Sin in the Second City

Sin in the Second City

Studying the history of a big, fascinating and historic city like Chicago is a worthy pursuit for a student no matter what the topic might be simply because Chicago is American through and its flaws and foibles reflect America's past. The subject might be Al Capone and his grip on the criminal genre in Chicago, it might be baseball and the Black Sox scandal that kept Shoeless Joe Jackson out of the big leagues -- or it might be the Chicago of Mayor Richard Daley that hosted the 1968 Democratic National Convention during which there was a police riot against antiwar demonstrators. Studying the life and times of Chicago at the turn of the century when the Everleigh sisters opened up a classy brothel in the red light district -- and played host to such iconic names as actor John Barrymore and heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson -- is certainly worthy of a student's time. In this book an alert student learns, among myriad other interesting things, that the Everleigh Club welcomed participants to the July 1900 auto show, and each official exhibitor only needed to flash "an official exhibitor's badge" to be served a "lavish feast…a bottle of wine, and a trip up the mahogany staircase" for some sensual pleasure (Abbott, 2007, p. 73).

Section TWO: The book covers the fascinating and provocative adult business developed by sisters Minna and Ada Everleigh, who built a mansion for prostitution on the south side of Chicago in 1900 (it stayed open until 1911). In a way the sisters not only made good money and provided sensual and social pleasure for gentlemen, they broke the stereotype of hookers in that period of American life. They insisted on hiring only reasonably respectable women -- most were stunningly beautiful -- and they closely monitored their behavior. Of great interest in this book is the list of high-visibility patrons who arrived and the "moral purity" campaign that eventually shut the Everleigh Club down.

Section THREE: This book is very well written, with the proper attention to detail and descriptive narrative that pulls the reader into the story,-page after page. There is no sense of bias at all in this book, in fact Karen Abbott is a journalist and her sense of balance and fairness is evident throughout the book. It is very interesting nonfiction because Abbott clearly set out not just to write about prostitution at the turn of the century in Chicago, or about the business skills of the Everleigh sisters; indeed, she is obviously fascinated with the economic and social history of Chicago and the characters that live in -- and visit -- the city "with broad shoulders" (as poet Carl Sandburg called the gritty Chicago). Clearly Abbott did her research on all the characters she presented, among them the very interesting story of Prince Henry of Prussia.

Prince Henry, the brother of the powerful Kaiser Wilhelm II (who, in a few years, would lead Germany into the bloody disaster known as WWI), was in the U.S. To present America with a statue of Frederick the Great and to accept a yacht built for his brother. "Prominent Americans viewed the prince's trip as an opportunity to showcase the country's brightest thinkers and shrewdest capitalists, and to flex its developing imperial muscle" (Abbott, 73). Having set the stage brilliant vis-a-vis the official nature of the prince's visit -- and mentioning the recent American acquisitions (Hawaii and Puerto Rico) to give an international political perspective -- Abbott further raised the stakes and value of the prince's visit to the Everleigh Club. The author notes (74) the American superstars of business (J.P. Morgan, Adolphus Busch, and Charles Schwab) and the world famous American inventors (Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison) that the prince was introduced to in New York City prior to his Chicago visit.

As well crafted as Abbott's build-up to the prince's attendance at the Everleigh Club is, it pales in comparison to the "slipper sipping" of champagne and the other wild goings-on at the club (76-77).

Abbott takes care to describe every event with carefully chosen narrative, and brings empathy from readers when she introduces a "virginal nymph" (133) and elicits a chuckle from readers when she quotes Minna, "A girl in our establishment is not a commodity with a market price, like a pound of butter or a leg of lamb" (198).