That Little Dickens!

From Channel 4's Victorian Passions website:

"Born in Portsmouth in 1812, the young Charles Dickens should have had a safe and secure childhood on his father's wages as a navy pay clerk. But John Dickens was plagued by money troubles. This culminated in 1824, when he was arrested and imprisoned for debt.

The young Charles, possibly on the very day of his twelfth birthday, was immediately sent to work, sticking labels on pots of shoe blacking in a rat-infested warehouse on the banks of the Thames. He earned a mere 8 or 9 shillings a week, visited his family in prison at weekends, and had, as he later put it, 'to undertake the whole charge of my own existence'."....

In 1857, acting in a play by his friend and novelist, Wilkie Collins, Dickens met and fell in love with an actress, Ellen (or Nelly) Ternan (pictured). She was 18 he was 45. Their meeting was to spark the most extraordinary and explosive mid-life crisis in Dickens and to change both of their lives for ever. In a matter of months, Dickens broke up his marriage of twenty years, quarrelled with many of his friend and began a relationship with Nelly that led to a double existence for the remainder of his life.

The secret lover
Although he never publicly acknowledged her (except briefly in his will), Ellen became the centre of Dickens' emotional life until his death in 1870. We still do not know for certain whether it was a sexual relationship or not, but it is quite possible that they had a child (or even children) together, although any hard evidence of this, and of so much else about their relationship, has been lost or destroyed.

More About Burton and a Visit to a Brothel

Victorian Passions and Sir Richard Burton: Victorian Sex Explorer

Richard Francis Burton

Richard Francis Burton (1821-1890)

English explorer, translator, writer, soldier, orientalist, ethnologist, linguist, poet, hypnotist, fencer, diplomat ...


best known exploit ... travelled to Mecca in disguise


unexpurgated translation of The Book of One Thousand Nights & a Night (more commonly called The Arabian Nights abridgement) and the Kama Sutra

Controversy ...

1. wrote about sex & sexuality = full of details; especially about the details of the sexual lives of those individuals where he travelled
   
2. wrote about sexual techniques where he travelled (hinting he participated)
3. broke sexual & racial taboos of the day
4. Kama Shastra Society
5. General Sir Charles James Napier had Burton go undercover to investigate a male brothel frequented by the soldiers
6. accused of murdering a boy that caught him"urinating like a European" on trip to Mecca (exposing his true identity and putting his own life in jeopardy)

~ from the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

Victorian Truth Telling on the BBC

Channel 4 has a new programme for the fall, and I understand one aired in June. If you live in the UK, you can watch at least one full episode online, but we slugs on the other side of the pond cannot yet get access to all of these British shows yet...

From the Channel 4 website about the series "Victorian Passions":

Victorian Passions is a season of four films set to challenge our image of Victorian Britain as a buttoned up, prudish and unsmiling society.


From Queen Victoria's own passionate relationships, to the story of Arthur Munby and his servant lover, these films lift the lid on another side to Victorian life and challenge some of our long-held myths.

About the episode discussing Queen Victoria:

Victoria’s Men presents a seldom-seen side of Queen Victoria, both in childhood and then as a young queen. Through diaries and letters it explores the way her early life shaped the intense and complex relationships she was to have with men throughout her political and private life.

The real picture of Victoria could hardly be further from the dowdy, buttoned-up and forbidding image of the popular imagination. An intensely romantic wife as well as a fierce and effective politician, the programme highlights how Victoria both loved men and needed to be loved by them in return, not only as a queen, but as a woman in her own right. And privately, she revelled in her sexuality.

The potential scandal of some of her relationships set her on a collision course with her Royal court, family and public and at times plunged her monarchy into crisis. But it was one man, Prince Albert, who dominated her life during 21 years of marriage and the 40 years that followed his death.

The Victorian (Non)Sensibilities of Bill Gothard

In 1974 Dr. E. Robert Jordan (Chancellor of Calvary Baptist Theological Seminary at the time) did a 22-page comprehensive analysis of Gothard's ministry which gave 15 reasons Why Fundamentalist Baptists Should Not Cooperate With Bill Gothard's Institute In Basic Youth Conflicts.

