Victorian Era Prostitution in the US: Part III of III

PART III: Legislation

Great Britain

Offences Against The Person Act 1861
This bill was the first in a series of bills over 25 years. It raised the age of consent & penalties for sexual offences against women and minors.

Eliza Armstrong Case

In 1885, William Stead (1849-1912), editor of the Pall Mall Gazette, brought this whole issue front & center in a series of articles entitled The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon during the Victorian Era. He was prosecuted and imprisoned for kidnapping after he published a series of articles proving he could buy a 13 year old chimney sweep’s daughter for £5 by her own mother. His conviction was based on his failure to get “permission” to purchase the girl. Bramwell Booth of the Salvation Army helped Stead purchase the girl. She was purchased by former prostitute Rebecca Jarrett and brought to a brothel lightly-drugged & placed under the care of the Salvation Army and sent to France.

[Note: Steadwell came over to help in Chicago at the Purity Conferences.]

Criminal Law Amendment Act of 1885
“An Act to make further provision for the Protection of Women and Girls, the suppression of brothels, and other purposes”

it …
• made the age of consent from 13 to 16 years of age;
• made it a criminal offence to procure girls for prostitution by administering drugs, intimidation or fraud;
• punished householders who would permit under-age sex on their premises;
• made it a criminal offence to abduct a girl under 18 for purposes of carnal knowledge;
• gave magistrates the power to issue search warrants to find missing females;
• gave power to the court to remove a girl from her legal guardians if they condoned her seduction;
• provided for summary proceedings to be taken against brothels;
• raised the age of felonious assaults to 13 & misdemeanor assault between 13 & 16 as well as imbecile women & girls

For the first time children under the age of 12 were allowed to testify

United States

US Immigration Commission
The US Immigration Commission became involved. They circulated dispatches warning of the dangers of white slavery & gave an idea of how some females were kidnapped off of the street. They issued a rogue gallery of sorts of panderers (those that sold females) which included the notorious men: William Simes, Harry Frank, Richard Dorsey, Louis Fleming, Clarance Gentry, Frank Arnell, Thomas England Jr, Andrew Lietke (aka Andy Ryan).

Mann Act White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910
The Mann Act White-Slave Traffic Act of 1910 (named after lawmaker James Robert Mann) prohibited white slavery & transportation of females for “immoral purposes”. The first person prosecuted was Jack Johnson who encouraged Belle Schreiber to leave a brothel and travel with him. He spent a year in jail and later married the girl. University of Chicago professor sociologist William I. Thomas was arrested under the act when caught in the company of one Mrs Granger, the wife of an army officer with the American forces in France. (He was later acquitted.) In 1944 comic Charlie Chaplin was prosecuted under the Mann Act for involvement with actress Joan Barry. (He was later acquitted). Other famous individuals prosecuted under this act were Chuck Berry, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Charles Manson.

Literature
Besides the dispatches the US Immigration Commission released, there were books. In 1858, William Sanger did the groundbreaking book The History of Prostitution. In 1911, The Social Evil in Chicago was released by the 30 members of the Chicago Vice Commission. Teddy Roosevelt recognized the work the document represented and said it was a “contribution to the cause of morality and decency.” Roe authored The Girl Who Disappeared.

Flyers were also prevalent. One entitled Have you a girl to spare? said “Sixty Thousand White Slaves die each year. The Vice Resorts cannot run without this number is replaced annually. Are you willing to give your daughter to keep up this terrible business?”

The mother of the future actress, Katharine Houghton Hepburn, passed out flyers in Hartford, Connecticut. Some said …

DANGER! MOTHERS BEWARE! 60,000 INNOCENT GIRLS WANTED TO TAKE THE PLACE OF 60,000 WHITE SLAVES WHO DIE THIS YEAR IN THE U.S.

***

Vice Commissions
Many modeled their vice commissions after Chicago. The Cincinnati Vigilance Society, for example. Minneapolis, Lancaster (PA), among others also appeared on the scene. The American Vigilance Association was formed from the wealthiest men in the USA and included former Harvard University president, ministers, cardinals, etc.

In 1913 the Illinois State legislature founded the Senate Vice Committee. Every Chicago department store had to answer questions like …

How many women were employed?
How much were they paid?
What were the company’s profits?
Would it be a hardship on the company to raise women’s salaries?
Would they support a minimum wage legislation?

[Note: These questions were asked because a correlation was found between women being underpaid for employment and prostitution in order to make ends meet for their families.]

On 3 April 1912, Roe gave a 61 page report to Rockefeller on NYC.

“Until the public conscience has been aroused, it is my opinion that it is quite impossible to obtain indictments or convictions of procurers of girls in New York City. The hypocrisy of the double standard of morals is also very evident here. The cases which have been set forth are such cases that would result in convictions in almost any other city in America.”

