Sophia C. reviewed on 5/28/2010 + 289 more book reviews

Helpful Score: 2

Karen Abbott's meticulously researched Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys and the Battle for America's Soul reads like a leisurely carriage ride through a specific moment in American history. The storytelling is glamorous, unhurried, and sometimes the characters blur together from afar in Chicago's underworld at the dawn of the 20th century. Abbott focuses on Ada and Minna Everleigh, a pair of sisters who ran the most upscale--and in some ways, most progressive--brothel in Chicago's Levee district. They insisted on feeding the 'Everleigh butterflies' gourmet meals, hiring an honest doctor to certify their health, and tutoring them in Balzac. Therefore the sisters are a bit miffed--but too classy to show it-- to be grouped with other Levee madams and saloon keepers by Progressive Era reformers who rallied against their 'white slave trade.' The investigation into the wholesale luring of American and immigrant girls into situations where they are raped and then sold into debt-bondage brothels spurred in part the formation of the (Federal) Bureau of Investigation. Abbott does an admirable job tying these tensions into a detailed, readable story as she volleys between the Levee regulars and the protesters as each side waxes and wanes in influence in Chicago politics. Those who enjoy Chicago history, women's studies, or modern human trafficking would want to indulge in Sin in the Second City

Back to all reviews by this member
Back to all reviews of this book
Back to Book Reviews
Back to Book Details