By the end of the 19th century, local reformers had had enough, and their unique solution was a vice district called Storyville - where, they believed, all manner of sin could be contained. And while there have been many fine books and articles written about the city’s Storyville era, when prostitution was legalized in a district adjacent to the French Quarter, Gary Krist’s “Empire of Sin” is certainly one of the most well-researched and well-written, a true-life tale of a sui generis American city that reads like a historical thriller.Īfter the Civil War, New Orleans was a place that the rest of rock-ribbed America looked upon, in Krist’s words, “with a combination of wonder, suspicion, and often abhorrence.” The city was largely unsegregated, mixed marriages were legal, and its reputation for liquor and licentiousness was already firmly fixed. Given the publication of so many books and articles about New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, it’s instructive to remember that many of the city’s much-discussed problems - street violence, institutionalized racism, the push-pull between permissiveness and prohibition - existed for generations before the federal levees collapsed and floodwaters inundated the city. I’d recommend this book those interested southern history, music history, or narrative non-fiction ie Devil in the White City.A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans The book is well researched with extensive footnotes referring to contemporary newspaper sources. Overall the fusion of the murder, Jazz, and vice stories is successful. His inclusion sometimes felt a bit forced and the conclusion of that story was a bit unsatisfying. The weakest aspect of the book were the bits about the Axman. I found the history of Gilded Age New Orleans fascinating. The police were never able to figure out which crimes were his and which were copy cat killings. Over about twenty years, the murder kills between ten and thirty people. The victims are mostly Italian and owners of grocery stores. The Axman typically attacks in the early morning hours by chiseling open a passage in a back door and attacking a man and wife with an ax. Overtime this police harassment would force the best of the music scene to friendlier venues in LA, New York and especially Chicago.Īs Jazz takes form and the city is made safe for the moral majority, a killer lurks in the alleys. Jazz performers routinely spent nights in jail for playing music. The reformers saw Jazz as a degenerate form of music and hated the existence of mixed audiences. This new music was popular with blacks and whites. Bolden’s short career would inspire Kid Ory and King Oliver, Oliver in turn mentored Louis Armstrong. The author, Gary Krist, credits Buddy Bolden with inventing Jazz. Black women would of course still be able to service white women and the white women servicing black men was unthinkable in the South.Īs the city fathers were suppressing vice an entirely new form of music emerged from the swamp, Jazz. When reformers decide to isolate vice to a single section of town, Storyville, a separate vice section is created for black on black prostitution. The primary aim of the segregation law was prostitution. Eventually a law forbids any mixing of races at establishments that serve alcohol. The elites of New Orleans also frown upon race mixing. The company contracted to colonize New Orleans did it quick and dirty by kidnapping convicts, prostitutes, and the homeless to colonize the swampy city site. The French didn’t found New Orleans with church goers. Prostitution, gambling, and drinking have been aspects of city life from the beginning. At the same time they are suppressing minorities they also begin to tamp down the vice economy. As they strip black people of their remaining rights they also struggle to keep the Italian immigrants in check. The society people have a puritanical bent tinged with racism. As the city emerges from reconstruction, members of the city’s elite vie for control. The book deals with the city from 1890-1920. This book is made up of three separate strands, Jazz, serial murders, and vice, weaved together to make a larger narrative on New Orleans during the turn of the century.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |