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Angels for sale: The history of prostitution in Los Angeles, 1880--1940

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Angels for sale: The history of prostitution in Los Angeles, 1880--1940

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Content NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. ® UMI R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ANGELS FOR SALE: THE HISTORY OF PROSTITUTION IN LOS ANGELES, 1880-1940 by AnneMarie Kooistra A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement of the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (HISTORY) August 2003 Copyright 2003 AnneMarie Kooistra R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. UMI Number: 3133298 IN F O R M A T IO N TO U S E R S The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be rem oved, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3133298 Copyright 2004 by ProQ uest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Com pany 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 4 81 06 -1 34 6 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA T he Graduate School University Park LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695 This dissertation, w ritten b y A m ltM ar i o K bu\-S\m.____ _ ____ U nder th e direction o f A. D issertation C om m itteer and approved b y all its members, has been presen ted to and accepted b y The G raduate School, in partial fulfillment o f requirements fo r the degree o f DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Dean o f Gmduatc Studies D ate 7 A ~0S DISSERT A TION COMMITTEE ................. . A Chairperson i k ± r::x . . . . . I R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Dedication For my parents R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. in Acknowledgements This dissertation has been made possible through the efforts of die triumvirate of my dissertation committee: Lois Banner, Steve Ross, and Tim Gustafson. To Lois Banner I owe my greatest thanks. Lois’ work ethic, the scope of her own scholarly work, and. the beauty and. complexity of her many published works should be an inspiration to any scholar, and. I count myself lucky to have been able to work so closely with her over the last few years. She has encouraged me at every step of my graduate school, experience, and it has been a pleasure to know her academically and personally. Steve Ross’ careful review of the dissertation has resulted in a much improved narrative, and I will always be grateful for his precise and insightful criticism. Tina Gustafson has also been an, essential part of this dissertation. My experience teaching for him in the English, and American Studies departments at USC has helped me retain appreciation for the ways in which literature can. inform history and vice versa. Tim first introduced me to the Hollywood novels and the richness of the prostitution metaphors contained therein. Thanks. Librarians and archivists have also been essential to the completion of this dissertation. Dace Taub from the University of Southern California’s Regional History Center assisted me in particular with, regard to the Hearst Collection, and she made combing through thousands of envelopes of ne wspaper clippings endurable and enjoyable, lay Jon.es and, Hynda Rudd at the Los Angeles City Archives also R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. im proved to be an invaluable resource. Jay in particular helped me locate various sources, including the Los Angeles Police Department’s annual records, that I found, useful in my research. John Marshall oft.be California State University Northridge’s Urban Archives Center also turned me on to critical collections that enhanced the dissertation. Tom Sitton at the Seaver Center for Western. History generously shared a couple of folders of information and source materials he had collected on prostitution in the early days of Los Angeles that greatly enriched the first chapter of the dissertation. Staff members of the Special. Collections Department of the University of California Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Police Department Historical Society, and the California State Archives also proved extremely helpful in my research efforts. I have been fortunate enough to receive financial support from a number of institutions. My primary debt is to the University of Southern California which has supported me with a number of fellowships including a Summer Dissertation Fellowship and an. Ahmanson Foundation College Dissertation. Fellowship. I . have also received financial support from the Historical Society of Southern California in . the form of a Haynes Research. Stipend. A number of friends and colleagues have been intimately involved in this dissertation. Sharon Sekhon has not only read chapters of the dissertation, but she has given me helpful, research sources and tips. Sharon never grew tired of hearing about my research, and I learned much about Los Angeles and its history from her. Dan Gebler and Jim Welsh also read chapters of this dissertation and offered many R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. V suggestions for improvement, My support network over the years also included Debra Swierenga, Sarah Tans, Karen Scholte, and Jennifer Monfani—all wonderful and intelligent women who encouraged me along the way. 1 also owe a great deal of thanks to Matt Stone, Jennifer Curren, and Vicki VanToch, fellow graduate students, good friends, and good listeners. Finally, to Anita Haeems and Sanjay Josse, my closest Los Angeles companions who never tired of hearing about prostitution and everything else in my life, my thanks. My family has also been an important part of the process. Jon and Kim, Christopher and Cwyn~~my brothers and sist.erstin.4aw'—have all helped me feel rooted and connected to my family and my first home even while far away. My parents, to whom this dissertation is dedicated, are extraordinary people. They have always retained absolute confidence in . me, the value of this dissertation, and. my ability to teach. I believe that is priceless. 1 have been fortunate to acquire a new family in the last year, and John, Kristi, Sarah, and Jeremy all. have added immeasurable brightness to this past year. Tim has remained my most faithful companion, and with his strength, good advice, and support, this dissertation reached completion. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. V I Table of Contents Dedication. ii Acknowledgements H i List o f Tables viii List of Charts ix List of Maps x Abstract xi Parti Introduction 1 Chapter 1: from “Hell Town” to “Chemically Pure”: Prostitution, in Los Angeles, 1781-1920 19 Part II Prostitution in Los Angeles in the 1920s, An Overview 82 Chapter 2: Prostitution and Los Angeles’ Criminal Syndicate in the 1920s 99 Chapter 3: On the Fringes; Prostitution Across the Color Line in 1920s Los Angeles 134 Chapter 4: The Harlot City?: Prostitution in Hollywood, 1920-1940 178 Part III Prostitution, in Los Angeles in the 1.930s, An Overview 219 Chapter 5: Prostitution in Los Angeles in tire 1930s: The Syndicate and Reformers 236 Chapter 6; Expanding the Itrterzon.es: Prostitution, Race, and Ethnicity in 1.930s Los Angeles 275 Chapter 7: The Case of Charles Montgomery and Ann Forrester 315 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Conclusion References R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. vtu List of Tables 1. Los Angeles County and City Total Population, 1850-1900 24 2. Racial/Ethnic Composition of the City of Los Angeles, 1900-1920 41 3. Estimated Number of Prostitutes Operating it? Los Angeles, circa. 1900-1940 ~ 78 4. Estimated Number of Brothels Operating in Los Angeles, circa 1900-1940 79 5. Racial/Ethnic Composition of the City of Los Angeles, 1920-1930 83 6. Women Arrested for Violating City “(Offering” Ordinance, 1921-1930 89 7. Number and Percentage of Women Arrested for “Offering” for Fiscal Years 1927-1928 through 1929-1930, by Race/Ethnicity 142 8. Number and Percentage of Women Arrested for “Vagrancy” for Fiscal Years 1927-1928 through 1929-1930, by Race/Ethnicity 143 9. Number and Percentage of Women Arrested for “Offering” and “Vagrancy” for Fiscal Years 1927-1928 through 1929-1930, by Race/Ethnicity 160 10. Race/Ethnicity of Men Arrested for Using a Vehicle or Rooming House for Immoral Purposes 172 11. .Racial/Ethnic Composition of the City of Los Angeles, 1930-1940 220 12. Women Arrested for Violating City “'Offering” Ordinance in the 1930s 226 13. Number and Percentage o f Women Arrested for “Offering” in the 1930s, by Race and Ethnicity 282 14. Number and Percentage of Women, Arrested for “Vagrancy” in the 1930s, By Race and Ethnicity 293 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. list of Charts 1. Arrests of Women on Offering in the 1920s 2. Arrests of Women on Offering in the 1930s R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. X List of Maps 1 . Overview of Los Angeles’ Red-Light District, circa 19th Century 25 2. Chinatown of Los Angeles, Prior to the Construction o f Union State in 1939 29 3. Cribs in "Heirs Half Acre,” Los Angeles’ Red Light District 36 4. The Pacific Electric 'Railway in Los Angeles, circa 1910 §4 5. Syndicate "Vice Establishments” in Proximity to Downtown, Los Angeles in the 1920s 120 6. Approximate Boundaries of Sonoratown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and Central Avenue Communities 137 7. Syndicate Addresses in Relation, to Sonoratown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and Central Avenue Neighborhoods 255 8. Syndicate “Vice Establishments” in Proximity to Downtown Los Angeles in the 1930s, According to Ann Forrester 259 9. Prostitution in the Central Avenue Community, 1930s 284 10. Asian Vice Establishments in Los Angeles, 1930s 303 11. Hotels and Apartment Complexes Associated with Prostitution in Los Angeles in the 1930s, According to Am Forrester 334 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Abstract xi As prostitution expanded in Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s, it had a profound, impact cm the development of a “modern” sexuality and culture emerging in foe twentieth century. Changing mores resulted in a culture which encouraged sexual expressiveness .rather than sexual repression. In this milieu, prostitution became one of a number of industries in. the new leisure-dependent economy by which men and women sold sex. to consumers, primarily through the production of images and instances of female sexuality. Within the business of prostitution, both men. and women competed for new positions in a changing hierarchy of power. I argue that in the 1920s and 1930s, a wide range of mem—-mobsters, pimps, politicians, police officers, clients—succeeded in dominating the illegal business of commercialized sex in twentieth century Los Angeles at at! of its levels, forcing women to occupy subordinate positions in the industry. In addition, I show that the network of dominating men bridged racial, and ethnic differences within the prostitution racket, tying men. of various backgrounds and neighborhoods into an elaborate system o f vice control, and manipulation. Finally, while I acknowledge the ways in which the male-dominated nature of prostitution posed a number of drawbacks to female associates and accomplices, I contend that women continued to exercise subversive behavior that allowed them to retain power and au.fon.omy of their own. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Introduction 1 This dissertation, incorporates the fields of gender and sexuality, popular culture, urban studies, and race/ethnicity studies in order to discuss the ways in which prostitution not only spurred, the development of a distinctive twentieth, century modem culture encouraging sexual expressiveness but also defined the parameters of what was sexually and. socially permissible within that culture. It also considers the changes the bii.sin.ess of prostitution underwent in . response to changing sexual and social, mores, particularly the increasingly powerful roles men played as they sought to control the industry o f prostitution. In addition, this study highlights the importance of race as a component of prostitution in the 1920s and 1930s and thus also a crucial factor in the shaping of modem sexuality and culture. Utilizing divergent sources such as police and court records, city council flies, newspapers, Hollywood novels, and films, my dissertation examines the social structure and organization of prostitution as well as its symbolic representation, reflecting the empirical, nanrative, and. symbolic nature of its influence. Finally, my research proposes that Los Angeles provides an ideal, setting for this study because of the city's own. growing importance within the American landscape and. imagination from ,1.920 to 1940. Scholarly attention to prostitution thus far has been, directed to the nineteenth and early twentieth century cities of New York, Chicago, and. San. Francisco or the frontier towns of the American West. Studies of prostitution in the ni neteenth R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 century include Timothy Gilfoyte’s City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization o f Sex, 1790-1920, Marilyn Hill’s Their Sisters' Keepers: Prostitution in New York City, 1830-1870, and Benson Tong’s Unsubmissive W om en Chinese Prostitutes in Nineteenth-Century San Francisco.1 While these studies connect the practice of prostitution to processes of urbanization and commercialization,, they tend to be preoccupied with, the relationship of women to the profession of prostitution. Historians have readied mixed conclusions regarding the latter, arguing that while prostitution may have had its “limitations,” it also had rewards and benefits for women.2 The relative benefits and drawbacks prostitution posed for women also forms the central subject for scholarly works about prostitutes of the frontier, including Anne Butler’s Daughters of Joy, Sisters o f Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, 1865-90 and Jacqueline Baker Barnhart’s , The Fair But Frail: Prostitution in San Francisco, 1849-1900.3 Butter, for example, emphasizes the negative impact of prostitution on women working in the American West, but Barnhart argues that the West may have provided prostitutes with more opportunities for social mobility than Eastern towns because uneven gender-ratios in cities such San Francisco resulted in prostitutes more readily gaining respectability and a degree of social mobility through advantageous marriages. 