Progressives: The Social Evil

The Progressives were led by religious leaders such as Charles Parkhurst, a Protestant Reverend who urged for more “protest” from the Protestants. The Progressive Era united various anti-vice crusaders such as the Anti-Cigarette League, the American Purity Alliance, and the Anti-Saloon League. These groups were already united with many other issues such as labor rights, women’s rights, minimum wage laws, etc. Thus, in 1900, a reform group known as the “New York Committee of Fifteen” conducted undercover investigations and released their first report with the title “The Social Evil.” A similar group with ties to the New York Anti-Saloon League, known as the “Committee of Fourteen,” did a comparable investigation of prostitution three years
Many high level officials openly acknowledged their complicit role with vice crimes in exchange for bribes. In fact, Police Captain Alexander “Clubber” Williams was questioned by the committee in regards to the 83 brothels that brazenly operated in his precinct. He replied, “Well, they were fashionable.” In fact, Williams is even credited with nicknaming New York City’s most notorious red-light district, “the Tenderloin,” which was located in his precinct. In a double entendre he said, “I’ve been having chuck steak ever since I’ve been on the force, and now I’m going to have a bit of tenderloin.”
Most large cities treated vice crimes just like New York City. In fact, this dynamic peaked during the first two decades of the 20th Century and accordingly this period was labeled as the “Golden Age of the Brothel in America” by some historians. Only a few cities, such as New Orleans, Shreveport, Houston, and El Paso, had specific legislation which determined the exact location of those areas; otherwise, the police decided which city blocks would host this gray market activity. Also, judges tended to reinforce those rules by being more punitive if a prostitution arrest occurred outside of the red-light
This area was named after a city councilman, Alderman Sidney Story. He resented that name, but it derived from his proposal to ban prostitution outside of a specific 16 square block area (adjacent to the French Quarter) that had been home to primarily black residents. The Storyville red-light district proposal went into effect on New Year’s Day of 1898 and the area hosted 2,200 registered prostitutes at its peak. Other than registering with the city, prostitution wasn’t regulated in any way. In theory, Storyville’s early supporters hoped that their social experiment would unfold successfully like many other cities by sequestering the vice into a small area for the police to monitor and maintain public order. However, New Orleans already had a serious crime problem and the police weren’t intent upon enforcing much of a presence in the area. In fact, they were more concerned with how this area had developed a notoriety for interracial sex, with many tourists traveling to the area for this this reason from around the nation and internationally. For instance, the police attempted to impart some Jim Crow types of rules by denying women of different races the rights to live together, but that was never enforced because of a strong