$25.95
ISBN 1400065305
available through
Amazon
Reviewed by Gwen Masters
(1/9/08)
Imagine a place where you are welcomed at the door by an elegant woman dripping in fine silk and diamonds, led into a parlor that speaks of wealth and prestige, and offered everything your heart desires. Imagine a place where the women are lovely, the champagne flows freely, and discretion is assured. Imagine indulging in all your fantasies, your every want attended to by a woman who knows exactly what a man needs, then walking out the door to a courteous smile, a whispered goodbye, and a promise that your money is welcome here, anytime you might wish to return.
That shimmering dream was the Everleigh Club, and it was a very real house, a place often relegated to footnotes in the busy history of Chicago. In Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul, by Karen Abbott, the Everleigh Club is brought back to life in vivid detail.
In the early 1900s, America was coming to a moral showdown, and Chicago was center stage. The Everleigh Club, operated by sisters Ada and Minna Everleigh in Chicago's notorious Levee district, was the brothel to end all brothels. So elegant as to almost obscure the fact that it was indeed a whorehouse, the Club hosted wealthy businessmen, government officials, and even the occasional royalty. Immaculately decorated, catered with only the best foods and sporting the most beautiful women Chicago had to offer, the Club quickly became the place only high-rollers could afford -- a night with an Everleigh Butterfly, as they were called, could easily cost two hundred dollars or more, during a time when six dollars was considered a good week's wages.
The Everleigh Club built a reputation for staying above the typical muck that plagued the Levee district. "There will be no stain on this house," the sisters promised, and they meant every word -- but when the Everleigh Club was framed for the death of millionaire heir Marshall Fields, Jr., no amount of spin could prevent the stain on the Club's reputation. The scandal was fuel to the fire that was already attacking the house from every angle -- the ministers and politicians who were determined to clean out the Levee district and create their own fame from the ashes.
Author Karen Abbott has certainly done her homework for this book, carefully indexing every bit of research and presenting a list of sources several pages long. In the hands of a lesser author, this might translate into dry, uninteresting reading. Sin in the Second City is well-documented history that reads like fiction, a feat difficult for any author to pull off. Abbott does it beautifully.
In the pages of Sin in the Second City, I could taste the jealousy of Madam Vic Shaw, hear the laughter of a wildly intoxicated millionaire, and smell the perfume of the Everleigh butterflies as they floated through the immaculate hallways. The battle between the Progressive Era reformers and the brothel keepers simmered at the front doors of the Everleigh Club, and the ramifications of that moment in history sent a moral earthquake through America, one that still rattles from time to time. It's a story worth knowing, and with Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott has done a perfect job of reaching back a century's time and shedding light on some of the most colorful characters in Chicago's history.
