t the dawn of the twentieth century, the country's red-light districts were such an established part of the American economy that historian Karen Abbott compares them to the modern-day auto industry. But most brothels were unsavory dives where a man could expect his wallet and watch to disappear, and an STD to pop up in their place.

At least this was the case until two sisters, Minna and Ada Everleigh (a surname they invented), opened the Everleigh Club in Chicago's Levee District and instantly created a new class of bordello. Located in a double mansion, the Everleigh Club was crammed to its mirrored ceilings with head-spinning opulence. It had thirty private boudoirs (some with themes, like the Japanese Throne Room), a library, a ballroom containing an immense water fountain, marble-inlaid brass beds and pricey obscura such as gilded fishbowls and eighteen-karat gold spittoons ($650 apiece). There were

promotion

butlers, three string orchestras and a nationally renowned chef who prepared lobster and caviar in a grand dining hall. And of course, there were the most sought-after hookers in the country, some of them celebrities in their own right.

Abbott tells the story of the Everleigh Club's rise and fall in a stylish new book, Sin in the Second City. She details how the club strived to make prostitution safe, clean and respectable, and how it might have led the way toward legalization if not for religious reformers who pushed local politicians to shut it down. But the Everleigh Club left a lasting legacy regardless — and not only its popularization of the verb "to get leighed" — with its philosophy that sex, even as a capitalist transaction, need not be shameful. — Will Doig

I was struck by how tough it was just to get in to the Everleigh Club. It seemed more difficult than gaining admittance to the most exclusive social clubs in today's New York.
Absolutely. The entrance fee was fifty dollars — this is back when a three-course meal cost fifty cents. Madam Minna required letters of reference from men who were unknown to her. It was definitely a status symbol.

Could celebrities and high-profile men visit without causing a scandal?
Yeah, it was the one place where high-profile men could do that. It was treated like a gentleman's club. You could almost get away with saying, "We just go there for the meals," because they had this lavish banquet room.

Can you walk us through what someone would experience when he first entered the club?
Each entrance was lavishly appointed with imported Oriental rugs, paintings of Rubenesque models, a statue of Apollo and Daphne, chandeliers with dripping-down mirrors, elaborate fountains spraying perfume into the air, and on several occasions the sisters would release butterflies into the parlor. White-gloved servants served Champagne — they would not serve liquor, only Champagne or wine. And the girls were milling about — in lesser brothels, they would line up and men would pick them over, assembly-line style. But here, you mingled with the girls.

Right, during the training process, the girls had to learn not only how to please men physically, but also learn about literature, art and high culture.
They had to be able to talk with their clients about literature, about Balzac. They'd recite poetry. There was a library filled with classics, and Minna made sure her girls were well versed in current events so they could hold their own with the men who came through. One of the Everleigh Club's clients once said to the sisters, "Why are you teaching your girls poetry? That's educating the wrong end of a whore."

It reminded me

If a girl was lucky, she would get a job in the city as a typist for maybe six dollars a week. If she worked at a whorehouse, she's making fifteen a week. She's working at the Everleigh, she's making a hundred a week.

of geisha culture, this classy façade where the whole point was to make the man feel like a king.
Exactly. In a lesser bordello, when the girl would invite him in she wouldn't even meet his eyes. She had her clothes off in a matter of seconds and wrung out his private parts as if she were wringing out a laundry to see if he had any diseases. There was no seduction or even faux-seduction. There was no pretense of sexiness.

And sometimes there was no sex at the Everleigh at all. My favorite story was about the guy who showed up with a bag of gold coins, and he just wanted to toss them at his girl's naked body, and whichever ones landed on her erogenous zones she got to keep.
He's my favorite too! It's like, how is this even remotely sexy? But the girls were pros. I think that particular girl, Doll, also had a guy who would stick his arm out and he just wanted her to swing from it. You just don't think of people from that era as being so kinky.

The sisters were very strict about banning things that were commonplace at the other brothels: no drugs, no pick-pocketing, and they employed a well-respected Chicago doctor to constantly check the girls' health. It was tightly regulated, almost the way the prostitution industry is regulated in Amsterdam today.
Yeah. Here in America, you think of prostitutes today, you think of the crack addict on the street, by herself except for her pimp. But back then, it was a valid industry. So [the sisters'] notion was, why not elevate it so that all the things people worry about become moot points? They could have led the way to legalization. Unfortunately, because of religious fundamentalism, legalizing prostitution was never going to happen.

It struck me that the religious zealots back then were similar to today's, in that they were very politically active.
The fact that they had a National Purity Congress back then — it was exactly like Focus on the Family. Another thing that struck me as a parallel to today was the white-slavery narrative. They had thousands of books and articles printed about how your sister, your daughter, your niece, your neighbor was going to fall prey to these nefarious procurers, and she's going to be raped and drugged and sold to a brothel.

But the Everleigh Club actually had a long waiting list of girls who wanted to work there. Could you go so far as to say that working as a prostitute at the Everleigh was a respectable job?
I would go that far. Look at it this way: if a girl was lucky, she would get a job in the city as a stenographer or clerk or typist or department-store girl for maybe six dollars a week. If she worked at a whorehouse, she's making fifteen a week. She's working at the Everleigh, she's making a hundred a week. One of the things I admired about the Everleighs was how concerned they were with taking care of these girls and paying them a living wage. They gave more concrete help to these girls than the reformers did. When [reform crusader] Minister Earnest Bell would come to the club, they'd say, "Come on in, minister. We dare you to ask any of our girls to leave. Good luck!" The waiting list to work there stretched across the country.

Do brothels still operate today?
Not much, and that's the other thing I wanted to do in the book — recreate that era, because I think it's passed. You walk into the Bunny Ranch, they're not going to have a marble fountain spouting perfume into the air. What really killed the grand bordello era was the advent of the automobile. I think when that happened, it became much more common for women to work as call girls.

Suzy Poon Tang was a Chinese girl who was the most sought-after prostitute in the Levee District. Is that where the phrase "poon tang" actually comes from?
When I found her in a book, I thought, no, this can't be. I started trying to do some etymology research. There is a phrase in China, punata — I think I'm saying it incorrectly — but there is a Chinese word and you could see how it would be bastardized in English into poon tang once she came over here.

Speaking of etymology, the sisters basically invented the surname Everleigh to popularize the phrase "get laid."
Minna and Ada were masterful spin doctors. They would use that phrase very coyly and slyly. The phrase is actually Biblical — "to lie with a man or a woman" — but in the context of populist sex, the next step was to "get leighed," or "get laid." They were marketing geniuses.  n°
 

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