Gothard seems to move from experience to doctrine, from illustrations to principles resulting in full-blown teachings. There are HUGE problems with this ... but again, it also reflects some of the problems the visible church was having during the Victorian Era.

• Sex Scandals & the Victorian Era

I think you raise a very interesting correlation whether it was intended or not—i.e., the connection between how some present a very low view of women (twisting Scripture in order to do so) and sexual scandal... this, too, was very common during the Victorian Era ...

... there have also been huge sex scandals with Gothard and his brother ... again, very reminiscent of the Victorian Era's need to place everything under rules/regulations (only for those that could afford them & not the rest of us) and sex scandals

this is exactly what was happening during the Victorian Era


• Don't need to be Christian ... another area representative of the Victorian Era ...

The need for Christianity at these seminars was not an imperative. These principles apply to all: Jews, Christians, and Atheists said the St. Paul Dispatch on 26 April 1974.

Many at the time (I dunno about afterward) claimed that he was substituting his laws (i.e., Gothard's rules) for what the Bible said.



• Occult connection? another area reflecting the Victorian Era ...

I have heard some say Gothard's "Pre-Birth Training" borders on the occult. During the Victorian Era, the occult was making a re-appearance again ... even respectable Christian families of the Victorian Era were toying with the occult.

Also, there appears to be a connection between Gothard and Dr. Michael Ballam, a Mormon, whom I have been told is heavily influenced by New Age principles and pop psychology. Some of the stuff that Ballam promoted was occultic themes in "planetary vibration tones" and more . Ballam, apparently, held that Christ was simply a person that could channel power and/or energy in order to do His miracles. The Victorian Era was not that blatant, but basically implied Ballam's stuff via Spiritualism.



• Medicine connection to Victorian Era ...

Most of us are familiar with the Snake Oil man selling his potions out West during the Victorian Era. Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz deals with one (even though the movie had the setting in the 1930s). I have been told Gothard qualifies himself for giving out medical advice and undermines medical doctors that could cause life-threatening problems. Apparently in his January, 1996 Basic Care Newsletter Gothard told his followers that Cabbage Patch and Troll dolls in the home prevented birth & once thes offending dolls were removed, the women became PG! This whole thing borders on paganistic superstitution! His whole medical advice borders on mysticism which was very prevalent in the Victorian Era.

The Victorian Era also viewed illness in a very superstitious way with all health issues believed to be brought on by a spiritual cause. This is also reflected in Gothard's preference for natural cures and discouragement of traditional medicine as a first option for illness. Spiritual cause should be considered first. This is reflected in Henry Wright's book. It is nearly identical to the New Age views of people like Louise Hay.



• confusion between true intimacy and marital relationships ...

Just like the Victorian Era, Gothard seems to confuse true intimacy (sharing thoughts, feelings, life experiences, etc.) and marital relationships. In the Victorian Era, the medical advice at the time told women and men they were not to enjoy each others company (in the Biblical sense) in marriage (which was probably why there was a need for so many prostitutes ... ). To Gothard, his view of love is cold and chemical ... which is understandable because it is my understanding that he has never been married. I never get the impression that males/females are to give each other their hearts in a marriage.



• legalistic rules ...

My brief exposure to Gothard definitely left me with the impression that he was similar to those from the Victorian Era with respect to having the need to have legalististic rules & regulations never found in the Bible. When discussing this with my mom's parents who where children of the Victorian Era, they would just shake their heads. If you follow certain rules, everything is okay. There seems to be no need for internal motivation. I remember huge discussions on this after attending that seminar in my family and tons of compare/contrast techniques with that seminar and the Pharisees.

It seems to me that he disputed Scripture's definition of grace as unmerited favor. I would have to go pull out my stuff from the attic to be sure. I can tell you I went away from the seminar thinking he thought it was necessary to follow certain rules/regulations in order to earn favor.

~ from the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

Class Structure and Working Women in the Victorian Period: Not Christian At All!

