In Mobile’s red-light district, gentlemen visited young madams, like Bertha Claxton pictured above. The madams arranged one of their girls, who sometimes traveled, for their customers. Erik Overbey Collection, The Doy Leale McCall Rare Book and Manuscript Library, USA Archives
An early French map of Mobile shows an area occupied by several single women which was probably Mobile’s first “district.” The oldest profession flourished in the port town and undoubtedly grew with the population boom of the 1840s-1850s.
By the mid-1840s, John Bloodgood was sponsoring what were commonly termed “whore balls” on Royal Street. Two aldermen attempted to put an end to them in 1847, citing the event was leading to “brawls and affrays which are pregnant with evil.” Bloodgood’s offer to pay a special tax to continue them was declined.
The first legislation which mentioned prostitution was in 1859 when that profession was categorized with “vagrants and public drunks” with fines in the $25 to $50 range. This today would be the equivalent of between $950 and $1,900. If the offense warranted it, the punishment could also involve banishment from the city.
In 1860, there were four brothels operating in Mobile. They were located on St. Michael Street between Hamilton and Broad streets, and this earned that stretch the nickname of Primrose Lane.
A Growing Problem — Nationally
By century’s end, Mobile like dozens of other cities across the nation decided that prostitutes freely plying their trade on the streets or within residential districts was a growing problem. Although technically illegal, legislation was passed to designate neighborhoods where it could be openly practiced.
In 1897, both New Orleans and Mobile passed ordinances to establish tenderloin districts in an attempt to control prostitution to limited districts. The New Orleans councilman who wrote that city’s legislation was named Sidney Story. To his dismay, the 12 square blocks of New Orleans which grew to include 250 houses of ill repute was immediately dubbed Storyville.
Mobile Mayor Joseph Carlos Rich signed legislation that year ordering “all houses of ill fame maintained for the purposes of prostitution” to be only allowed in the limits of:
“Both sides of St. Michael westwardly from Lawrence to west side of Warren Street; both sides of Cedar and Warren streets from St. Michael to north side of St. Louis Street, and both sides of St. Louis from Cedar to Warren Street.”
The mayors of cities where such districts were established declared it successful. Birmingham’s mayor said that the “segregation of bawdy houses has reduced the number of unfortunates in our midst by over 75%, driving hundreds away. It has reclaimed every other section of the city from suspicion and contamination.”
The designated districts in cities like Chicago and New Orleans led to the construction of elegant mansions overseen by famous madams known for their jewels and elegant gowns. Mahogany Hall in New Orleans was home to 40 girls in a lavish four-story structure.
The Sanborn Fire Maps printed at the dawn of the 20th century indicate that Mobile’s district had numerous houses marked as “FB,” meaning female borders. However, the majority appear to have been rather modest shotguns, not towering mansions. Interspersed with the houses of ill fame were numerous saloons and an occasional pool hall and theater.
A Directory to the “Cream of Society”
A paper-bound “Blue Book” — so named for the color of its cover — was published as a directory of the tenderloin and could be discreetly purchased for 25 cents in saloons, hotels, train depots and steamboat landings. These appeared in every city with such a district and each was printed with the warning of “This Book Not Mailable.”
Mobile’s version contained a preface explaining “Why Mobile Should Have This Directory.” The safety of the stranger in town was assured, “as where to go and be secure from hold-ups, brace games and other illegal practices worked on the unwise in the ‘Red Light District’. All the best houses are advertised and known as the ‘Cream of Society.’”
Saloon and whisky ads were interspersed with such establishments as Ruby Lee’s “Palace of Palms” at 555 St. Michael Street or Blanch Williams’ “Mansion of Aching Hearts” at 405 St. Louis Street. A Duncan P. Case advertised his “Saloon and Ladies’ Cafe” at 163 North Dearborn Street. Mobile’s city directories regularly listed the owners of the houses with a prefix of “MAD” for madam.
The District Expands and Comes to an End
By 1906, the houses of ill fame had exploded over the district’s boundaries by as many as 10 blocks to the north. Mobile attorney Frederick Bromberg took matters into his own hands and appealed to Alabama’s governor for assistance in keeping the prostitutes within the restricted district.
As a result, the city expanded the district in 1913, leading to protests from both faculty and students at the Alabama Medical College as well as officials at the Marine Hospital on St. Anthony Street where prostitutes were mingling with patients, visitors and staff at the streetcar stops.
By the advent of World War I in Europe, a number of cities began abolishing their districts. Those who had fought their existence looking for sympathy for “fallen doves” forced to this existence, began touting the hygienic perils of venereal diseases.
In 1917, Mobile Mayor Harry Pillans unveiled a current study of the cities which had closed their districts, and the overriding conclusion, he said, was that shutting the districts down “scattered the evil and enlarged the theater of operations.” Furthermore, the mayor argued that maintaining Mobile’s district would protect the city’s youth as they would “be deterred from going there by the shamefulness of being seen in such a neighborhood.”
Later that same year, the Citizen’s Committee on Social Hygiene was formed with the goal of abolishing prostitution in Mobile. The group produced a letter from the U.S. Army which stated that no army training camp would ever be built in Mobile as long as “the notorious tenderloin district” was left operational.
Thus, it was on January 8, 1918, that Mobile’s red light district was outlawed and headlines soon announced “Women ordered to Leave Mobile….Many in So-Called Restricted District Making Plans to Get Away from City.”
Ironically, Mobile would not get the army training center it sought, and those practicing the “oldest profession” simply continued in other locations around the city. As Mayor Pillans had predicted, the evil had indeed been scattered.
