Rare and vivid evidence of the thriving business of pleasure.
From 1897 to 1917, prostitution operated legally in a district of New Orleans known as Storyville. Beautifully produced by the Historic New Orleans Collection, this abundantly illustrated history of turn-of-the-century prostitution offers an unusual and fascinating glimpse into America’s past.
An authoritative, illuminating introduction by librarian and rare books curator Arceneaux explains the significance of Blue Books, directories to the licentious pleasures of Storyville. Addressed to the white, middle-class men who frequented the district, Blue Books were sold at venues such as saloons and barbershops; because of the Comstock Act (1873), material deemed lewd could not be sent through the mail. Without directly mentioning sex, the Blue Books listed and advertised beer houses, speak-easies, and bordellos, providing rosters of madams and prostitutes by name, address, and race: C (colored), W (white), and O (Octoroon, one-eighth black). Some books identified Jewish prostitutes with J; “first class bordellos” rated a star. Advertisements highlighted the brothels’ luxurious features: expensive furniture, pricey paintings, and refined, elegant women eager to offer diversions such as musical entertainment. One madam, “a head-liner among those who keep first-class octoroons,” boasted about her singing ability as well as her “pretty creole damsels.” Warning that not all establishments were reputable, Blue Books aimed to set “the stranger on a proper grade or path as to where to go and be secure.” Advised a 1908 book, “when you go on a ‘lark,’ you’ll know ‘who is who’ and the best place to spend your time and money.” Temptations were many: in that year, for example, the directory listed 697 women to choose from. Along with brothel listings, readers found advertisements for liquor, cigars, and, not surprisingly, so-called cures for venereal diseases, such as “Anti-Crab Lotion” and “Hellmann’s No. 206 Mixture. A sure cure in a short time.” Now extremely fragile, the books have been digitized for examination at the Historic New Orleans Collection website.
Rare and vivid evidence of the thriving business of pleasure.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-917860-73-7
Page Count: 160
Publisher: The Historic New Orleans Collection
Review Posted Online: Jan. 17, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
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