1 Timothy Giifoyie, City of Eros: New York City, Prostitution, and the Commercialization of Sex, 1820-1920 (New York: W. W. Norton, 1992); Marilynn Wood Bi1is Their Sisters' Keepers: Prostitution in New York City, 1830-1870 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Benson Tong, Unsubmissive Women: Chinese Prostitutes in Nfmteentk-Centmy San Francisco (Norman and London: Uni varsity of Oklahoma Press, 1994). 2 Marilyn Hill’s introduction is typical. See Iheir Sisters'Keepers, 5. 3 Anne Batter, Daughters o f Joy. Sisters o f Misery: Prostitutes in the American West, 1865-90 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1 985); Jacqueline Baker Barnhart, The Fair Bui Frail: Prostitution in San Francisco, 1849-1900 (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 1986), R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 A . number of publications examine prostitution during the Progressive Era, looking at the ways prostitution came to symbolize what had gone wrong with the unchecked urbanization and industrialization of American society. Studies such as Ruth Rosen’s The Lost Sisterhood, for example, have illustrated how the concern over shifting gender roles played into Progressive fears about urban decay, their solutions for municipal renewal, and the unintended consequences of those solutions. Mark Connelly explores similar themes in The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Pro, connecting the Progressive Era campaign against prostitution to social anxieties over “great social and cultural changes” taking place at the time, In Uneasy Virtue: The Politics of Prostitution and the American Reform Tradition, Barbara Hobson focuses on how Progressive efforts to abolish prostitution reflected gender, race, and class prej udices that resulted in the arrest of working-class women selling sex rather than middle and upper-class male clients.4 This dissertation offers a new perspective on prostitution by examining the institution in an as yet untreated setting— 1920s and 1930s Los Angeles—iti order to show how prostitution played a vital role in the development and definition of modem sexuality. Historians agree that at the turn of the twentieth century, American sexual mores underwent a period of transformation. As John. D’Emtlio and Estelle Freedman, describe the process, nineteenth-century. Victorian sexuality 4 Mark Thomas Connelly. The Response to Prostitution in the Progressive Era (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1980); Barbara Mell Hobson, Uneasy Virtue: The Politics o f Prostitution emd (he American Reform Tradition (New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1987); Rath Rosen, The lo st Sisterhood: Prostitution in America, J90Q-J9I8 (Baltimore: John. Hopkins University Press, 1.982), R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 4 which had been associated with '‘ continence and self control” gave way to a twentieth-century, modem sexuality connected to “expressiveness.”' 5 Several historians have described the process by which American sexual values changed. An earlier group of historians, including Paula Pass, examined the emergence of this new “permissive” sexuality by looking at the part that white, middle-class college men and women played in redefining sexuality at the turn o f the century. Pass argues, for example, that freed from the direct supervision of family and community, college students were able to explore “a middle ground” of sexual interaction that fell between the “no-sex-at-all taboo” prescribed by their parents and their “own. burgeoning sexual interests.” Pass points out that, in addition to the Sack of parental supervision, the presence of a “modem environment” featuring new recreations such as the movies and dance halls where the college students could meet casually was essential in the exploration of this “middle ground.” The “middle ground” consisted (generally speaking) of college men and women sanctioning dating and petting while continuing to “draw the line” at premarital sex.0 While Pass and others have examined the changing sexual mores from a white, middle class perspective to propose a top-down theory of sexual change, historians such, as Kathy Peiss have challenged this “trickle-down” model of sexual transformation. In contrast to Pass, Peiss exaiitin.es the process of sexual change 5 John IT.Emilio and Estelle Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History o f Sexuality in America (New York; Harper & Row. 1.988), 223. Because the book is primarily a synthesis, it includes the best; summary of arguments that can be found a huge range of books and articles that examine sexuality at the turn of the twentieth century. 0 Paula S. Pass, The Dammdami the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920's (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), 262-263. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 occurring at the turn of the twentieth century by looking at the experience of working-class women rather than, middle-class college students. Peiss argues that working women, did not function, as “passive recipients” or “bystanders in the process of cultural, change” but “pioneered new manners and mores” themselves. Instead of either a “trickle-down” or a “trickle-up” theory of sexual transformation, Peiss suggests that the emergence of modem sexuality came from cultural transmissions traveling in both directions.7 The recognition of the crucial role that working class women played in the creation of modem sexuality .represents a substantial shift in the historiography of gender and sexuality, but there 'have also been important continuities in the study of the emergence of modem sexuality. One such continuity includes the identification of the concurrent development of a new commercialized leisure culture, which included movies, dance halls, amusement parks, and encouraged heterosexual interaction. Historians also agree that young people—adolescents and people in their early twenties—played a fundamental role in bringing about a new sexual ethos. Another continuity existing in the studies of title emergence of modern sexuality concerns the time period, in which “Victorian” sexuality is supposed to have given way to “modem” sexuality. Ascertaining the date of a process (as opposed to a specific event) .represents a difficult task, but historians have estimated that the process took place between 1880 and 1920, associating the process with such factors as the increasing participation of women in the workforce, the development of 7 Kathy Peiss, Cheap Amusements; Working Women and Leisure in Tum-cfitltH’C enm y New fork {Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986), 8. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 amusement parks and other forms of commercialized leisure, the emergence of a bohemian culture based in Greenwich Village, New York, and the growing popularity of Sigmund Freud’s theories regarding sexual expression (as well as other tum-of-the-century sexologists such as Havelock Ellis), What then? Historians have described the process by which modern sexuality emerged, but there is less of a sense of what happened to sexuality in the 1920s and 1930s as American society and culture adapted to, coexisted with, or began another transfonnation of modem sexuality. Studying prostitution, in Los Angeles in 'the 1920s and 1930s provides insight into the ways in which American society and culture did adjust and adapt to the new sexual mores associated with modem sexuality. In addition, knowing how prostitution changed in these decades allows for a clearer understanding of what exactly was sexually acceptable in the 1920s and 1930s, and it offers many clues regarding the changing shape of sexual mores in the future. How is this possible? Despite changing sexual mores, prostitution has consistently remained outside the boundary of what is sexually acceptable in American society. At the same time, however, as more k:inds of behavior became sexually acceptable (to the point that many of the practices previously associated with prostitution moved into mainstream, culture) at the turn of the twentieth century, prostitution underwent its own tra.nsformati.oii. Modem sexuality is associated with a new emphasis on sexual, expressiveness, and new sexual practices became acceptable. Some of those practices included petting (“a broad range of potentially erotic physical contacts. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. ? from a casual, kiss to more intimate caresses and physical fondling’ 5 * ) as well as treating (“trading sexual favors of varying degrees [including sex] for male attention,, gifts, an a good. time”9 ). The exchange of cash for sex, prostitution, remained socially unacceptable. Women (and men) who practiced prostitution could be arrested, fined, and jailed. Yet not only did prostitution itself change, attitudes towards prostitutes and the practice o f prostitution changed, As women in particular began to be 'more sexually assertive, the gap between the new woman of the 1920s and the prostitute narrowed. As a result, attitudes regarding prostitution, changed. As the dissertation illustrates, this change was not complete in 1920 but continued through the 1930s as prostitutes moved from being portrayed, as victims to sexual agents, paralleling a growing social acceptance of the idea that all women were capable of sexual, autonomy. In addition, because the transformation of sexual mores ‘“ trickles up” as well as down, looking at the sexual practices of prostitutes in the 1920s and 1930s reveals practices (such as oral sex) that would become more socially acceptable in the wider sexual culture perhaps a couple of decades later. This dissertation, also offers a new perspective on prostitution by shifting the focus to include men as well as women. First o f all, I show how a variety of men—-mobsters, pimps, politicians, police officers, clients™came to dominate the illegal business of commercialized sex in Los Angeles at all of its levels in . the 1 . 9.20s and 1930s—from streetwalking to brothels. By the 1920s, Los Angeles had a local 8 Pass, Damned ami the Beautify/, 264, 9 Peiss, Cheap Amusements, 110. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. version of the national crime organization dominating the bootlegging and prostitution industries in such cities as Chicago and New York. Known simply as “the Syndicate,,” this tightly knit group of Los Angeles men managed to remain independent of the Mafia, but the Syndicate followed a business model similar to that of the Mafia, incorporating prostitution as part of their overall enterprise—which also included bootlegging and gambling, activities long associated with prostitution. Although these men were engaged in the business of selling sex illegally , their industry represented a larger trend in the leisure-dependent economy of the 1920s and 1930s by which men sold sex to consumers, primarily through the production of images and instances of female sexuality. As such industries as the motion picture industry and burlesque theater adopted business practices incorporating the hierarchical work culture of large-scale American industry under which a male management controlled the industry as small, local and regional enterprises gave way to nationally organized ones—or, as in the case of prostitution;—-individual entrepreneurs (controlling their own bodies) came under the control of pimps and then the city wide mob, men gained control over women’s bodies, using them (or their image) to generate tremendous profit. Thus, a process of “masculinization” appeared in . prostitution, especially in this case, in the city of Los Angeles.1 0 Men made inroads into the profession of prostitution, more informally as 1 0 Karan Ward Malmr, “Women, filmmaking, anti the Gendering of the American Film Industry, 1896-1928" (Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, 1995); Sharon R, Ifflman, Sex Seen; The Emergence of Modern Sexuality in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997); Robert C. Allen, Horrible Prettiness; Burlesque ami American Culture (Chapel Hill; The University of North Carolina Press, 1991). Rickie Solinger describes a similar masculirusation of the abortion industry on R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 9 pimps. Historians have identified the presence of pimps already in the nineteenth century, but this phenomenon became customary in the 1920s and 1930s, in part because of changing social conditions that forced prostitutes to rely cm pimps to attract clientele. This dissertation also draws on and critiques the work of Kevin Mumford and Ann Douglas, both of whom link developments in modern sexuality and culture to the emergence of a new interracial culture in which African, and .European Americans mixed intellectually, socially , and sexually, but neither of whom, casts their net widely enough in terms of geographic influences. Cultural historians have associated the emergence of American modem culture with a new ethos of consumption and leisure that challenged nineteenth-century Victorian, values of frugality and restraint. In Terrible Honesty; Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s, Aim Douglas identifies these 1920s cultural phenomenon as part of an emergence of a New York-based national culture which, for the first time in the 1920s, rejected its foreign influences and celebrated its black-and-white heritage.1 1 Looking more closely at the sexual component of this cultural shift, Kevin Mumford also links the evolution of what historians now label, “modem sexuality” to sexual trends issuing from. African American neighborhoods.1 2 Mumford claims that black neighborhoods of Chicago and New York provided a kind of haven for prostitutes skinned the West Coast in the 1930s in Chap. 7 of The Abortionist: A Woman Against the Law (New York; The Free Press, 1994). n A m Douglas, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York; Farrar, Straus and Giroux, ] 995). 