Silent Movies & Theatrical Productions
Many films were being cranked out … The House of Bondage, The Inside of the White Slave Traffic, The Exposé of the White Slave Traffic, A Victim of Sin, The Traffic in Souls, etc.

Theatrical productions included The Black Traffic in White Girls and Why Girls go Wrong played in Defiance, Ohio. Chicago had its Little Lost Sister and it sold out in Detroit, MI.

• I cannot remember the title of the History Channel’s documentary, but it showed where the women were kept underground in Oregon while they were awaiting to be sent aboard ships for unknown parts overseas. Where the girls were kept was quite ingenius. There was no way to escape. All was underground.

(An aside … The imprisoned girls to be sent overseas was down the hall from where folks paid to use drugs. The drug abusers would rent slatted beds with no mattresses very expensively for a certain number of hours so they could get high.)

Again, the Victorian Era has a great deal to answer for.

In Britain, they began to recognize this phenomenon for what it truly was … evil … around the mid-1800s. Like the elimination of slavery, the UK led the way. The USA would continue its “dirty little secret” for a wee bit longer.

Due to excessive rules and regulations that the visible Church had fallen victim to, many Victorians did not want to deal with this issue … it just wasn’t proper to talk about! Those that did were Jezebels or worse.

A phenomenal book regarding this is called Sin in the Second City by Karen Abbott

~ from the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

Victorian Era Prostitution in the US: Part II of III

PART II: Preacher Intervention

The situation in Chicago’s Levee District was horrendous. Something needed to be done. The fall of 1901 saw Chicago hosting the National Purity Congress.

Some attendees were …

Moody Bible Institute, Cook County Juvenile Court, Jane Addams’ Hull House, the Anti-Saloon League, Graham Taylor’s Chicago Commons, the Pacific Garden Mission (they led Chicago White Stockings player, Billy Sunday, to the Lord), and more. There were delegates from nearly all 50 states, England, Holland, France, Canada, and India.

The three day congress was held at the First Methodist Church (Clark & Washington Streets, Chicago, IL). The conference was a success in spite of Mrs. Steadwell’s (wife of Northwestern Purity Association president) purse being snatched by two men.

Enter: Reverend Ernest Albert Bell.

Bell wanted to be a missionary in India and establish an Oxford-type university there. He wrote letters to Andrew Carnegie and Stanley McCormick asking for assistance, but to no avail. In 1897 as Bell was leaving Chicago Theological Seminary, he was propositioned by a young woman. From that night on, Bell’s goals changed. His friends bought him a bordello in the heart of Chicago’s Levee District and Beaulah Home … a rescue mission … was established. (I truly enjoy the irony of Bell buying a bordello to rescue prostitutes!) Bell’s saints were ready for their crusade.

Some were scandalized that Bell would actually work out of a former Bordello … yet, others could see the wisdom in this decision.

We have struck a blow for Jesus!
~ English evangelist Gypsy Smith

In Chicago our God lurks everywhere.
In the elevated train’s husky roar …
in the humid mists of summer by the lake.
~ Father Andrew Greeley

Bell understood politics and knew he had to make some sort of intervention within the internal political workings of the city. Somehow he had to deal with organized crime who paid off the police, mayor, and other officials handsomely. Actually, Minna & Ada Everleigh would have been thrilled with this as they paid these gangsters money every month (all types of businesses … what we would consider legitimate & illegitimate … paid these bullies off each month for the priviledge of working … otherwise buildings just might be set on fire, a “mysterious” robbery would occur, folks would be beaten up, etc.).

Victor Lawson, the Chicago Daily News publisher, contributed to Bell’s work along with others.

Bell began to speak out on the results German scientists recently discovered on the bacterium causing syphilis and its devastating consequences. This did not sit well with those in the visible Church. They did not want those things discussed. Yet, Bell knew these women were … ultimately … the ones that would be hurt. They needed to make informed decisions.

Bell caused even more uproar within the visible Church when he began to address the White Slavery issue. Too many Christians still wanted to ignore it. So, Bell carried on and began to have nightly open-air meetings outside the Levee District’s cathouses.

Bell also began to address those legitimate business owners that claimed to be Christian. They were not paying women a livable wage. As a result, they were selling themselves in order to provide for their families.

Enter: Lawyer Clifford Griffith Roe.

On 25 May 1907 Roe, Chicago’s youngest assistant state’s attorney, received a message from Captain Edward McCann of the Harrison Street police station who told him they had a girl at the station that claimed she was sold as a white slave.

There is not a life that this social evil
does not menance. There is not a daughter,
or a sister, who may not be in danger.
~ Clifford Roe

Mona Marshall had worked at the ribbon counter at Marshall Field’s Department Store. She was given something to drink one evening by a man called Harry Balding that tasted bitter. The next night she woke up in a strange place and was surrounded by people she did not know. Her story got worse (I shall not repeat it here).

Roe soon joined the good Reverend Bell to fight.

9 October 1906: National Purity Conference

Bell’s work, with the help of attorney Roe prosecuting cases, was making headway.