Class Structure

Arthur J Munby (1829-1910) who worked for the Ecclesiastical Commission (& also taught Latin at the Working Women's College) revealed in his 69 volume diary that he cannot acknowledge Hannah Cullwick, a working class woman that he loves, in public. Hannah also had a 17 volume diary and her letters to Munby

What did he write in his diary?

“'I love her, then, because she is not like her own class after all, but like mine.”

After 18 years of courtship, they married in secret. They remained secretly married for 36 years. Munby knew Swinburne, Ruskin, Rossetti, Sala, Darwin, Thackeray, Dickens, Lord Salisbury, Herbert Henry Asquith (the future prime minister), the artist Ruskin, and more. The poet Browning praised his poems. He had to keep wife Hannah, a maid of all work, a secret. Even when in the privacy of their home, they went through all kinds of grief to keep their relationship secret from others. When others were present, Hannah would take her room in the basement. Munby told his wife to call him Arthur, but she only did so once because she felt so uncomfortable doing so.


20th March 1859 diary entry:

Breakfasted with Litchfield. Ormsby being there also. Talk chiefly of the comparative morality of this generation and the last, and of the advantage c r otherwise of repressing street vice: as to which on the whole I side against the puritans, & am in favour of the unmolested street walker - provided she be sober, well dressed, & not too importunate.'

paradoxically ... some women improved themselves by becoming prostitutes ... how? ... in order to be a “suitable companion” for a “gentleman” some learned how to read and took lessons ... Munby recorded one such situation in his diary ... Munby knew Sarah Tanner for about 4-5 years ... one day he met her and asked why she became a prostitute ... he recorded ...

She had got tired of service, wanted to see life and become independent; & so she had become a prostitute, of her own accord & without being seduced. She saw no harm in it enjoyed it very much, thought it might raise her & perhaps be profitable


He met her much later and recorded this in his diary ...

She was stouter & healthier than ever, well dressed, not professionally as a lady, but quietly and well, like a respectable upper servant. (…)How is this? I said again. Well, I've left the streets & settled down,' she said quietly. Married?' l asked. Oh no! But I'd been on the streets three years, and saved up (…) and so I thought I'd leave, and I've taken a coffeehouse with my earnings - the Hampshire Coffeehouse over Waterloo Bridge. (..) Now here is a handsome young woman of twenty-six, who, having begun life as a servant of all work, and then spent three years in voluntary prostitution amongst men of a class much above her own, retires with a little competance, and invests the earnings of her infamous trade in a respectable coffeehouse, where she settles down in homely usefulness and virtuous comfort.'

Munby visited the coffee house 5 days later & found it “respectable” ... a local policeman agreed saying he didn’t think bad women were there at all

Lord Acton believed that most ex-prostitutes returned to respectable lives ... many owned their own businesses or made “good” marriages

Munby also recorded the life of Collier girls (collier=someone who works in a coal mine), female envelope makers, flither-lasses (gathered mussles for fishing bait)

Munby noted some flither-lasses would use rope to scale down cliff sides to get inaccessible parts of the beach ... the would load up their heavy baskets and climb back up the steep cliffs ... such work required strength and agility

















Working Class Women

some working class women would prepare animal hooves for the glue factory

many women suffered disfigurements as a result of their employment ... but had to continue working in order to provide for their families

milkmaids worked 14-15 hours a day ... it was not the romantic life you see pictured in children’s books

female circus performers / workers




For more on Victorian Era working women see ...

HILEY, Michael, Victorian Working Women: Portraits from Life (London: Gordon Fraser, 1979)

MUNBY, Arthur J and CULLWICK, Hannah. Working Women in Victorian Britain, 1850 - 1910: the Diaries and Letters of Arthur J Munby (1828-1910) and Hannah Cull wick (1833-1909) from Trinity College, Cambridge (Marlborough: Adam Matthew Publications, 1993)

~ From the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

Christian Women's Temperance Movement

The Victorian Era had an unrealistic and idealized vision of a family which led to and/or exacerbated a great many social ills. Opium use by females was considered “genteel” and “feminine” while public intoxication was deeply frowned upon.