1 2 Kevin Mumford, Imersmm: Black/White Sex Districts in New fork and Chicago, 1880-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 10 elsewhere in the city. These prostitutes furnished the basis for an interracial sexual culture as black prostitutes serviced white clients and white prostitutes serviced black clients. Black neighborhoods thus became the site of a burgeoning interracial counterculture (which Mumford refers to as “iiiterzones”) which in turn re-shaped the dominant (sexual) culture of the 1920s and, 1930s, An examination of prostitution in, Los Angeles complicates the theories advanced by Douglas and Mumford in two ways. First of a!ls using Los Angeles rather than New York as the setting for this study highlights the importance of Hollywood as a site of cultural production. Although, Douglas downplays the role of motion pictures in the formation of modem culture, many historians have articulated the ways in which the movies contributed to the changes in American culture occurring in the early part of the twentieth century.1 3 My dissertation critiques Douglas' position by re-asserting the importance of the intluen.ee of the Los Atigeles- based motion picture industry, which beginning in the 1920s began to use the image of the prostitute as an enduring symbol of glamour and forbidden desire. The image of the prostitute also appeared in Hollywood novels as the metaphor for the relationship between art and consumption. Secondly, an analysis of prostitution within Los Angeles calls into question the contention of Mumford and Douglass that 1 3 See, for example: Lary May, Screening Out the Part: The Birth ofMass Culture and the Motion Picture Ifwimoy (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1980); Lauren Rabinovita, For the Low o f Pleasure: Women, Movies, am i Culture in Turn-ofdhc-Century Chicago (New Bmswick, H i.: Rutgers University Press, 1998); Steven I, Ross, Working-Class Hollywood: Silent Film and the Shape o f Class in America (Princeton, NJ.; Princeton University Press, 1998); Lea Jacobs, The Wages o f Sin: Censorship mtd the Fallen Woman Film, 1928-1942 (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1991), Gaylyti Studkr, This M adM m qum xie: Stardom mtd Masculinity in the Jazz Age (Hew York: Columbia University Press, 19%). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. II modern culture (and by association, modern sexuality) emerged out of a new black/white cultural exchange. While I do not contest the significance of the new, vibrant black/white sexual culture on larger cultural or sexual trends, I also look at the ways other members of Los Angeles’ multi-ethnic, multi-racial communities participated in the formation of what appears to be a much more complex sexual counterculture comprising whites and blacks as well as people of Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and Mexican descent, In addition, I do not attribute the formation of these m ulti-racial, multi-ethnic “interzones” solely to the discrimination of white reformers content with the eradication of prostitution, from, white neighborhoods. Instead, I recognize the active role that powerful members of Los Angeles’ ethnic neighborhoods played in bringing prostitutes (the proponents of interracial sex) into their own communities. The work of historians such as Kathy Peiss, Joanne Meyerowitz, Ruth Alexander, Mary Odem, and others who have examined the development of modem, sexuality from the perspective of the young women who first participated in it has also informed this dissertation.1 4 Their work, has provided valuable insights about the impact that the advent of a heterosocial culture by the turn of century had on the sexual, mores of the twentieth century. Historians like Peiss and Meyerowitz have 1 4 Peiss, Cheap Amusements; Joanne 1. Mey crowitz, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880-1930 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1,988); Ruth Alexander, The ‘'Girl Problem Female Sexual Delinquency in New York 1909-1930 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,, 1995); Mary Odem, Delinquent Daughters: Protecting and Policing Adolescent Female Sexuality in the United Stales, 1885-1920 (Chapel Hill; The University of North Carolina Press, 1995), See also Elizabeth Alice Clement, “Trick or Treat: Prostitution and Working-Class Women’s Sexuality in New York, City, 1900-1932” (Phi), d m , University of Pennsylvania, J 998), R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 12 attributed the new turn of the century heterosocial culture to the rise of leisure opportunities in American cities., and they argue that this culture gave birth to the practice of “treating,” or the exchange of various kinds of sexual favors for “male attention, gifts, and a good time.”1 5 Alexander and Odem. document the ways in which working class girls resisted more stringent middle class ideas of respectability, arguing that this resistance signaled increased sexual autonomy. At the same time, however, both historians recognize that (he challenge to middle-class sexual mores fueled reform efforts to stem, this freer sexual expression, and that many young women ended, tip in jail for sexual delinquency or related charges. What role did prostitution play in this expansion of sexual autonomy that has defined “modem” sexuality? The aforementioned historians all discuss prostitution in their narratives about working class sexuality, noting that the blurring of standards of sexual morality allowed for some women to pass from treating to prostitution without becoming a career prostitute or lose much “respectability.” The blurring of definitive lines between treating and prostitution has been the focus of an important dissertation by Alice Clement, who argues that “professional” prostitutes and “treating” girls distinguished themselves from each other definitively. Even while the larger society may have had s hard time telling the two kinds of women apart, for working-class women, the difference was clear: the acceptance of cash for sex somehow crossed a line of respectability that the acceptance of a silk stockings for sex did not. Clement is the only historian to pursue (he subject of prostitution into !3 Peiss, Cheap Amusements, 1 .10. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 13 the 1930s, and her exiunination of prostitution alongside the practice of treating leads her to the following conclusions: 1) that the practice of treating led to a decline in , prostitution as men sought sex with women they neither had to pay or many, 2) that many women who might have engaged in prostitution now used treating for material returns, and 3) that prostitutes distinguished themselves from these treating women by condemning the treating women, as “unskilled amateurs” who provided “inferior service” and “gave themselves away for nothing”1 ® Unlike Clement, I have not been able to determine that prostitution declined because of the practice of treating. Instead I have found evidence that many “treating” girls eventually became prostitutes, working for madams, and showing a ready willingness to “cash in” on the sexual services they had already been providing My dissertation works from the premise that there were more liberal sexual mores in place by the 1920s, and that working-class girls enjoyed a higher degree of sexual independence than their ancestors. At the same time, my work reflects nay surprise at the persistence of what has been associated with a Victorian portrayal of young women as sexual innocents and passive victims in , the practice of prostitution. While historians have found this portrayal persisting into the 1920s as reformers resisted acknowledging changes in the sexual mores of the ascendant modem. American culture, I have found that the image of young women as passive sexual innocents endured through at least the 1930s. While this image had once been, used to disavow the agency of women involved in prost.itutio.rii in general, 1 suggest in the 1 6 Clement, “Trick or Treat,” 5, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 14 1930s, reformers found this image useful in. denying another evolving trend in prostitutioa—the trend towards interracial sex. During the decade, references to white prostitutes caught entertaining white men as white slaves declined, signaling a growing acceptance that women often made the choice to become prostitutes. At the same time, however, Los Angeles newspapers repeatedly claimed (in the face of evidence to the contrary ) that white prostitutes entertaining of men of color had been coerced into such activities and that they were “white slaves,” Of further interest to me is the way prostitutes used this depiction subvmively, eagerly usurping this portrayal of themselves to assert they had lacked agency in the sexual exchange so that they would be held innocent of any wrongdoing by law enforcement agencies. The city of Los Angeles has been the subject of a number of recent scholarly works. Kevin Stair references Los Angeles repeatedly in . his series of histories about California, Mike Davis has written about Los Angeles’ image as a city of noir and sunshine, and there have been, many monographs devoted to detailing the city’s political history as well as its significance as the prototypical twentieth century city.1 7 The list of scholarly works attending to the racial and ethnic history of the 1 7 Kevin Starr has written prolificacy about California. A few of his books include: inventing the Dream: California Through the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985); M aterial Dreams: Southern California Through the 1920s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); and Endangered Dreams: The Great Depression in California (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). See also Mike Davis, City o f Quarts: Excavating the Future in Las Angeles {London: Verso, 1990; New York: Vintage Books, 1992); Robert M. Fpgelson, The Fragmented Metropolis: Los Angeks, 1850-1930 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967; Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993). Carey McWilliams’ book on Southern California remains an essential text for historians of Los Angeles: Southern Californio; An Island on the Land (1946; reprint, Salt Lake City; Peregrine Smith Books, 1995). R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 15 city continues to grow as well.1 8 The number of books about gender in the context of the city of Los Angeles, however, remains slim, and with the exception, of some coverage in Janice Appier’s work on the Los Angeles police, the subject of prostitution is almost non-existent1 9 Yet prostitution, I will argue, is key to understanding the dark image of the city that Mike Davis, in particular, lias focused on, for the noir woman is always a temptress., sometimes a high-class call girl, or a loose woman, of the streets. In many ways she is the defining image of Los Angeles—or the symbol of its dark underside, immortalized above all in the so- called. "Holly wood novels.” A number of scholars are seeking to fill this gap even as I write this sentence, but this dissertation provides a useful starting point in the endeavor to bring Los Angeles into the understanding of what has been identified as a national culture in which, gender and sexuality play so crucial a part,. As in other cities, prostitution in Los Angeles operated according to a "class model.” Prostitutes were part of a social hierarchy ranging downward in prestige and pay from parlor house prostitutes who catered to the city’s elite to streetwalkers who serviced the city’s working class men. In addition, prostitutes of varying ethnic or racial backgrounds served customers of equal ethnic and racial diversity. Already 1 8 John Model!, The Economics and Politics q f Racial Accommodation; The Japanese of Los Angeks, 1900-1942 (Urbaaa: University of Illinois Press, 1977); Ricardo Romo, East Los Angeles: History q f a'Barrio (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983); George J. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American: Ethnicity, Culture and Identity in Chicam Las Angeles, 1900-1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993); Josh A. Sides, “Working Away: African American Migration and Community in , Los Angeles from the Great Depression to 1954" (Ph D, diss., University of California Los Angeles, 1999). 1 9 Prominent books on this list include: Odem, Delinquent Daughters1 , lants Appier, Policing Women: The Sexual Politics o f la w Enforcement and the LAPD (Philadelphia, Temple University Press, 1998). There are numerous books on the subject of women, in the Hollywood film industry, but they are not concerned with gender and sexuality with regard to the history of the city of Los Angeles. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 16 present in the early stages of Los Angeles’s development, this diversity of both race/ethnicity and class would persist into the twentieth century. Unlike prostitution in other twentieth, century cities, however, prostitution did not remained confined to ethnic neighborhoods on the fringes of the city’s central business district in the downtown area. Instead, the spread of prostitution mirrored die growth of Los Angeles, expanding further and further outward and becoming entrenched in the houses, hotels, and. apartment complexes o f the city’s upper-class, middle-class, and working-class neighborhoods. New technology such as the telephone and automobile helped, the business of prostitution become even more mobile and discreet, as prostitutes met clients at scattered locations throughout the city. 1 have assembled this dissertation using a divergent collection of source materials. Newspapers, annual reports from the Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles City Council files, personal papers o f reformers, magazine articles, autobiographies, novels, and court transcripts have all figured into this work. Articles from the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Examiner archive at the University of Southern California’s Regional History Center provided me with a . loose overview of prostitution in the city. Because newspapers tended to print stories about prostitution only when, of a more sensational nature, however, this overview'- is far from complete. Notably absent are stories about prostitutes of color, for example. In addition, newspaper coverage of prostitution remains slim even when it figured into stories about the Syndicate. Newspapers expressed far more interest in the leaders of the Syndicate than about the dynamics of its prostitution R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 17 enterprise or employees. The Los Angeles City Archives contains the Annua! Reports from the Los Angeles Police Department. Unfortunately, these Anneal Reports began only in the fiscal year 1916-1917, and the information they contain, is inconsistent until the late 1920s. Beginning in the fiscal year 1.927-1928, however, the annual reports provided arrest statistics for prostitution and other crimes which were broken down by race and age. As such, they help fill out the story of prostitution, begun in . the newspapers by indicating that women of color were at least arrested for prostitution even if newspapers contain no such record. Unfortunately, the Los Angeles Police Department does not currently offer police reports to public perusal. Thus, the only access I had to police reports were those filed in the Los Angeles City Council Files in response to letters complaining of vice conditions in the city. Together, the letters and the reports did yield valuable information about the neighborhoods, ty pes of establishments under investigation, by reformers and. police as places of prostitution. One also gains an idea of the reformers’ conception, of vice in the city from, personal papers of CIVIC members, Reverend Wendell. Miller and Clifford Clinton, as well as from the magazine of Reverend Robert Shuler. An especially valuable resource was the autobiography of Lee Francis, possibly the most famous .madam of the 1920s, In it she details her relationship with the Syndicate as well as her hiring system and business practices. The court transcripts proved the richest resource, but my use of'them is limited. Due to the lack, of archival space, many court records were destroyed. Court transcripts thus figure into this dissertation, only sparingly. