Lets get Progressive!

Panorama of Chicago,1906

“Imagine yourself,” Bell wrote about Chicago during the Progressive Era, “the screeching of dope-filled and half drunken women; the throngs of young men going like mad into these house of horror, where the air is reeking with the fumes of dope and tobacco and millions of germs.”[1] Can you imagine living in a place like this? The reformers of the Progressive Era sure couldn’t and they were willing to do anything to get rid of such an infectious place.

            Parts two and three of Sin in the Second City, delved deep into the Progressive era when a wide range of economic, political, social, and moral reforms took place. In the Progressive era, there were efforts to outlaw just about anything that could be considered detrimental to society like the sale of alcohol, regulating child labor, restricting immigration, and so on.[2] Sin in the Second City focus on the local level, where many Progressives rallied to eliminate red-light districts because prostitution was described as something that lured men “into awful sin and death perhaps”.[3] The reformers argued that prostitution perpetuated sin and death in many ways, but the two arguments that stood out were health issues and also protecting the sanctity of marriage. During the Progressive Era, there were many innovations in science that helped address health hazards. “The study of social hygiene was advancing rapidly; recently, a scientist had developed a test to detect Treponema pallidum, the bacterium that cased syphilis”.[4] The advances in science during that time made detecting health risks easier which in turn brought to light the sexual health issues prostitution created. These facts helped reformers’ case that prostitution was a serious problem where “men must understand that harlots were responsible for more that 25 percent of surgical operations on good women, for the blindness of hundreds of babies”.[5] This is when health and living standards were addressed during that time and how the business of prostitution can lead to many health risks for the city.

            The sanctity of marriage was also a factor for debate in the Progressive Era. At the time, women began to have a voice as they rallied for equality in not only voting, but for divorce, access to higher education, birth control, and so on. They were convinced that it was their duty and responsibility to purify American society.[6] Perhaps their biggest concern is marriage and divorce. For example Grace Cunnings Shaw Kennedy, the wife of a well-known wealthy man who was a regular at the Everleigh Club, “would be filing for divorce soon”[7] after her husband admitted to many affair and rendezvous with prostitutes. Mr. Shaw Kennedy’s indiscretions cased a number of Mrs. Shaw Kennedy’s friends to avoid their house, causing many strains on many relationships. Because of situations like this, women reformers in the Progressive Era spoke out against the negative effect prostitution have on traditional marriages, the family, and most importantly the children affected by an unconventional family. Therefore, divorce was also a hot topic in reforms.

            Another reform Progressives sought to eliminate was the corruption of government. For example, “the first ward, the heart of Chicago’s culture and commerce, was still run by the most crooked alderman. The police department still favored segregating the Levee district rather than wiping it out altogether”.[8] This to reformers was odd because even though there were many arrests of white slave owners for disorderly conduct, there was still not an urgency to crack down on the law. This is in part because of the corruption in government because many government officials at the time made deals with leaders of red light districts for their own political and financial gain.

           

A portrait of Mona Marshall

Perhaps the biggest win for Progressive reformers was the Mona Marshall’s case. “The battle against the Levee was a ball of kinetic energy that had been waiting for a push. The Mona Marshall case was it; she could do for the Levee district what The Jungle had done for the Union Stock Yards”. This was made possible by the Progressive Era’s muckraking journalists who often called attention to the exploitation of child labor, corruption in city governments, and the corruption of the prostitution business was no different.[9] “Newspapers, from the venerable Tribune to William Randolph Hearst’s sensationalistic Chicago American, devoted about half a million pages to the war on white slavery after Mona Marshall told her story. Suddenly there were hundreds just like her”.[10] This shows the power of the press and the contribution of the muckrakers during this time and how they themselves were Progressive reformers.

            Another important push of the Progressive Era is to Americanize immigrants or restrict immigration all together.[11] “In November 1907, the United States government, concerned about immigration in general and its relationship to prostitution in particular, formed a commission to study how people came to America and what happened to them once they arrived”.[12] Immigrants at the time were viewed as the main problem in the city’s overpopulation and the advancement of while slavery. They were seen as “mongrels, all of them, pulling America’s identity in dangerous directions leaving her misshapen and newly strange”. Therefore, the federal immigration Act of 1907 was implemented and agents began infiltrating red-light districts, forbade importing women into the country for the purposes of prostitution, and mandated he deportation of any woman or girl found prostitution herself within three years of arriving to America.[13] This made what use to be typical business in the Levee district now a felony. This shows the influence of mass immigration and the relationship to prostitution.

Mina (Left) and Ada Everleigh

  Even though prostitution in the text, especially in parts two and three, was mostly shown as negative, Abbott still portrays the Everleigh sisters as heroines as Ada and Minna were not vicious criminals like William McNamara, who “lured girls and raped them, often several times, before selling them to brothels”. The sisters made prostitution into a decent business and kept doctors to take care of the harlots, paid the harlots well, and had strict rules against violence, drugs and theft. Perhaps Abbott portrayed the sisters in such a positive way to help the audience consider why prostitution was acceptable during that time and it’s role in society and that prostitution can be like any other business.

            All in all, Sin in the Second City accurately depicted the Progressive Era that transformed American society in the 20^th century, including mass communication with newspapers and muckraking journalists, innovations in science that helped health and living standards, the role of women in society, and brought to light the role of government.

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[1] Karen Abbot, Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys and the Battle for America's Soul (New York: Random House, 2007), 103.

[2] S. Mintz, and S. McNeal. Digital History, "Overview of the Progressive Era." Accessed March 31, 2014. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=11&smtid=1.

[3] Abbot, Sin in the Second City, 103.

[4] Abbot, Sin in the Second City, 102.

[5] Abbot, Sin in the Second City, 102.

[6] S. Mintz, and S. McNeal. Digital History, "Overview of the Progressive Era." Accessed March 31, 2014. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=11&smtid=1.

[7] Abbot, Sin in the Second City, 105.

[8] Abbot, Sin in the Second City, 118.

[9] S. Mintz, and S. McNeal. Digital History, "Overview of the Progressive Era." Accessed March 31, 2014. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=11&smtid=1.

[10] Abbot, Sin in the Second City, 129.

[11] S. Mintz, and S. McNeal. Digital History, "Overview of the Progressive Era." Accessed March 31, 2014. http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/era.cfm?eraID=11&smtid=1.

[12] Abbot, Sin in the Second City, 137.

[13] Abbot, Sin in the Second City, 154-155.