Minneapolis Madams: The Lost History of Prostitution on the Riverfront by Penny A. Petersen

Author:Penny A. Petersen [Petersen, Penny A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: History, United States, State & Local, Midwest (IA; IL; IN; KS; MI; MN; MO; ND; NE; OH; SD; WI), Social Science, Women's Studies, Prostitution & Sex Trade
ISBN: 9780816665242
Google: bbjANAEACAAJ
Amazon: 0816665249
Publisher: Univ Of Minnesota Press
Published: 2013-06-01T01:04:31.890000+00:00

Doc Ames, “White Slavery,” and the End of an Era

They objected to the children that are inmates of the Home for the Friendless attending the public schools. This institution, it seems, is of a charitable and reformatory nature and seeks to care for homeless children or children whose parents are in houses of ill-fame, and who wish their children be brought up properly.

—“DRAWING THE LINE,” MINNEAPOLIS TIMES, NOVEMBER 18, 1891

T ^ate one April morning in 1910, when most inhabitants of the Eleventh Avenue red-light district were likely asleep, the police department began “the biggest and most sweeping raid in the history of Minneapolis.” Acting at the request of County Attorney Al J. Smith, they swarmed to the “territory on Second Street between Tenth and Twelfth Avenues and Eleventh and Twelfth Avenues between Second Street and Washington Avenue,” enclosing it with “a cordon” of uniformed policemen, while “scores of plain clothes men” started “serving twenty-four warrants on the proprietors. By 1:30 p.m., nineteen were under arrest.” Only the madams, not the ordinary inmates, were jailed. Although the “raid was conducted with lightning-like swiftness,” a crowd “of nearly 3,000” spectators gathered to watch. Few seemed to realize that this invasion would mark the end of the open red-light district of Minneapolis. The story of how Minneapolis reformers accomplished this apparent triumph goes back two decades.1

THE REFORMERS GET ORGANIZED

Nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century America was awash in a number of reform movements, ranging from abolitionists who finally saw the end of slavery to temperance advocates to advocates of universal suffrage. Some of these movements drew strength from one another, even if their main goals were not the same. For example, the Anti-Saloon League allied itself with any group that opposed alcohol for whatever reason, such as nativists, suffragists, and the radical International Workers of the World, and used these alliances to further their cause. The Progressive movement favored, among other causes, a steeply graduated income tax, and in time, this led to the adoption of the Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution. This reform, meant to redistribute the tax burden based on the ability to pay, also furthered the cause of prohibition, as it replaced the federal liquor-tax revenues once legal alcohol sales ceased. Better and faster communication enabled local reform groups to learn from both the mistakes and successes of similar-minded groups across the country.

In 1891 the madams and the commercial sex trade gained the upper hand in Minneapolis, but the forces of reform did not retreat from the fray. After losing the battle to prevent the formation of the new red-light district on Eleventh Avenue South, the fight shifted to the courts, the school board, and finally the political arena. Over time, Minneapolis reformers who hoped to eradicate prostitution and municipal corruption in general were able to link their cause to broader national trends, lending them a certain legitimacy, as well as providing stories for the national press to disseminate about the progress reformers were making in Minneapolis.

In September 1891, district court judge

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