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 18 During the 1920s and 1930s, Los Angeles continued to promote itself a ,s a land of sunshine in hopes of attracting the tourist and investor’s dollar, and during my process o f research., 1 began to wonder if the promotion, of that image necessitated the concealment of the city’s darker side. Indices for a number of archival materials of the period, for example, contained no entry for “prostitution” whatsoever, and the police reports are completely unavailable. Still, even with, their shortcomings, this hodgepodge of source materials provided me with, more than enough clues regarding the nature of prostitution, in Los Angeles, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 19 Chapter 1 From “Hell Town” to “Chemically Pure”: Prostitution in Los Angeles,, 178:1- 1*120 Introduction Founded in 1781 by a handful of settlers, Los Angeles would emerge in 1920 as one o f America’s central cities. Along with a rapidly escalating population that bought houses in a geographically expanding municipality, the city of Los Angeks in the 1920s had a booming economy, fueled by the real estate, construction, motion picture, and oil industries. Many historians, notably Robert Fogeison and Carey McWilliams have documented these immense changes,1 but histories of the city have tended to focus almost exclusively on the contributions of men and (in rare cases) a few notable women. This study of the city’s growth, between 1781 and 1920 concerns the developing sexual culture of the city, and particularly the role of prostitution in that development. By the time that Los Angeles became known as one o f the United States5 major cities in the 1920s, the city’s prostitution scene also had changed from a provincial and minor business practiced by relatively few women to a major industry featuring a hierarchy of command dominated by news- making, notorious men and women who helped the city earn the reputation of a “harlot city” as early as the 1920s—alluring not only for its sunshine, beaches, and 1 Of the many .Los Angeles historians who have written about the development of the city, Robert Fogeison and Carey McWilliams are standard sources, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 20 movie stars but also for its dark or s ‘ noir” side as a blighted city filled with “only transient souls beyond redemption.’ * 2 Foundations: Prostitution in LA, l78M §5tts Founded in 1781 as el pueblo de Nuestra SeMom la Reina de Los Angekss Los Angeles grew from 139 settlers in 179! to about a thousand by 1830. la its first decades, Los Angeles was little more than a “random collection of adobes rimmed by sandy wastes, wild mustard, and willow trees,” grouped around a central Plaza. The pueblo served mainly as an agricultural supply center for the sprawling cattle ranchos that surrounded it, ranchos dating from the late 18* century when the Mexican governor had parceled out the land of California in huge estates to his followers. The town’s Plaza functioned as the central gathering place for the city merchants and the elite rancheros as well as a growing number of unattached males who were settling in the area, and gambling proved a fundamental part of the town’s culture. The Plaza’s north side was the site of a “large adobe gambling house,” devoted to monte, the favorite gambling game of the rancheros. In addition, early on, the Plaza hosted cockfighting and bullfights, until a bullring was built northwest of the Plaza. This was, in fact, from the very beginning, a masculinized culture with little room for respectable women. 2 'Norman M. Klein, The History qf Forgetting: Los Angeks and the Erasure of Memory (London: Verso, 1997), 55; Carey McWilliams refers to Los Angeles as a “harlot city” in a 1927 article for a popular magazine, “Los Angeles,” Overland. Monthly and CM West Magazine (May 1927): 135-136. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 21 As might be expected, the Plaza contained a good deal of prostitution, The census of 1836 showed that out of 250 non-Indian women in Los Angeles., fifteen, women, were given, the classification of or “Mala Vida,” [loosely translated, “bad life”], which was a reference to prostitution. In addition to these fifteen women referred to in the census, prostitution was a central occupation among the Indian women of the city who lived in a segregated Native American settlement known as “pueblito” located “on the height across the Los Angeles River, containing approximately 3,700 inhabitants.3 Hell’s Half-Acre: Prostitution in LA, 1850-1909 Until the 1850s prostitution remained largely the province of the pueblo’s Indian population, with Native American women servicing the Anglo and Spanish- speaking men of the town.4 The American conquest of California and the gold rush, however, caused both the town as well, as prostitution within it to change. Although the 1850 population consisted of 1,610 residents, Los Angeles’ population, grew to just under 4,400 residents by 1860.5 Los Angeles prospered by supplying gold rush, participants with beef cattle, and prostitutes followed the money south. A shipload of San Francisco prostitutes arrived in Los Angeles in 1853, took over a large house 3 Previous to their settlement on the east side of the Los Angeles River, the Indians had been crowded into a pueblito located near Aliso and First Streets. McWilliams, Southern California, 43-44; W. W, Robinson, Tarnished Artgekt: Paradisiacal Turpitude in Los Angeles Revealed (Los Angeles: The Ward Ritchie Press, 1964), 7; Kyle Emily Ciani, “Surviving Through Prostitution; A Comparison of Los Angeles and San Diego Prostitutes, 1850-1890” (Master’s thesis, University of San Diego, 1991), 40-1, * Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 13-14; W. W. R obinson, Lm Angeks from the Days qf the Pueblo (San Francisco, California Historical Society, 19,59), 54. 5 Fogeison., Fragmented Metropolis, 21. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 22 on upper Main Street, and provided their services to the growing number of unattached males passing through the city en route to the gold mines in northern California.® By 1854, Los Angeles bad become a violent town, averaging a homicide a day, generally the result of conflicts between Anglos, Mexicans, and Indians within the male-dominated culture of the town. Los Angeles quickly earned the nickname, “Hell Town,” not only for its reputation for violence but also for its grim avenue of disreputable entertainment, Calk de los Negros. Running a block south from the Plaza, Calk de los Negros (also known as “Negro Alley” or even “Nigger Alley”) served as the city’s notorious center for gambling, drinking, prostitution, and crime, Although no crime reports or police statistics regarding the incidence of prostitution in Calk de los Negros survive, much, anecdotal evidence indicates that prostitutes were almost as common as saloons in the alley. In his history of Los Angeles, Morrow Mayo describes the alley as “a dreadful thoroughfare, forty feet wide. , . filled entirely with saloons, gambling- houses, dance halls and cribs. It was crowded night and day with people of many races, male and female, all rushing and crowding along from one joint to another.”7 The local newspaper of the time noted that the town’s Indians often spent their Sundays in the alley, spending their week’s pay on liquor.* Other historical, accounts maintain that the alley was a “crowded ghetto of mostly Mexicans... desperate and * Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 13; Lynn Bowman, Los Angeks; Epic of a City (Berkeley; Howell- North Books, 1974), 151. ‘ 7 Morrow Mayo, Los Angeks (New York; Alfred A. Knopf, 1933), 38. s Douglas Monroy, Thrown Among Strangers: 'T h e Making of Mexican Culture in Frontier California (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 1,91. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 23 poor,”9 Although fee city’s vice district would soon spill out beyond the alley to encompass nearby streets, Calk de los Negros would serve as the center for the city’s tolerated red-light district for approximately fifty years. Los Angeles grew steadily from 1860 to 1880, with, the city’s population increasing from approximately 4,400 to 11,000 residents (see table 1), Then, in the 1880s, with the combination of fee availability of cheap land and the completion, of the Santa Fe railway line, the city experienced a tremendous rate of growth as fee Santa Fe’s and Southern Pacific’s competing rates made Los Angeles an affordable destination, for westward, bound migrants. In 1,890, the population, of Los Angeles had grown, to 50,395. The boom continued through fee tom of the century, thanks to the efforts of city boosters such as Los Angeles Times owner. General Harrison Gray Otis, who helped create the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce in . 1.888 for fee purpose of advertising Southern California to the rest of fee United States. The Chamber of Commerce’s efforts, along with oil discoveries and the lure of easily accessible beaches (due to fee expanded miles of track by the Pacific Electric), brought many migrants to Los Angeles. By 1900, Los Angeles contained a population of 102,479 and ten years later, the population had. increased to 319,198.1 0 9 Gordon DeMarco, A Short History of lo s Angeks (Lexikos: San Francisco, 1988). 28; Harry Carr, lo s Angeles; City o f Drecms (New York: D, Appleton-Century Company, 1935), 95. 1 0 McWilliams, Southern Californio, 14, and chapter seven, especially pages 118 and 128. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 24 Table 1 Los Angela County and City Total Population, 1SS0-1900 1850 .. I860 1870 1880 1890 1.900 1,610 4,385 5,728 11,183 50,395 102,479 3,530 .11,333 15,309 33381 1.01,454 170,298 Source: U. S. Bureau of the Census, Twelfth Census o f the United Siam. 1900. V olum e /. Population, (Washington 1901), 647,430-1. Prostitution grew as the city expanded. Already by the 1870s, city officials sought to contain, the spreading red-light district by passing an ordinance prohibiting “houses of ill fame” and prostitution in a section of the central business district. Prostitution continued to be a visible part of Los Angeles’ landscape throughout the 1880s. Letters written to the Los Angeles Times during this decade talk of prostitutes occupying “one of the principal thoroughfares, where they constantly hail passers- by.”* 1 Despite prostitution’s visibility in the city, no estimates regarding the population of prostitutes exist. The first estimate I have found for Los Angeles prostitution population comes from a newspaper article in 1903 describi ng reform efforts to close cribs. According to the article, due to reformers’ efforts, about 300 women from “the Alameda street district” had been scattered and about 150 more still remained in the district.5 2 Crib prostitution dominated the city’s red-light district (see map 1). Fire insurance maps from the 1880s show cribs in Negro Alley as well as on nearby 1 1 Los Angeks Times, 22 September 1882, u Los Angeks Times, 22 December 1903. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 25 Bellevue PARLOR HOUSES CRIBS M w i' _ fk Stfflsei" Ptfai jvlortoti’s PIa|e f . M a r ^ & s s a u l t " ,." , t*la/a FSfpsoCAI|ev I ! , i\& I " M 1 * \ 'Arcadia 1 ( S * . Aliso c § m g K j 8 i # I f t:S 1 . X Map I Overview of Los Angeles* Red-Light District, circs 19a Century Source: Adapted ftotn W. W. Robinson, Lawyers q f lo s Angeks: A History o f the lo s Angeks Bar Association and o f the Bar of Los Angeks County (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Bar Association, 1959), 8, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 6 Alameda, and Sanchez: streets.!i Crib prostitution was considered one of the lowest: levels in the profession,, just above streetwalking. These prostitutes tended to draw the lowest-paying customers; they made the least amount of money; and they worked in unsanitary and unattractive quarters. Unlike the city’s parlor houses, the cribs were, ironically, “accessible” and “democratic.” As one pair of authors put it ‘"When the boys were flush with recent payrolls or winning streaks at poker or faro [another gambling game] they sought the sumptuous parlor houses of Commercial, New High, or Marchessault streets; but when their pockets were light they had. to be content with such feminine society as might be encountered in the cribs.”* 4 One source commenting on. activities occurring on Alameda Street from 1902 to 1904 gives some indication of the low prices prostitutes on this street charged, referring to a “$1.00 prostitute.”1 5 'Prostitutes generally saw a high number (historians estimate the number to be anywhere from thirteen to thirty) of customers in. a night They also suffered frequently from such diseases as tuberculosis and malnutrition, and they encountered a great deal of police harassment Cribs themselves tended to be squalid while offering little privacy. In addition, crib prostitutes with meager earnings still had to pay exorbitant rents to the owners of the cribs. Whereas 1 3 W. W. Robinson, Maps of Los Angeks From Onfs Survey of 1849 to the End of the Boom of the Eighties (Los Angeles: Dawson’s Bookshop, 1966), 8; Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 1 .8 , 1 4 Alfred Cohn and Joe Chisholm, 'Take the Witness’’ (Garden City, New York: Garden City Publishing Company, Inc., 1934), 9. li Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 10 October 1902. Mike Davis gave me this document which is basically a list of activities which happened in. or around Alameda Street from 1902 to 1904. There are several references to prostitutes, bartenders, etc,, but I’m not sure who produced the document or for what purpose, although the dates correspond with a vigorous campaign of local clergy against the toleration of prostitution in the area. See the later section on reform. