Sin in the Second City quotes
"Even before choosing Chicago as the ideal city, the sisters had lengthy debates about what to call their next brothel....Inspiration finally hit, and they turned the 'ly' into 'leigh', just like Sir Walter Raleigh....And one of America's bawdiest idioms was born.
'I have always considered their choice of their professional name to be a marvelous play on words' wrote the sisters' great-niece, 'which being a member of the family I could easily relate to their sense of humor.' 'The double entendre was intended' agreed one Chicago historian. The phrase likely evolved from, of all things, the Bible--several passages use 'lie with' as a euphemism for sex--but in the decades after the sisters christened their Club, their legacy assumed the credit. I'm getting Everleighed tonight, eminent men from around the country reportedly boasted. A simple declaration that said many things at once, was understood only by a privileged few--and, ultimately, was shortened and vulgarized."
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pp 22-23
"There are no good girls gone wrong, just bad girls found out." -- Mae West
"Prince Henry of Prussia departed Chicago by 2pm the following afternoon, but his slipper sipping began a trend that long outlasted his visit. 'In New York millionaires were soon doing it publicly,' wrote Charles Washburn. 'At home parties husbands were doing it, in back rooms, grocery clerks were doing it,--in fact, everybody was doing it...it made a more lasting impression on a girl than carrying her picture in a watch.'"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg 77
"Ethel Rurey fell victim to the false employment snare. Sixteen years old, she was sweet-talked right out of her Wentworth Avenue home by a black man named H. J. Mitchell. He sold her to the owner of the New Paris at 2118 Dearborn Street for $10. Her father accompanied detectives during an all-night canvassing of the Levee and found Ethel in the second-floor bedroom, cowering inside a closet, peeking between a row of dress hems. 'Don't speak to me,' her father said. 'Officers, lock her up.'"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg130
"His mind was on his career. Numerous successful prosecutions aside, he was frustrated by the 'archaic' and 'moss-covered' Illinois statutes that were 'full of loopholes through which the slave traders crawled.' He had to prove each victim was unmarried, had been procured through deception, and was of previous 'chaste life'. That last stipulation was most troubling. If the rape gangs attacked the girl right away, thereby robbing her of her chastity, the case as as good as lost."
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg 151
"The announcement was a welcome one to most native-born Chicagoans. Their city was turning on itself, relinquishing its identity street by street; there were whole blocks drenched in odd smells, conversations built with peculiar words, hymns sung to false gods. 'I am one of those who believe not only that our public schools should have moral and religious training in them, but that this training should be Christian,' a Presbyterian minister wrote to one of Clifford Roe's supporters. 'This land is a Christian land. The United States Supreme Court and many of our state supreme courts have unequivocally decided that it is....I do not believe that we need to truckle or surrender our inheritance to infidels or Jews from Europe.'"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg155
"Those reformers tried to blow up th' place, an' look what they got for it. The Tribune thought people was gonna stay away. Well, look at it! All th' business houses are here, all th' big people. All my friends are out. Chicago ain't no sissy town!"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg172
"It is a conceded fact that woman has been reared as a sex commodity, and yet she is kept in absolute ignorance of the meaning and importance of sex." --Emma Goldman
"Among the bill's supporters [were] men who reverence womanhood and who set a priceless value upon female purity. Upon the other side you would find all the whoremongers and the pimps and the procurers and the keepers of bawdy houses. Upon that other side you would find all those who hate God and scoff at innocence and laugh at female virtue"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg 223
"The white slavery panic prompted one unequivocally positive result. In the spring of 1913, the Illinois State Legislature created a Senate Vice Committee to investigate the link between prostitution and wages. The presidents and proprietors of every major Chicago department store were subpoenaed and forced to submit to a rigorous interrogation: How many women did they employ? How much were they paid? What were the company profits? Would it be a hardship on the company to raise the women's salaries? Would they support minimum wage legislation?...Although a minimum wage bill failed in Chicago, the actions of the Senate Vice Committee prompted the passage of eight other minimum wage bills, and [other] inquiries modeled after the one in Illinois."
-----Sin in he Second City, Karen Abbott pg290
What an interesting book. I had no idea the history of the phrase "getting laid" was based on the name of a Chicago brothel. Awesome. The book also showcases the xenophobia, misogyny and religious intolerance of the time. Not that any of those things have disappeared, not at all, but the nature of them have changed in ways and even diminished in some cases. The thought of rape not being a crime in and of itself and the timing of the rape determining whether or not the prosecutor had a case is ridiculous. And the main issue for girls being drugged and brought to brothels and just accepting it because she'd been out all night and simply being away all night made her "lose her virtue" and therefore KNEW her family would never let her back home...what the fuck, dude. Seriously? Just being away all night, regardless of whether or not sex occurred? Being drugged and RAPED was no excuse for no longer being a virgin? Virginity was the single defining thing that determined a girl's worth and "virtue"? Unacceptable.