[Note: As I documented earlier, the Victorians were well aware of the many problems associated with opium usage.]

Some went so far as to sterilize those that habitually consumed alcohol. In an 1897 Medico-Legal Society gathering, a Brooklyn doctor recommended women "be desexualized ... whether maid or matron” if they failed to respond to treatment.

[This practice was continued in the eugenics movement which emphasized the sterilization of “the unfit” & was picked up on by the Nazis approx. 33 years later in the 1930s]

The Women's Christian Temperance Movement was a Christian-based group. President Francis Willard, in 1874, began to push for prohibition. Earlier Temperance societies wanted to "temper" those using alcohol to socially accepted levels of alcohol consumption.

Problem: The more Christian women began to get involved in the issue, the more they realized how much women were being physically abused by their alcohol induced spouses leaving scares on their bodies and more.

1888: Dr. Lucy Hall studied 204 women under her care at the Reformatory Prison in Sherborn, Massachusetts. The majority began drinking before the age of 21 & over 1/3 of the married women had scars on their heads as a result of beatings from their drunken husbands.

Francis Willard, a brilliant strategist, pushed for prohibition. It is no coincidence that the 19th Amendment (prohibition) and the 20th Amendment (women's vote) passed within a year of each other. Her group was a major force behind prohibition, banning prostitution, and recreational drugs.

~ from the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

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

"Trafficking in Women the White Slave Trade"

From the Book Listing on ebay.com

Fighting the Traffic
in Young Girls
or, War on the White Slave Trade

Edited by Ernest A Bell

Gordon Press, 1975. Reprint of the G S Ball 1910 edition. Fine unused hardback in red leatherette with gilt lettering. Published without a jacket. B/W photos. 481 pages. ISBN 0879682523.

"A complete and detailed account . . . of the methods by which the procurers and panders lure innocent young girls away from home and sell them to keepers of dives." Chapters by Edwin W Sims, William A Coote and others.

Contents

1. History of the white slave trade
2. Suppression of the traffic
3. The trade today
4. Menace of the trade
5. A slave's own story
6. Story of Estelle Ramon
7. Our sister of the street
8. More about the traffic by Ophelia Amigh
9. The traffic in girls by Charles Crittenton
10. Warfare against the traffic
11. The Boston hypocrisy
12. Auctioneer of souls
13. The trade in New York
14. How we took up the fight
15. The nations and the trade
16. The yellow trade
17. How snakes charm canaries
18. Procuresses;
19. Wanted: Mothers and fathers
20. Chicago's slave market
21. The regulation of vice
22. The black plagues
23. The public health
24. Diseases
25. Recruiting grounds
26. Means of protecting our girls
27. Laws for the suppression of the trade
28. A pastor's part
29. Story of the Midnight Mission
30. Helen Chambers
31. Destruction of the vice districts in LA
32. Conditions in London
33. For God's sake, do something.

Intro to Victorian/Antebellum Prostitution in England and the U.S.

From Lady Victorian Historian


British Prostitution Legal

There were not enough volunteer prostitutes. This lended an even darker side to the Victorian era (1830-1901). Young girls from rural areas were frequently kidnapped to supply this demand. Many underage girls were forced into this lifestyle (and ... yes ... even in the USA ... especially after the War Between the States). In England 1861 the age of consent was 12, and only went up to 16 in 1885.

See "The Best Kept Secret: Sexual abuse of Children" by F. Rush © 1980

In 1893 C. Edholm wrote about the problem of torture for The Women's Temperance Publishing Association. (Quoting from Edholm is too graphic for my taste)

In 1885 Pall Mall Gazette's editor & journalist W.T. Stead wrote a series of articles under the broad heading of Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon exposing child prostitution rings.

Venereal Disease was a major problem which was why there was such a demand for virgins. In 1864 England passed the Contagious Diseases Act which allowed for prostitutes to be arrested if they were found to have VD. In 1886 this act was replaced by the Criminal Law Amendment Act protecting children, making sodomy illegal in Britain, and making prostitution illegal.