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 27 respectable boarding houses charged $5-6 a month, prostitutes were likely to pay $18 a week, or about $70 a month.1 6 In alt, crib prostitution, tended to be an. inhumane and debilitating expedience.” One historian claimed that Los Angeles5 crib district contained “'one o f the worst collections of prostitutes ever assembled in . Christendom.”* 8 The cribs of Alameda Street gained immense notoriety because the Southern Pacific Railroad rati alongside the street, giving tourists a first-hand encounter with one part o f the city's red-light district.® The cribs of Alameda Street consisted of one-story brick buildings containing up to forty identical narrow rooms, “not much wider than their front doors.” The women working in the cribs, when not entertaining customers, stood .in the doors of the cubicles or loitered on. the sidewalk “displaying their charms to as great an expanse... as the benign laws and humorously tolerant policemen of the day allowed” and promising “a good time” to passersby.2 0 Passengers on the Southern Pacific were so intent on viewing this infamous section of town that they would pester the train crew an hour before reaching Los Angeles to be sure to tell them when they approached the row of cribs.2 1 By 1897, the brick 1 6 P. L. Bonebrake, Tim Westerner’ s Brand Book (Los Angeles: Corral, 1947), 45. 1 7 Rosen, Lost Sisterhood, 94,98; Barnhart, The Fair But Frail, 31; Ciani, “Surviving Through Prostitution,” 12,49. 1 8 Mayo, Los Angeks, 35, 1 9 Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 18. In 1996, the Lm Angeks Times carried a story of an archeological excavation near present day Union Station in what had been part of Los Angeles’ crib district in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Archeologists turned up such artifacts as an 1890 aquamarine bottle labeled "Darby’s Prophylactic Fluid” and a small flask, of “'Mrs. Winslow’s Soothing Syrup” containing a "deadly mixture or opium and brandy. “Evidence of Seamy Past Is Dug Up in Downtown L.A." Los Angeks Times, 31 May 1996. 2 0 Cohn, and Chisholm, “Take the Witness, ” 9-10, 2 1 Bonebrake, Brand Book, 42. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 28 cribs o f the red-light district had become so well-known that a “sporting guide” published in conjunction with the city’s annual “fiesta de Los Angeles” advertised art establishment at 435 N Alameda Street called "The Little Brick,” which purported to be “ just what the name implies,”’ 3 The Chinese in Negro Alley, 1870-1900 Chinese settlers had trickled into Los Angeles beginning in the 1860s with significant growth continuing through the 1870s and 1880s, ® Nearly half of the Chinese moved into the block dominated by Negro Alley—still considered the center of the town’s vice district because of its saloons, gambling houses, brothels, and cribs (see map 2).2 4 Chinese communities in the West tended to be heavily male- dominated because many immigrants did not envision long-term settlement in America but a short-term economic opportunity, after which, they would return to families in China By 1870 in Los Angeles, for example, census takers listed 36 women, out of a population of 172 Chinese.2 5 Many of these women worked as prostitutes—one estimate suggests that by 1870 Chinese prostitutes in California constituted 61 percent of Chinese women (this percentage, applied to the thirty-six 2 2 La Fiesta de I m Angeles Souvenir Sporting Guide (Los Angeles; 1897) in Robinson, famished Angels,, 31. W. W. Robinson included the brochure as part of Tarnished Angels, his short history of prostitution, in Los Angeles. -J Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 72. Carey McWilliams argues that the Chinese immigrants effectively displaced the Indians, pushing them to outlying communities. In addition, fee says, the Chinese also displaced Mexicans: “the Chinese began to invade the Sonaratowas of Southern California, driving the Mexicans from many occupations in the towns and on the ranches.” Southern Californio, 46, 66. 2 4 'Raymond Lou, “The Chinese American Community of Los Angeles, 1870-1900: A Case of Resistance, Organization, and Participation,” (PhD. digs., University of California Irvine, 1982), 22. 2 5 Lou, “Chinese American Community” 29. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Reproduced with 30 Chinese women in Los Angeles, means about twenty-one or twenty-two prostitutes),2 6 The situation of Chinese prostitutes in Los Angeles, as well as throughout the West Coast, shows the profession o f prostitution at its worst Chinese prostitutes experienced the least amount of autonomy, enjoyed the fewest benefits, and operated in some of the worst working conditions. As in other West Coast cities, Chinese tongs— powerful secret organizations—controlled Chinese prostitutes in Los Angeles, and nearly all of the women working for the tongs had become prosti tutes in America against their will ” Chinese prostitutes became even more enmeshed in tong control if they acquired opium habits or gambling debts.2 * Tongs may have served as mutual aid. societies or political organizations, but their main function was to provide for the social and. fraternal, needs of its members. Operating gambling parlors, opium establishments, and brothels appears to have been part of the tongs’ fulfillment of those latter obligations, although the tongs also allowed non-Chinese patrons into a number of their illicit businesses.'2 9 Because of tong control, Chinese prostitutes had less autonomy than non- Chinese counterparts operating in similar working conditions. Like many of the other prostitutes in the red-light district, Chinese prostitutes also worked in cribs, but tongs kept the Chinese women segregated, from the rest of the community am! under tight 2 6 Tong, Unsubmissive Women, 15. 2 7 Tong, Unsubmissive Women, 1.5; Lou, “Chinese American Community,” 294; Rosen, Lost Sisterhood, 121. 3 Ciani, “Surviving Through Prostitution,” 58; Lou, “Chinese American Community,” 294. 2 9 Tong, Unsubmissive Women, 10; Lou, “Chinese American, Community,” 25-6, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 1 control. The Chinese cribs were located primarily on Calk de los 'Negroes, but they dotted Los Angeles Street as well, after it was extended north in the 1 88Gs.3 0 An 1882 editorial in the Los Angeks Times commented on the separation of Chinese prostitutes at the north end o f the street and their "Caucasian sisters'” at the south end of the street. The incensed editorial actually protested the lack of arrests at the north end of Los Angeles S treet, and suggested “that on Los Angeles street are many Chinese women equally as guilty as their depraved Caucasian sisters, and that these Chinese women might be made to replenish the city treasury with a few twenties [a reference to fines paid by prostitutes when arrested] the same as the white have done.”3 1 The tongs appear to have made deals with local authorities to prevent arrests in their territory. Boyle Workman, son of an 1880s mayor, claimed that his father investigated Chinatown, as part of a special effort to crack down “upon the men who lived on the earning of women of the underworld,”3 2 Workman described the effort as “trying to sweep back the ocean, with a broom,” and that to improve conditions in Chinatown, his father had to remove a police chief as well as several police officers.3 3 In Los Angeles, local tongs viewed their Chinese prostitutes as major 'possessions to the point that violence erupted in 1871 in Negro Alley as a 3 0 According to Raymond Lou, Mayor Workman engineered a compromise which allowed the extension of Los Angeles Street and the demolition of the west side of Negro Alley. Landowners and Chinatown residents would be allowed to maintain the east side of Negro Alley, and a separating wall between the alley and the street would remain. Lou, “Chinese American Community,” 169, See also Harris Newmark, Sixty Years in Southern California, 1853-1913: Containing the Reminiscences of Harris Newmark, 4th ed, rev. and augm, ed Maurice M . Newmark and Marco ft, Newmark (Los Angeles: Dawson's Book Shop, 1984), 570; Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 17. 3 1 t o Angeles Times, 4 May 1882. n Boyle Workman, The Citv That Grew As Told To Caroline Walker (Los Angeles; The Southland Publishing Co, 1935), 226, 3 3 Workman, City That Grew, 2,26. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 32 result of a conflict between, two tongs regarding ownership of a prostitute named Ya Hit, When an Anglo man serving an arrest warrant: on one of the Chinese involved in the feud was killed, the Anglo community retaliated, resulting in a massacre of seventeen Chinese individuals and extensive property damage.3 4 Despite growing anti-Chinese sentiment in Los Angeles (and in California), some members of the white community showed sympathy for the plight of Chinese prostitutes. In San Francisco, the YWCA board founded a home in 1881 to shelter Chinese girls rescued from, brothels.3 5 In Los Angles, a local woman, Mrs. Watson, founded the Los Angeles Chinese Rescue Mission in an effort to help enslaved Chinese prostitutes as early as 1887, opening formally in 1893.3 * Although, evidence suggests that Chinese prostitution declined beginning in the 1880s relative to the rest of the Chinese female population in part because of more balanced gender ratio and increased intolerance to the practice on the part of the larger comm, unity, Chinese tongs and prostitutes continued to be part of the Los Angeles landscape into the twentieth century'.3 7 By the 1900s, many Chinese prostitutes had migrated to Sanchez Street, a short lane opening off the Plaza close to Negro Alley, which was “swarmed with men... seeking the Chinese girls packed into the brick buildings.”3 8 Chinese prostitutes also began to appear in the news. 3 4 Tong. Unsubmissive W om en., 134-5; DeMarco, A Short History o f Los Angeles, 46. 3 5 Barnhart, Fair But Frail, 50. " Ciani, “Surviving Through Prostitution,” 58. 3 7 Ivan Light, “From Vice District to Tourist Attraction; The Moral Career of American Chinatowns, 1880-1940,” Pacific Historical Review 43 (August 1975): 392; Lou, “Chinese American Community,” 302. 3 8 Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 18-19, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 33 Stories of Chinese prostitutes stolen or attempting to run away from tong owners began to turn up in . local newspapers with more frequency beginning in the 1900s. In 1907, for example, the Los Angeks Times carried a report about the illegal importation of Chinese women for Los Angeles brothels. The article claimed that the tongs’ agents smuggled the women in by having them pose as their wives and that it was hard to prove the marriages were illegitimate. In. addition, immigration inspectors held out little hope for stopping what they deemed a “regular trade in these girls” because of the high profits, noting that agents could buy a “pretty little bride in China for a few hundred dollars who would be worth as high, as $3000 in this city.5 ’ 3 9 Because Chinese girls were an economic drain on their families who had to provide lavish dowries when the girls married, some Chinese families were willing to sell their girls to unknown men posing as prospective husbands or to men. who claimed they would find the girls jobs outside China. Another story involving a Chinese prostitute comes from Harry Carr, a well-known Los Angeles newspaper reporter, who reminisced in his memoirs about Helen, “a slave girl purchased as a child from one of the Flower Boats of Canton.” According to Carr, Helen was the “reigning belle” of Chinatown until she contracted tuberculosis and the tong that owned her sold her to an unsuspecting tong.* Despite the efforts of such refo.rm.ers as Mrs. Watson, much of the Anglo community did little to end the sexual enslavement of Chinese women. For example, 1 9 Los Angeles Timm, 1 September 1907. * Carr, City qf Dreams, 237; Brace Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth; Los Angeks in the Twenties and Thirties (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1984), 90. Henstell says the incident occurred in 1908, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 34 there was a local case in which a Chinese prostitute from Los Angeles was carried off to San.. Diego. A . hundred dollars was offered for her return, and her captors were charged with theft rather than kidnapping, implying that even the Anglo community viewed such Chinese prostitutes as property rather than a person with rights.4 1 Still, efforts to aid enslaved Chines© continued. In 1909, the Times carried the story of three Chinese women, brought to juvenile court on charges of having children in an alleged, house of prostitution. According to the Times, an attempt was made to take the children away from their mothers, but that effort failed. Instead, one woman went back to China with, her child, and another woman “converted in the mission schools/'' while the third woman, Wong She, ‘‘ remained unregenerate.”4 2 Hell’s Half-Acre at the Tuna of the 20* Century By the turn, of the twentieth century, Los Angeles had an expansive red-light district just south of the town’s plaza, featuring both crib prost.ituti.on as well as upper-class parlor houses. Crib prostitution could be found as far east as Alameda Street and as far west as Broadway Street, although the great majority of cribs were concentrated on Alameda Street as well as Los Angeles Street, formerly Negro Alley.® In conjunction with a reform, effort directed against the city’s cribs, the Los Angeles Times even, published a map of “Hell’s Half Acre” in 1903 showing hundreds of cribs lining Alameda Street, Nigger Alley, and Ferguson Alley (see map 4 1 ‘ Newmark, Sixty Years, 418. 4 Z Ims Angeks Times, 16 June 1909. 4 3 Los Angeks Times, 3 December 1903. