrilled that such a smart, beautiful woman would chose to turn her considerable literary talent to telling their story over a century after it began. Personally I'm grateful to live in time and place where the women I love have the same opportunities and rights that I do. Equal pay, good old boy clubs, glass ceilings and Augusta National aside ;)
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