Let me think through how I can write about how this was a BIG problem in the USA after the War Between the States ...

From what I have uncovered prostitution became illegal in the U.S. in 1917 to stop tempting WWI sailors


... so, for the USA, prostitution was legal during the Victorian Era

~ From the notes of LadyVictorian Historian

Alcoholism & Other Ills

From Lady Victorian Historian


The Salvation Army's founder William Booth (1829-1912) wrote a book about the immorality of the Victorian Era entitled "In Darkest England and the Way Out". It became a best seller after its 1890 release and set the foundation for how the Army could combat these issues. Basically, Booth said that the so-called Christian developed countries were no better off than those citizens of underdeveloped countries.

Booth did not live in a mansion or have servants. He and his wife and children worked hard to DO something and took a pro-active stance.

In his book he wrote ...

I have no intention to depart in the smallest degree from the main principles on which I have acted in the past. My only hope for the permanent deliverance of mankind from misery, either in this world or the next, is the regeneration or remaking of the individual by the power of the Holy Ghost through Jesus Christ. But in providing for the relief of temporal misery I reckon that I am only making it easy where it is now difficult, and possible where it is now all but impossible, for men and women to find their way to the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Note: Salvation Army founded in 1865

One of its stated objectives ...

The advancement of the Christian religion as promulgated in the religious doctrines... which are professed, believed and taught by the Army and, pursuant thereto, the advancement of education, the relief of poverty, and other charitable objects beneficial to society or the community of mankind as a whole.

~ from the notes of Lady Victorian Historian

Random and Non Random Thoughts: A Victorian Discussion

A friend sent me some writings that she'd accumulated from various places of various discussions of things Victorian that she found in the blogosphere. The following has been taken from their discussions, when and from where I know not. Some of it is well documented and some of it is just a discussion of family history.

I don't know where these things came from because the links were not active in the document that I was sent, though some of the entries are referenced. For the privacy of those who posted, I removed their names, just because I don't know the original source. (Nothing like finding out you were commenting on a blog that you'd never seen before!) I've left some of the data raw -- so you might find spelling errors and the like.

They clearly appear to be Christians discussing the glorified nostalgia of the Victorian period that occurs within some Evangelical Christian groups. I, too, love the artwork, but as is described in these discussions, my family's experience (including my grandfather's family who immigrated the U.S. from London in the 1880s to find employment mining coal in the hills of Pennsylvania), their experience of the period was vastly different from velvet and lace. They were desperately poor in the U.S., but I am told that this is nothing compared to the terrible poverty they experienced in London.

Blog Host Note: There are some comments that mention drug addiction. If they are discussing the streets of London, I believe that people tend to exaggerate the famed “opium dens” that did exist, but they were not as popular as some sensational writers would have you believe. [One of my husband’s many fields of study includes forensic investigation of drug abuse, and this is his informed opinion based on that data.] There were also many heroin addicts that followed the War Between the States as a consequence of treatment of their brutal injuries, so there were quite a few heroin addicts in the U.S.

Each new person speaking is noted by a rose or bud or bloom.

I have asked this several times in several different places, and never have I gotten a satisfactory answer:

Why is this time frame so looked upon and really REVERED in some Christian circles as the end all be all of modesty and enlightenment?




Frankly, I have no idea why

My grandparents were from the Victorian Era. They held there were many aspects of it that was extremely wicked. Too often things were reduced to certain rules/regulations (as if any of those things could change one's mind and, then, their hearts ) It had a kind of cookie cutter existence to it.

My grandparents held that the era of the Great Depression was much more Christian in outlook and day-to-day life. Rightly or wrongly, I think folks want to point to such-and-such a time and say, See... that is how we should be living Yet, those folks in that timeframe point to other eras The Victorians, for example, lamented for the good ole days as well ...

Those susceptible to perfectionistic tendencies do not realize that each age has its problems and forget that God had them born NOW with all its marvelous technology to use for His glory and His people. It kinda reminds me of folks in the mid 1500s to mid 1600s wanting to secure a Utopia ... it's kinda like trying to sneak past the angels guarding the Garden of Eden ... trying to get to Point Z without striving or starting from Point A ...