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 35 3). Parlor houses dotted such streets as New High and. Commercial Street, While parlor houses offered women better working conditions, higher profits, protection from police harassment, and a more independent lifestyle, the .majority of the city's prostitutes continued to work in. the cribs. Men. played more controlling roles in the lives of these women than they did. in the lives of parlor house prostitutes. As property owners, men such as Bartolo Bal.leri.ito and Christopher Buckley raked in a disproportionate share of the prostitutes' profits, charging them high rates of crib rental and even controlling where prostitutes spent their money by forcing them to patronize particular saloons. Pimps proliferated in the red, light district as well, and almost by definition, also profited from the earnings of crib prostitutes. Men were also the source of much of the violence in the red-light district, much of it directed towards the prostitutes in. the area. While tongs vied, for control over the cribs of Chinatown as well as their profits, a pair of men—Bartolo Ballerino and Christopher Buckley—dominated the crib business in the rest of the city’s red-light district by the turn of the twentieth century. An article in the Times listed a number of women as crib property owners, but Ballerino and Buckley owned the majority of the crib property.4 4 A 1902 Los Angeles Times article claimed that Buckley was a San Francisco political boss and the “chief owner of houses of ill fame” there until Mayor Phelan’s administration (1897-1902) began to clamp down on prostitution, thereby reducing Buckley’s revenues, Buckley then, became involved in crib ownership in Los Angeles in 4 4 Los Angeks Timess 3 December 1.903, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 36 Satfirtii Two Story Cribs Map 3 Cribs in “Selfs Half Acre,* Lot Angeles’ Red Light District Source: Los Angeles Tims, 3 December 1903 Note: The rectangles in the picture represent cribs. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 37 conjunction with the nomination of a supposedly crooked man—Meridetli “Pinky” Snyder— -for mayor in 1900,4 3 According to the article, Buckley (referred to as the “blind white devil”) owned almost half o f the crib property in Los Angeles, and that, together with Ballerino who owned most of the rest o f the city’s crib real estate., their investments gave them, an income o f nearly $100,000 a year.® The article cited one real estate transaction credited to Buckley in which he was alleged to have purchased a lot at Alameda Street and Ferguson. Alley—“in the very heart of the tenderloin, M t -~-consisting o f a “rookery of one-story' shacks” divided in cribs which, were then rented to “fallen women” for $1.50 to $2.50 a night. This property alone, the Times charged, would net Buckley an annual income of $36s 0 O O ,4 S While Buckley was an outsider and relative newcomer to Los Angeles crib ownership, Bartolo Ballerino was a local and apparently more well-known participant in the business of prostitution. One pair of authors commented, for example, that “Ballerino, although tainted with the social obscurity' of Ms tenants, was nevertheless accorded his due amount of influence [in Los Angeles politics]”4 9 In 1902, the Los Angeles County Great Register listed Ballerino as a seventy-five- year-old naturalized American, citizen from Chile. In addition, the Register 4 3 Los Angeles Times, 15 November 1902. 4 6 Los Angeles Times, IS November 1902. 4 7 The “tenderloin” was used in the nineteenth century to refer to a notorious atone of prostitution, and criminal activity cm the lowereast side of New York City. Eventually “tenderloin" served as a reference to an infamous zone of prostitution and crime in any city in the United States. 4 8 Los Angeles Tims, 15 November 1902; fas Angeles Times, 3 December 1903. Buckley is listed as one of several owners of Alameda Street “crib" property. There is also additional information about Buckley’s involvement in San Francisco vice and politics in the Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entries for 26 January 1903 and “note" on p. 13. 4 9 Cohn, and Chisholm, ' ' ‘Take the Witness, ” 9. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 38 described Ballerino as being 5*4,” with a dark complexion, black eyes, and gray hair.* Ballerino’s biggest real estate investment appears to be in a 'building (called, appropriately enough, “The Ballerino”) located at. 406 Negro Alley, on. the east side of Negro Alley where it joined Alameda Street.5 5 One author describes the Ballerino as “a huge establishment” consisting of ‘“ ro ws of brick cribs arranged around a court, plate glass windows, and professionally attended iower gardens.W K In addition to the Ballerino, Bartolo Ballerino and his wife Maria controlled 107 feet of crib property on the east side of Negro Alley, collecting a daily rent of $2 from the cribs’ occupants in 1896.” By 1902 Ballerino extended Ms real estate investment, owning all the property running from Los Angeles Street to Alameda Street. According to the Times, Ballerino had “improved” this property by constructing several rows of cribs, establishing alleyways, and providing electric lights for the whole stretch to better guide “depraved humanity to the haunts of sin.”5 4 By 1902, Ballerino and Buckley had established a monopoly over the crib business of Los Angeles to fee extent that individual crib owners and saloonkeepers complained that “the big B’s” were robbing them of business. The Times reported that nearby saloonkeepers were “especially sore” because Buckley and Ballerino * 1902 I m Angelas County Great Register—my thanks to Toro Sitton at the Se&ver Center for this information. n Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 14 December 1903, 5 2 Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 19. 5 3 J j o s Angelas Doily Journal, 26 February 1896. 5 4 1 m s Angeles Times, 15 November 1902. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 39 were forcing tie women working in C ite albs as well as their pimps to patronize their Basket saloon/5 Like the property owners in the crib district, pimps shared in the profits of prostitutes. The Times reported on the large number of pimps, or “macs'" (a derivative of the French word for pimp, maqmreau) in , Los Angeles5 red-light district on more than one occasion. The Times alleged, for example, that pimps showed a propensity to organize in order to protect their interests in the city’s vice district. In 1902, the Times claimed that pimps were working with gamblers and “habituds of lowdown groggeries” in order to elect 'Democratic candidate Meredith. “Pinky” Snyder as the city’s mayor.5 6 In 1903, the Times, reporting on the reform efforts of a group of Los Angeles citizens, commented on the “striking” organizational skills of the city’s pimps, saying ‘These despicable creatures [pimps] have combined to spirit their slaves out of town or to keep them out of reach of the crusaders. If they hear that a rescue cam.pai.gner is on track of one of the girls they hustle her off. They have a system of spies on the alert all the time.”5 7 This same article reported that crib prostitutes turned over the money they earned to these pimps.3 8 The Alameda Street Notes also indicate the presence of pimps in the crib district. An entry for August 13, 1902 says that a pimp named John Karneli was arrested for drunkenness and vagrancy, Tfie entry claims that Karaetl was “best- 5 5 Los Angeles Times, 15 November .1902. 5 t > ..to Angeles Times, 26 'November 1902. 5 7 Los Angeks Times, 22 December 1903. See also the Los Angefes Times, 14 December 1903 for a reference to pimps as “oily, sleek young men who make a business of luring girls to their ruin.” s# Las Angeies Times, 22 December 1903. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 40 dressed vagrant in jail’ " with enough cash to bail out not only himself but also several other persons.® Another entry for March 9,1903 asserts that police jailed a group of eleven prostitutes and sixteen pimps.* Pimps not only profited from the earnings of prostitutes, but also were the source of same of the violence crib prostitutes suffered. In. 1899, for example, the Times reported an incident involving three Belgian prostitutes and one American prostitute. According to the story, the American prostitute—Gracie Smith—became involved in a fight with the three Belgian, women. The pimp of the Belgian, women ended up getting involved, and he apparently knocked Smith unconscious.6 1 The Alameda Street Notes chronicles another example of violence directed by a pimp against his own prostitute. The entry for December 9,1903 says that Michael Walsh shot and wounded Ella Powers because she wanted to quit being a prostitute. The document comments that "Walsh was living off her earnings and evidently saw his livlihood [sic] threatened. Earlier, on Nov. 24, he had cut her with a knife.”® The Alameda Street Notes suggest that violence was a common occurrence in the city’s vice district with pimps providing just one of many sources. In one case, a family member shot a prostitute and then committed suicide when he could not persuade the woman to “quit the way she had been living.”4 3 In another case, a client 6 9 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 1 .3 August 1902, 6 9 Alameda Street Notes,!902-1904, see entry for 9 March 1903, 4 1 LosAttgeks Times, 5 August 1899. 6 2 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 9 December 1903. For another exam pie, see the entry for 17 September 1903. & Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1.90*4, see entry for 28 May 1902. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 41 was arrested for hitting a prostitute in the mouth/’ 4 The Alameda Street Notes give another example of prostitute being strangled to death by a man who may have been either a client or her pimp/’ Much of the violence towards prostitutes, however, appears to be self-inflicted Stories of suicides and attempted suicides surface frequently. An October 15 entry reads: “Annie Brady of 142 1/2 N. Main St. tried suicide. Deserted by her husband, she had become a prostitute. Feeling disgraced she swallowed poison, later morphine.”® Table 2 Raeial/Ethuk Composition of the City of Lo* Angeles, 1900-1920 M m m % of Total 1910 M % of Total M m i % of Total White 98,082 95.7 305,307 95.6 546,864 9 5 .1 . Negro 2,131 2.0 7,599 2.3 15,579 2.7 Chinese 2,111 2.0 1,954 0,6 2,062 0.3 Japanese 150 0.1 4,238 1.3 11,618 2.0 Indian 5 0.0 81 0.0 189 0.0 Mexicans * 30,000 5.2 Other Races 19 0.0 361 0,0 Total 102.479 100 319,198 100 576,673 100 Source: U. S. Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States. 1920. Volume 1 1 1 . Population. (W ashington, 1922), 118,118; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Thirteenth Census o f the United States. 1910. Volume II Population. (Washington, 1913), 180. • '“Mexicans" are listed as a separate category only for 1930. The 1920 estimate conics from Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 90 as well as G . Bromley Oxnam , The Mexican in Los Angeles: Los Angeles City Survey (1920; reprint, San Francisco: R a d E Research Associates, 1970), 5. Thus the column totals for 1920 do not add up precisely. Diversity in the Red lig h t District By the tom of the century, another defining characteristic of Los Angeles’s red light district had become its diversity. Although the numbers of Los Angeles’ 6 4 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 9 August 1902. w Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 19 August 1903. 1 ,6 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for IS October 1902. For other examples, see entries for 14 March 1902; 2 .December 1902; 9 March 1.903,12 September 1903; 2 October 1903. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. nonwhite population were small in . 1900 (see Table 2)* this population had several representatives in. the city’s prostitution business. Chinese prostitutes had become a noticeable minority in the district already in 1870s, and they remained part of the city’s prostitution, population well into the twentieth century. By the turn of the century, however, Ch.iit.ese prostitutes competed with. Japanese, French, Belgian., and black prostitutes. Like the Chinese prostitutes, Japanese women also tended to become prostitutes through no choosing of their own.4 7 There were reports as early as 1902 that Japanese prostitutes from Hawaii were being imported to Los Angeles for the local cribs.6 8 In February of 1903, for example, Yuwu and Hana Naritonai, sisters who had been kidnapped in Japan, and sold for “immoral purposes,”' had moved into a rescue home through, the efforts of the Japanese Society for Improvement of M orals.® ’ Later that same year, the Los Angeles Times reported on the case of a Japanese prostitute named Singt Marutobia, who had allegedly been purchased in Japan from her parents for $50 and then forced to work as a prostitute first in Seattle and San Francisco before Los Angeles.7 0 Like Chinese prostitutes, Japanese prostitutes also worked in cribs. According to the Alameda Street Notes, Los Angeles’ red light district contained a row of cribs with J apanese women. The document also claimed that there was a row of cribs with French women.7 1 The Times described the crib district as having a section, called “Little Paree” as well as 6 7 Rosen, Lost Sisterhood, 121. 6 8 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 7 June 1.902. w Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 7 February 1903. 1 9 I m Angeles Times, 3 December 1903. 7 1 Alameda Street. Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 25 February 1903. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 43 an “American section,” presumably consisting of native-born, white women.'7 ' The crib district also provided the location for the fight between Grade Smith and the three Belgian women.7 3 One pair of authors claimed that the crib district contained “cheery strumpets of many races.”7 4 Black women were also involved in prostitution-— both in the Alameda Street cribs as well as in an area of town dubbed the “negro quarter” by the Los Angeles Times, The Alameda Sheet Notes, for example, makes a reference to “one of the Negro-occupied cribs on Alameda St.” in an entry for May 14,1903.7 5 Black women appear to have been active ia prostitution elsewhere as well. In 1904, for example, the Times ran a story about the closure of “negro clubs” in the “negro quarter.”® According to the Times, the “tenderloin” or vice district in the “negro quarter” consisted of a block of San Pedro between First and Second Street—-an area just south of the eastern portion of city’s red-light district. The location of the “negro tenderloin” appears to be consistent with reports that the first African American colony in the city was situated at the intersection, of First and. Los Angeles Street, which was only a block east." The Times described the clubs under attack as multi-purpose gambling dens and saloons that also served as “trysting places for 7 2 Lm Angeles Times, 3 December 1903. 7 3 Los Angeles Times, 5 August 1899. The Alameda Street Notes, 1902-3904, report an incident involving a Belgian woman said to be enticed to work m a prostitute in Los Angeles. See entry for 6 August 1902. 7 4 Cohn and Chisholm, “Take the Wiim&s," 189, 7 5 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 14 May 1903. 7 6 LosAngeks Times, 22 December 3904. 