I want to read more of the books she read to research this book and I very much recommend every person who likes old-timey things to read it. Or anyone who just likes reading.
'I have always considered their choice of their professional name to be a marvelous play on words' wrote the sisters' great-niece, 'which being a member of the family I could easily relate to their sense of humor.' 'The double entendre was intended' agreed one Chicago historian. The phrase likely evolved from, of all things, the Bible--several passages use 'lie with' as a euphemism for sex--but in the decades after the sisters christened their Club, their legacy assumed the credit. I'm getting Everleighed tonight, eminent men from around the country reportedly boasted. A simple declaration that said many things at once, was understood only by a privileged few--and, ultimately, was shortened and vulgarized."
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pp 22-23
"There are no good girls gone wrong, just bad girls found out." -- Mae West
"Prince Henry of Prussia departed Chicago by 2pm the following afternoon, but his slipper sipping began a trend that long outlasted his visit. 'In New York millionaires were soon doing it publicly,' wrote Charles Washburn. 'At home parties husbands were doing it, in back rooms, grocery clerks were doing it,--in fact, everybody was doing it...it made a more lasting impression on a girl than carrying her picture in a watch.'"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg 77
"Ethel Rurey fell victim to the false employment snare. Sixteen years old, she was sweet-talked right out of her Wentworth Avenue home by a black man named H. J. Mitchell. He sold her to the owner of the New Paris at 2118 Dearborn Street for $10. Her father accompanied detectives during an all-night canvassing of the Levee and found Ethel in the second-floor bedroom, cowering inside a closet, peeking between a row of dress hems. 'Don't speak to me,' her father said. 'Officers, lock her up.'"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg130
"His mind was on his career. Numerous successful prosecutions aside, he was frustrated by the 'archaic' and 'moss-covered' Illinois statutes that were 'full of loopholes through which the slave traders crawled.' He had to prove each victim was unmarried, had been procured through deception, and was of previous 'chaste life'. That last stipulation was most troubling. If the rape gangs attacked the girl right away, thereby robbing her of her chastity, the case as as good as lost."
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg 151
"The announcement was a welcome one to most native-born Chicagoans. Their city was turning on itself, relinquishing its identity street by street; there were whole blocks drenched in odd smells, conversations built with peculiar words, hymns sung to false gods. 'I am one of those who believe not only that our public schools should have moral and religious training in them, but that this training should be Christian,' a Presbyterian minister wrote to one of Clifford Roe's supporters. 'This land is a Christian land. The United States Supreme Court and many of our state supreme courts have unequivocally decided that it is....I do not believe that we need to truckle or surrender our inheritance to infidels or Jews from Europe.'"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg155
"Those reformers tried to blow up th' place, an' look what they got for it. The Tribune thought people was gonna stay away. Well, look at it! All th' business houses are here, all th' big people. All my friends are out. Chicago ain't no sissy town!"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg172
"It is a conceded fact that woman has been reared as a sex commodity, and yet she is kept in absolute ignorance of the meaning and importance of sex." --Emma Goldman
"Among the bill's supporters [were] men who reverence womanhood and who set a priceless value upon female purity. Upon the other side you would find all the whoremongers and the pimps and the procurers and the keepers of bawdy houses. Upon that other side you would find all those who hate God and scoff at innocence and laugh at female virtue"
-----Sin in the Second City, Karen Abbott pg 223
"The white slavery panic prompted one unequivocally positive result. In the spring of 1913, the Illinois State Legislature created a Senate Vice Committee to investigate the link between prostitution and wages. The presidents and proprietors of every major Chicago department store were subpoenaed and forced to submit to a rigorous interrogation: How many women did they employ? How much were they paid? What were the company profits? Would it be a hardship on the company to raise the women's salaries? Would they support minimum wage legislation?...Although a minimum wage bill failed in Chicago, the actions of the Senate Vice Committee prompted the passage of eight other minimum wage bills, and [other] inquiries modeled after the one in Illinois."
-----Sin in he Second City, Karen Abbott pg290
What an interesting book. I had no idea the history of the phrase "getting laid" was based on the name of a Chicago brothel. Awesome. The book also showcases the xenophobia, misogyny and religious intolerance of the time. Not that any of those things have disappeared, not at all, but the nature of them have changed in ways and even diminished in some cases. The thought of rape not being a crime in and of itself and the timing of the rape determining whether or not the prosecutor had a case is ridiculous. And the main issue for girls being drugged and brought to brothels and just accepting it because she'd been out all night and simply being away all night made her "lose her virtue" and therefore KNEW her family would never let her back home...what the fuck, dude. Seriously? Just being away all night, regardless of whether or not sex occurred? Being drugged and RAPED was no excuse for no longer being a virgin? Virginity was the single defining thing that determined a girl's worth and "virtue"? Unacceptable.
I want to read more of the books she read to research this book and I very much recommend every person who likes old-timey things to read it. Or anyone who just likes reading.