I thank the Lord each day for indoor plumbing, cars, my computer, excellent medicines, quality food, etc. ... He chose to have us born NOW ... not then. (Thank You, Lord Jesus ) ... to conquer the issues of today. Frankly, I think any push to return to the Victorian Era is doomed for failure (not to mention goofy)

Sorry ... I'm sure I didn't answer in the politically correct fashion within the circles of conservatism




I think, or at least for me and my limited education, Hollywood paints a certain image. We adhere that this 'image' is truth and most of the time, it's not. It might be partially true. For example, the ladies always look so gorgeous in their ball gowns and the men in their dress of that era, the manners, the social gatherings (dance, almost always a party atmosphere or discussions, or card games, etc., etc. ) We wish for the same, and forget they didn't have running water, a bath might be had once a month, lice was a problem...ewwwwwwww, I think I'll stay here in this era.






Also many think that they would have lived
this life of ease ...
Not so ...
Most of those stories are about the wealthy ...
Not about us average Joes.

Those wealthy folks the movies present could not live the way they did unless they exploited those that had just come over from foreign lands ... They mocked and belittled others that were not of their class ... Then, there were the robber barons that really exploited the middle class ... When folks were hurt while working on the railroads or mining, they were left to themselves ... the employers (who said they were Christian) refused to practice the Golden Rule by taking care of the women left without husbands and their children ... they saw it as an easy way of having more domestic help ...

It was not unusual for every member of the family to be working outside the home (actually, that was never unusual for America since the colonial days) ... in the cities they were working in not-so-pleasant working conditions in the factories ... the hours were long and hard ... and it was very dangerous

[I can't think of the name of the factory in the east where it caught fire and all those women were burned alive ... can anyone else? I'd ask my ma, but I don't wanna depress her]

It was SOOOO bad that many were very frightened that anarchists, Marxists, and communists would come in and take over ... and they were RIGHT to be frightened ... in many respects it was becoming a close call

The Victorian Era has a great deal to answer for ...

One of the things I like about the era, though, was Albert ... her husband ... he was SOOOO concerned about how Christianity had been reduced to a bunch of rules and regulations that he brought the Christmas tree into everyone's home ... Why? ... to cause folks to remember Christ is ever green ... He is with us ... He is the center and the reason for Christmas






Some Links to More Info:

The Triangle Factory Fire
and
Leap for Life, Leap for Death


Very sad pictures in this next link, along with more of the story:
About the Union Narrative

There are many more links about it.




I think that many folks mix the Edwardian and Victorian Era's in fashion but the fact is that no matter what the era there has always been debauchery and immodesty going on right from the beginning of time.

I think that folks get mixed up in the romance of it rather than the reality of it. Having been a reenactor for nearly 30 years I can relate...there is a romance in almost all the eras really, you just have to be willing to turn a blind eye to the rest.

I think too that most women, especially, are romanced by the gallant and bravado of gentlemen and how a lady would have been treated. The beautiful clothing, the lovely parties. However, the wealthy were a very small minority.

The fact is that most of them were peasants like me. The had to cook their own meals, make their clothes, grow and raise their foods, do their own laundry and probably bathed more often than the elite (playing in cricks and streams and ponds). The elite had lots of perfumes to hide their odor as well as a higher rate of head and body lice because they didn't do their hair very often as those do's were hard and often spendy. They wore tighter clothing to show off as much shape as society would allow and covered what did show with powders and such. Lets not overlook the laudanum that most women (and often men) would carry with them for their nerves.

So what you really had was a group of people that were stinky, sticky, greasy, lice ridden folks that were high most of the time.

That's so romantic (Isn't )!




And so there again....just what is the fascination? Why are so many groups advocating a return to this?????

I think the glorification of the Victorian Era is done out of ignorance (in some situations the ignorance may be wilful ... in other situations it may just be lack of education & being led astray for the agenda of others)