This conference was held in the brand new Abraham Lincoln Center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright for his uncle, the minister. Delegates attended from all over.

Mayor Dunne gave the welcoming address.

More and more were taking notice of what was happening.

The visible church in the Victorian Era seemed to be reduced to many rules and regulations. Yes, there were many Christians during this time frame doing good things on an individual and small group level, but … overall … it would seem most had reduced Christianity to a bunch of dos and don’ts while wallowing in moralistic romanticism (e.g., the Pollyanna series, wealthy & priviledged Elsie Dinsmore being “traumatized” because ink spilled on her penmanship exercise or because her father asked her to play the piano on Sunday while her poorer peers did not have enough to eat Sunday or any other day and having her female servants work on a Sunday waiting on her, maudlin poetry, etc.).

Bell and others confronted the evil.

He shamed so-called “Christian” businessmen and pointed out how they were not paying females (girls & women) a livable wage … so much so that they thought they had to supplement their income by any means possible … or die.

… The Third part of the Victorian Era prostition saga would cover Legislation

Buy Sin in the Second City!

~ From the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

Victorian Era Prostitution in the US: Intro and Part I of III

About the Victorian Era Sin in Chicago

The preachers in the Chicago area demanded that employers give women a decent living working wage so they would not be forced to resort to prostitution in order to provide for their families

this is a hard one to do … I do NOT want to shock anyone …

I think it will need to be in three parts …

1: Sisters Minna & Ada Everleigh
2: Preacher Intervention
3: Legislation

PART I: Sisters Minna & Ada Everleigh

Chicago’s Everleigh Club is the most famous brothel in USA history. It was located in the notorious Levee district (Chicago, IL).

Sisters Minna (1866-1948) & Ada (1864-1960) Everleigh ran the “club”. They hosted senators, foreign dignitaries, literary icons, actors (big surprise there!), business moguls, and on and on. Prince Henry of Prussia, Theodore Dreiser, Diamond Jim Brady, and other celebrities of reknown went to the Everleigh Club. The department store heir, Marshall Field Jr., was even shot there.

The Everleigh “butterflies” were expected to be well read and were even tutored in Balzac. Other requirements …

… look good in an evening gown
… be polite
… be there of their own free will (they wanted nothing to do with parents selling their children, white slavers, etc.)

… be at least 18 years old

… visit their doctor (that they kept on retainer) at least 1x/month

… no drugs/alcohol

The early history of the sisters is wrapped up in the War Between the States. The fortune of their family reflected what was happening financially to families all across the south.

Harold Woodward wrote, “a grim reality of poverty & decay … Once-fertile fields were covered with scrub oaks and stunted pines, the landscape dotted with decayed fences, half-starved cattle, ramshackle houses and the remnants of crumbling mansions.”

The sisters’ grandparents died. Their dad had to stop practicing law and farm the land. Agricultural prices were low. Taxes & interest were high. Income was scarce. Their father’s brother had stolen most of the family money secretly and moved to Missouri.

Their mother and little sister died when Ada was 12 & Minna was 10. Baby brother George was given to an aunt to raise. The sisters began to detach themselves from life. The family moved to Madison County (VA) where their neighbors were former Virginia governor & confederate general (with 5 children). Visits to his mansion reminded them of everything they lost.

Lula, another sister, died and the family moved from Virginia to Warrensburg, Missouri, where their father had relatives. They grew up believing daddy was the only man that mattered … why marry?

Minna & Ada did marry, but needed to flee for their lives because of physical abuse.

The sisters concluded from their experiences that men were greedy, brutal, spend thrifts, and not to be trusted. A niece, Evelyn Diment, would later write to Irving Wallace in 1989 about her great aunts,

“They were struggling because they were at the end of the Civil War and there were very few ways to make money. Their plantation was lost because they couldn’t pay taxes. They began as prostitutes and they became madams. Their father put them in the business, and then these women made a marvelous success out of it … Southern families have a way of keeping things very quiet. And if anyone knew anything, they kept their mouth shut.”

The sisters provided for their family in the only way they knew how. They changed their last name. Their grandmother signed all correspondence with “Everly Yours” and the name of their new club was established: Everleigh.

Everleigh Club Admission: $10
Bottle of Champagne : $12
Dinner: $50

At a time when the average wage per week was $6, those visiting the Everleigh Club found they were spending anywhere from $200-$1500 per visit. If a patron only spent $50, they were asked not to return.

Was it right? …. NO
Do I approve of it? … NO
Can I understand it? … YES!

The business management skills and acumen of the sisters is undebatable.

Yes, they did much better than other “wayward” women of the Victorian era whether they were located in Chicago, Philly, NYC, Washington DC, major European cities, etc.

Even though their “business” prospered beyond what they dreamed, they do represent an important aspect of the Victorian Era.

Read Sin in the Second City!

~ From the notes of Lady Victorian Historian