7 7 J. Max Bond, “The Negro * m Los Angeles” (Ph.D. diss., University of Southern California, 1936), 47-8, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 44 drunken lust and debauched women of all colors."® The Times claimed that the resorts contained young white women who mingled with ‘Vile black prostitutes and drunken negro gamblers.”7 9 The racially diverse prostitutes in the city's red. light district appear to have serviced a racially diverse clientele, The articles on “colored dives” in the Times claimed that white men were frequent customers.®0 The Alameda Street Notes make repeated references to black men in the crib district. One such entry claimed that police had arrested a black man. in the district, and. made a reference to his “$1.00 prostituted*1 The Notes also testify to the presence of Mexican men in the district—one of whom was arrested for striking a prostitute in the mouth.® Elsewhere in . the Notes, an entry quotes a reformer who described the patrons of the cribs as “Negroes, Mexicans, and low White toughs.’ * Chinese prostitutes also served a racially mixed clientele that included Chinese as well as white men.8 4 Although observers commented on the diversity to be found in Los Angeles’ red light district, it remains difficult to estimate the numbers of prostitutes who did not fit a native-born, white, racial category. One clue to the degree of racial diversity comes from the Reports of Police Judges, rosters listing defendants who appeared in court by their name, charge, and sentence. These reports contain the names of 7 8 LosAngeks 'limes, 22 December 1904. 1 9 Ij> $ Angeks Times, 22 December 1904. 8 9 LosAngeks Times, 22 December 1904, 8 1 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 10 October 1902. n Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 9 August 1902. 8 3 Alameda Street Notes, 1.902-1904, see entry for 25 February 1903, 8 4 Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 18-19, Tong, Unsubmissive Women, 24, Ciasi, “Surviving Through Prostitution,” 47. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 45 hundreds of women,, and most of the women were charged with ‘Vagrancy” or a “misdemeanor,” Historians have noted that police officers often charged prostitutes with “vagrancy,” but one should not necessarily assume that all of the women appearing in court—charged with vagrancy or a “misdemeanor” —were prostitutes. Still, assuming that at least some o f the women appearing in court under these charges were prostitutes, I have noted that the most common names are those of the “Clark,” Woods” “Pendleton ” or “Smith” ilk. Occasionally, nam.es like “Sing” or “Mendez5 3 appear; but in 1904, for example, I found only thirteen such names out of a total of 1604s Streetwalkers Together with crib prostitutes, streetwalkers ranked as the lowest order of prostitutes in the social scale of prostitution.*9 Like crib prostitutes, streetwalkers tended to attract only the lowest paying customers and had more exposure to a number of dangers—physical assaults, police harassment, as well as disease.8 7 In. her study of nineteenth century 'New York, Marilyn. Hill concludes that streetwalking was a “significant part” of the city’s prostitution culture.8 8 On the West Coast, however, the incidence of streetwalking is more difficult to determine. In her study of nineteenth century San Francisco, Jacqueline FJam.ki.rt alleges that the city had. few streetwalkers. Barnhart bases her assertion on. the lack of women arrested as ® s Reports of Police Judges, 1904-1909, Box B-1984, Los Angeles City Archives. 8 6 Rosea, Im i Sisterhood, 107; Barnhart, Fair But Frail, 33; Hobson, Uneasy Virtue, 30, 8 7 Hill, Their Sisters' Keepers, 211; Hobson, Uneasy Virture, 30. * * Hill, Their Sisters ’ Keepers, 209. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 46 “common prostitutes,” which she believes is the charge on which streetwalkers were arrested,® Another historian—Barbara Hobson, however, contends that police arrested streetwalkers on charges of vagrancy or disorderly conduct,* The reports of Los Angeles police court judges confirm Hobson’s contention. The reports from the police court judges are available from the years 1904 to 1909, and in that five-year period, approximately 1300 women’s names appear in those reports in conjunction with charges of vagrancy. In September 1905, for example, over 80 women were charged with vagrancy in Judge Chambers court Hie women paid fines ranging from $25 to $50. Considering that vagrant men often paid only $3, the much larger fines of the women indicate that they were prostitutes, most likely streetwalkers.9 5 The Alameda Street Motes contain entries regarding the arrest of women under charges of vagrancy as well. The entry for March 31, 1903, for example, says that eight women had been arrested as prostitutes on a vagrancy charge.® Unfortunately, it is not entirely clear whether the women arrested were streetwalkers or whether they were crib prostitutes simply roaming the district looking for customers. The former possibility seems more plausible, however, since crib prostitutes attracted customers from the doors and windows of their cribs. Also, considering the high rent crib prostitutes paid as well as how well-known the crib district was, it is doubtful that crib prostitutes would be inclined to leave their place of business or that they would need to in order to attract customers, 8 9 Barnhart, Fair Bat Frail, 33, w Hobson, Uneasy Virtue, 30. 9 1 Reports of Police lodges, Box B-1984, LACA. ® Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 31 March 1903, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 47 Commentary on the incidence of streetwalking—at least at the tarn of the century— is virtually non-existent (Secondary sources covering the history of Los Angeles contain few references to prostitution in general, let alone to streetwalking in particular.) The only description I have been able to locate thus far appears in, a fictionalized account of the city’s prostitution scene written as part of a reform effort to close the red-light district. The novel, written by a local minister, purported to reveal “conditions actually existing in the cities of our land” and contained a description of streetwalkers roaming “Fabian, Street” on the east side of the river where “the street walkers were allowed to ply their vocations...,. Their attire was showy, their manner bold, and they did much to attract attention/* Although street names as well as names of characters have been, altered, much of the novel’s descriptions of cribs, brothels, and in this case, streetwalking seem to mesh with either available secondary sources or primary sources. In general, women, working in the bottom ranks of the prostitution industry’ ' either as crib prostitutes or streetwalkers .found their autonomy severely circumscribed. In most cases, profits flowed from their hands almost directly into the hands of men—whether those men, were the real-estate owners or pimps. Women working at the lower levels of the prostitution business also worked in. the least desirable conditions—whether it was the cramped quarters o f filthy cribs or in the streets and alleys of the city. Prostitutes were often the targets of male hostility and violence. Police .harassment was also a constant possibility, and when the 9 , 1 Rev. Sidney C. Kendalt, The Soundings of ftetl (Los Angeles; Charlton Edholm, 5 903), 52. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 48 reform impulse moved through Los Angeles beginning at the turn of the century, the cribs were the reformers’ first targets. Reformers claimed that prostitutes only lasted five years in the business before succumbing either to disease or suicide, and though there is evidence to the contrary, there are also indications that some prostitutes were unhappy enough with their lives to attempt suicide,**4 Other prostitutes turned to drinking or drug-use,” Despite the handicaps associated with the lower ranks of the prostitution industry, however, some women in the business still managed to retain a degree of personal and financial independence. A number of women appear to have been involved in the crib business not as prostitutes, for example, but as property owners. Some women owned property in conjunction with husbands. Bartolo Ballerino’s wife, Maria, for example appears to have been a co-owner of substantial crib property in Los Angeles and certainly shared in the profits. A number of other women, however, also owned crib property in the city independently.9 6 In addition, even some of the women who worked in the cribs as prostitutes exhibited a certain, kind of autonomy, According to the Alameda Street notes, most crib prostitutes did not actually live in the squalor of the cribs but went home after midnight to lodging houses located on Spring, Main, and “other streets uptown The majority of crib prostitutes were making enough money not only to pay for the rental of their cribs 9 4 Kendall, Soundings of Hellt 52; Rosen, Im t Sisterhood, 99-100. 9 5 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904,, see entry for 10 April 1903; Lou, “Chinese American Community,” 294. 9 6 LosAngeks Times, 3 December 1903. Alameda Street Notes, 16 December 1903. The lists that appear in both sources contain some of the same names bat they are not duplicates. 9 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 14 December .1903, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 49 but rooms in a separate location as well, In addition., crib prostitutes would rob customers to make more money. An entry for Dec 3, 1903 in the Alameda Street notes indicates -{hat a prostitute had been accused of stealing $90 from a customer.9 8 These lodging houses also functioned as the location for at least a handful of independent prostitutes who advertised in an 1897 sporting guide's “Here and There” section. Miss Katie Jackson, for example, occupying “rooms 1 and 2,327 S. Main street,” was one of five other “ladies [who] receive gentlemen callers in their apartments.”9 9 Even among the Chinese and Japanese, prostitutes who remained under the tight control of male owners and generally lived, as well as worked in the city’s cribs, there are examples of women taking some control of their own lives. Many attempted to run away from their owners, and at least a few escaped from, the prostitution business wife the aid of rescue agencies or lovers.5 9 0 The Plush Parlor Houses of the Red Light District While crib prostitution, dominated Los Angeles’ red light district at the turn of the century, the city boasted a few parlor houses as well—possibly up to a dozen.1 0 5 Whereas the cribs catered to the “less fortunate—or less 9 8 Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, see entry for 3 December 1903. 9 9 Robinson, Tarnished Angeis, 39. 1 0 0 Low, “Chinese American Community,” 303, 307; LosAngeks Times, 1 .2 July 1896; LosAngeks Times, 3 December 1903, 1 0 1 In 1908, a county grand jury investigation found 1.00 brothels in operation, but many of these probably could not be classified as parlor houses. Instead, I would guess that the majority of the brotbds in operation catered to a more middle class clientele and did not offer the plush surroundings of parlor houses, fa 1904, when social purity reformers began their crusade against, parlor houses, however, there were at least five parlor houses in existence whose imin.es and addresses appeared in R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 50 fastidious—patrons/" the “aristocratic parlor houses” o f Los Angeles catered to the “discriminating” patron.1 ® Historians agree that prostitutes found, parlor houses the most desirable places to work. Not only did parlor houses attract the wealthiest clients, they also offered the most sumptuous working conditions.1 ® Women who worked in such places made more money despite servicing fewer clients. The Everleigh sisters of Chicago ran one of the most famous parlor houses at the torn of the century, and their establishment featured expensive champagne along with glamorous bedrooms with ceiling and wall mirrors surrounding marble inlaid beds. A night at their establishment usually cost a minimum of a $100 but might include drinks, dinner, or other services in addition to sex.1 0 4 In Los Angeles, such parlor houses were located along New High, Marchessault, and Commercial Streets primarily.1 6 5 In such parlor houses, women dominated. Prostitutes in these houses worked for women, and these women—the madams—reaped tremendous profits from their business,’ 0 6 The Los Angeles counterpart to the Everleigh Club could be found at 327 1/2 New High Street, where Pearl Morton operated a “red-plush parlor house” in the former quarters of Department One of the Los Angeles Superior Court from 1891 to 1908 (see map 1). With its dancehall, Morton’s establishment became a favorite the newspaper article covering the reform efforts, Appier, Policing Women, 30; LosAngeks Times, 16 January 1904, 1 0 2 Cohn and Chisholm, “Take (he Witness, w 189. 1 0 7 Rosen, Lost Sisterhood, 86; Hobson, Umosy Virtue, 30; Barnhart, Pair But Frail, 25-6. 1 0 4 Rosen, Lost Sisterhood, 90. 1 0 5 w. W. .Robinson, Lawyers o/Im s Angeles: A History of the I m Angeks Bar Association and o f the Bar o f LosAngeks County (Los Angeles; Los Angeles Bar Association, 1959), 98; Cohn and Chisholm, “Take the Witness.” 8. m Hill, Their Sisters' Keepers, 99; Rosen, Im t Sisterhood, 76. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 51 attraction of male tourists as well as patrons. One visitor described the interior of the main room as “lush and vulgar and ostentatious” with “cut-glass and gold, chandeliers. . . big overstaffed chairs. . . hundreds of little tables with gilt legs and glass or marble tops. . . two conceit grand Stemway pianos.” Red carpets covered the floor and huge oil paintings featuring women in various stages of undress decorated the walls.1 0 7 Unfortunately, there is no record of Morton’s prices, but various sources indicate that Morton was a wealthy woman.1 0 * Like many of the nation’s madams, Morton attained local infamy. She advertised her parlor house by riding through the streets of Los Angeles in an open carriage with the women who worked for her.1 0 9 In addition, it seems likely that Morton, advertised her establishment in an 1897 “souvenir sporting guide”—a pocket-size advertising brochure which was published in. conjunction with Los Angeles’ annua! fiesta. The sporting guide provided visitors to Los Angeles with information about the various houses of prostitution in the city.1 1 0 (The use of the term “sporting” was simply a euphemism for prostitution connecting it to the male culture of sports and saloons.) In the sporting guide, a “Madame Van”—Morton’s alias, one assumes—claims to run the city’s “oldest and best establishment” at 327 1/2 New High Street. According to the advertisement, an introduction to “Madame 1 0 7 Adel a Rogers St. Johns, Final Verdict (Garden City, N.J.: Doubled®*, 1962), 06. 