Book Thirty-Seven: Sin in the Second City

Minna and Ada Everleigh were unlike any other madams in Chicago's Levee district.  The Everleigh Club known for stunning Everleigh 'butterflies' drew politicians, industry moguls, foreign dignitaries, and more to the doorstep thanks to gourmet food, healthy women, fair wages, and discretion.

Author Karen Abbott explores what is known of the aristocratic sisters, then turns her pen to the political and society atmosphere that would be their undoing.  Not everyone was happy about the sisters' attempts to elevate the industry. Rival madams set out to destroy the sisters going so far as to try and frame them from the death of department story heir Marshall Field, Jr.  What the sisters couldn't know was the tide was changing.  It would be the reformers who would whip the nation into a frenzy over 'white slavery'--the alleged practice of kidnapping young girls and forcing them into brothels--that would be their demise. 

Sin in the Second City is a colorful look into the famous brothel and the two sisters who, unknowingly, would help usher in 20th Century modernity.  Abbott writes a compelling read that name drops Rockefeller, Capone, Taft, and Barrymore.  More interestingly, is how this hedonistic culture subsisted alongside the Victorian propriety of the day. Thanks to Abbott's meticulous research, you are transported to the Levee district.  You can feel the grit of the streets and the satin sheets.  The accompanying pictures scattered throughout the book are a treat.

As I see it, Sin in the Second City is a great historical read.  It's borderline exhaustive--or feels that way--look at a interesting time in American history.  As a business model, the sisters only delivered what was very much in demand.  As a reader, I was more fascinated by the sisters and their ability to reinvent themselves than the brothel.  History buffs will be delighted.