1 0 8 LosAngeks limes, 5 January 1908. lw Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 22, 1,6 Robinson, J'amislied Angels, 29. Besides the prostitution advertisements, there were two saloon acts (Horse Shoe Saloon at 740 N Alameda and Marble Palace Saloon at 411 N Main) as well as an advertisement for Imperial Pastilles ( ‘For Ladies Prevents and cures all local inflamations, Price, SI. 128 No. Main Street, Room I, Los Angeles, Cat.) and one for Jack Barber, Hack No. 62. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 52 Van” was “scarcely necessary, except to those who are making their initial visit to the city.” The advertisement described the establishment as “miniature palace” featuring “ten beautiful young ladies” prepared to treat visitors to a “royal time.”1 " One well-known visitor to Morton’s establishment was the city ’s foremost defense attorney of the day, Earl Rogers, who gained fame for his dramatic and effective arguments on behalf of the city’s gamblers, saloon owners, and prostitutes.1 1 2 In her biography of her father, Adda Rogers St. John, (who worked as a Los Angeles reporter before becoming a Hollywood screenwriter) reminisced, about meeting Pearl Morton as a child outside a Los Angeles courtroom. She recalled that “Pearl was laced into tight corsets, her figure in a suit of plum-colored silk was hourglass.. . . A big picture hat with black ostrich plumes framed her hair which was hennaed From her I got the first whiff Fd ever had of perfume. A tiny drop of Palmer’s violet, a dash of rose water perhaps... m When reformers decided to rid the city of the parlor houses in addition, to the cribs, Morton’s establishment literally topped the list of targets. At the outset of the reform in 1904 the Times predicted that legal, action would be brought against the “most notorious” parlor houses, chief of which was Morton’s establishment on New High Street,1 1 4 Morton also became the subject of another semi-fictional novel. The Queen o f (he Red Lights, written by reformer Reverend Sidney Kendall In the novel, Morton is transformed into “Ruby Norton,” a madam of “fascinating 1 1 1 Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 29. m Cohn and Chisholm, ‘Take the Witness, ” 33, 1 1 3 St. John, Fined Verdict, 48. 1 1 4 LosAngeks Times,. 16 January 1904. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. S3 deportment” who possesses “remnants of great beauty” but is nevertheless keen as a razor and as sharp as a steel trap.m In 1908, the Times celebrated the closure of Morton’s establishment and described Morton as “one of the biggest, blackest politicians in the Southwest.'nm The article alluded that half the city’s male population had. visited the establishment, and that Morton had grown “enormously” wealthy as a result. Among her listed possessions were a “magnificent home” automobiles, and fine horse, In addition, the Times claimed Morton had substantia! political influence in. the city which, resulted in police protection.1 ” When Los Angeles officials closed Morton’s place, she simply moved north and re-established herself In San. Francisco.1 1 * Less is known, about Cora Phillips, a major competitor to Pearl Morton. Phillips was the proprietor of a parlor house on Alameda Street called the Golden Lion, so .named because of the two stone lions in front of the building.1 1 9 In his memoirs of Los Angeles, Harry Carr reminisced that Phillips was the “24-carat Queen, of Bohemia,” and. that after reformers had shut down the red-light district, “she retired with a fortune.’”2 0 Already in 1887, the Los Angeles Tribune alludes to Phillips’ place on Alameda as an upper-class establishment According to the 1 ,5 Rev. Sidney C. Kendall, The Queen of the Med light: A Sequel to the Sounding of Neil (Los Angeles: Wiley 1. Phillips, 1906)" 28, m LosAngeks Times, 5 January 1908. m LosAngeks Times, 5 January 1908. 1 1 8 Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 24-5. 1 1 9 Robinson, Tarnished Angeb, 23. l* Carr, City of Dream, 160-1. Carr writes that "Madam Van1 ’ was the proprietor of a “place on Alameda Street with two bronze lions at the front gate,” but this appears to be inaccurate given the other sources, especially "Madam Van’s” advertisement in the 1897 Spotting Guide which dearly says that her address was the address of Morton’s establishment on New High Street. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 54 newspaper, Phillips5 place had been part of a police raid, and it was at her establishment that police found “two of Los Angeles’ bloods, [a reference to men from the city’s elite class], who put up their little ten dollars [in bail money] and. vanished with, a Tor - - — don’t give us away.”5 1 2 1 A further clue indicating that Phillips ran a successful parlor house conies from the Tribune's report that police arrested ten women who worked in . Phillips5 establishment. Pearl Morton also had ten employees,1 2 2 Unfortunately no parlor house matching the description of Phillips’ place appears in the 1897 “Sporting Guide.” On the whole, the “Sporting Guide” appears to have featured somewhat less elaborate establishments than those ran by Morton and Phillips. Since the advertisements in the “Sporting Guide” consist o f a paragraph and thus do not go into detail about prices, descriptions of the clientele, or the size and accoutrements of their locations—all of which would pro vide valuable clues as the class of brothel, it is difficult to distinguish the degree to which upper-class parlor houses differed, from the less imposing brothels included in the “Sporting Guide.” Certain adjectives, however, along with the number of women said to be employed at the location suggest that at least a couple of establishments advertising in the sporting guide were not parlor houses on the level, with Morton and Phillips’ places. Outside of “Madame Van’s” fMorton’s] advertisement, for example, other madams could claim, only two to live employees and although one house is described, as a mansion, two other places are described as “cozy,” implying less impressive institutions. Madame 1 2 1 LosAngeks Tribum, 20 March 1887. m LosAngeks Tribune, 20 March 1887; Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 30. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 55 Wier at 312 N. Alameda St, for example, claimed to need “no introduction to the sportively inclined .people of Los Angeles as she is the most popular landlady on the coast” but offered only a “'cozy little place” and “four charming young ladies.*’1 2 * Lena Shepard’s house at 316 North Alameda was also described as “little” and “cozy.” In addition, in contrast to the ten employees of Morton and Phillips, Shepard also had only “a couple” of “charming young ladies.”5 2 4 Some madams attempted to attract customers on the basis of exotic sendees rather than on the size of their establishment or number of employees. Madame Belanger’s house at 438 N. Alameda Street, dubbed “The Octoroon” (a reference to a person having one-eighth black blood), mixed various kinds of exoticism, especially light-skinned black women.. Customers could indulge their taste for the exotic voyeuristically by watching Misses Bessie and Edna performing the Hawaiian hula hula dance. In addition, customers could also indulge themselves In the company of “some famous Southern beauties of the Octoroon, type, who will give you more fun and good healthy amusement than you would find in a day’s walk.”1 2 5 Because cribs dominated Alameda Street, it is not surprising that madams seeking to establish the city’s most opulent houses of prostitution located their parlor houses a couple of blocks west of the crib district. The rooming houses of Main Street provided a kind of transition from the lowest rang of crib prostitution, situated along Alameda and Los Angeles Street to the middle rung of independent and m Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 33. 1 2 4 Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 38. 1 2 5 Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 34-5, The Oxford English Dictionary defines “octoroon” as “a person having one-eighth Negro blood,” R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 56 occasional prostitutes who worked, out of rented rooms on Main Street to the highest rung o f parlor house prostitutes on. New High Street. Generally speaking, parlor houses were the territory of the city’s more wealthy citizens, but they opened, their doors to working class men if their pockets were “flush with recent payrolls or winning streaks at poker.”1 * * In the 1904 Times article that focused on reformers’ efforts to close the city’s parlor houses, New High Street was listed as the address of not only Pearl Morton but her competition as well. Stella Mitchell’s place occupied the southeast corner ofMarchessault and New High. Street while Viola’s Place was at the northeast corner; the Antler’s Club could be found at 337 1/2 New High Street; and Josephine M. Workman house’s was just a block or two away at 523 and 525 New High street1 2 7 Parlor house madams and their girls even patronized different city saloons. While Ballerino and Buckley forced crib prostitutes to patronize the Basket saloon located on Alameda Street within, the crib district, parlor house madams mingled with 'politicians as well as gamblers at Felix Clevier’s bar on Commercial Street.1 ' 3 Although madams running parlor houses made a tremendous amount of money, prostitution at this level yielded profits to a number of other parties as well. Once again, property owners stood to benefit .from the high rents they could charge madams to run illicit businesses. Cora Phillips, for example, paid rent to the 1 2 8 Cohn and Chisholm, “Rate the Witness," 9. m Los Angeles Tims, 16 February 1.904. The Alameda Street Notes, 1902-1904, also mention Stella Mitchell’s “sporting house” and give its location as 540 New High Street. See entry for 2 December 1902. m Coha m i Chisholm, “Take the Witness," $. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 57 Chairman, of the Police Commission along with two other parlor house proprietors.1 ® Prostitutes were also paying off police officers in exchange for protection from raids.1 3 1 1 Regulation and Reform While the fortunes (and existence) of women working in the upper tiers of the prostitution industry depended less on men than did those of crib prostitutes or streetwalkers, both groups of prostitutes met a similar fate once reform took hold as the dominating force in city politics. Until the turn, of the twentieth century, the policy of Los Angeles’ administration towards prostitution resembled that of many other cities across the United States.1 3 1 City officials from .Los Angeles to New York adopted a policy of toleration,.1 3 2 In Los Angeles, the city council passed a series of ordinances beginning in 1.874 which banned prostitution from the central business district, an. area bounded, by Fort (now Broadway), Los Angeles, First and Short Street.1 3 3 These ordinances had the effect of at least unofficially sanctioning prostitution in other areas of the city. Although regulation campaigns in other cities in America proposed, regular medical inspections for prostitutes to help control the incidence venereal disease, Angelenos in. favor of the regulation o f prostitution did 1 2 9 Bonebrake, Brand Book, 42. 1 3 0 Benjamin S. Harrison, Fortune Favors the Brave: The Life and Times of Horace Bell, Pioneer Californian (Los Angeles: The Ward Ritchie Press, 1953), 233. 1 3 1 David 1 Pivar, Purify Crusade: Sexual Morality and Social Control, 1868-1900 (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1.973), 28-30, 1 3 2 Connelly, Response to Prostitution, 3. 1 3 3 William M. Cawell, comp., Revised Charter and Compiled Ordinances and Resolutions of the City of Los Angeles (Los Angeles; Evening Express Steam Printing Establishment, 1878); Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 15. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 58 not propose such, examinations. .Medical examinations of prostitutes or even women simply suspected of carrying venereal disease became standard after World War l m By the 1 S80ss many Angelenos adopted the position that the only way to control prostitution in the city was by regulation, rattier than eradica.ti.on, and so on March 30, 1886, the city council passed an ordinance legalizing prostitution in an area of the city between. Third Street and High Street (now Orel) and west of Alameda Street.1 3 5 Support of the Council's attempt at regulation appeared in an editorial to the Times in 1889. The editorial claimed that regulation was the best solution since efforts to “suppress the evil” would ultimately fail. Complete eradication, the editorial went on to say, was impossible.1 3 6 Although some Angelenos expressed discontent with the city council for allowing prostitution to continue on particular blocks or streets, few asked the city council to adopt a strict no-toleration policy. Horace Bell, owner and editor of a Los Angeles based newspaper called the Porcupine, successfully campaigned for the removal of prostitution from a block of the west side of Los Angeles Street between First and Market Street, in 1883.1 3 7 Yet, according to another source, the Porcupine also carried advertisements for “every sporting house and every saloon in the city,”’3 8 m David Pivar, for example, notes that the American Medical Association was in favor of regulating prostitution in. order to control venereal disease. Pi var, Purity Crusade, 88-89. According to Maty Odetn, by 1918 thirty-two states, including California, had enacted “laws that allowed for the detention of any woman ‘reasonably suspected* of carrying venereal disease; she could be arrested and detained without bail until examined and found free of disease.” Odem, Delinquent Daughters, 124, !M Robinson, Maps o f Los Angeks, 8 . ™ Los Angeles Times, 1 1 July 1889. 1 3 7 Harrison, Fortum Favors, 210, 1 3 8 Bonebake, Brand Book, 45, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 59 Despite the zone of toleration established under the 1886 ordinance, city officials adopted a more stringent ordinance a few months later banning prostitution completely within the city limits.1 3 9 Certain women, however, apparently found it •unfeasible or undesirable to move. Consequently, in 1887, the Los Angeles Trihtme printed a story covering a raid which had resulted in the arrests of fifty-seven men aod women who had not confined their activities to the ‘limits prescribed by the ordinance.” Among those arrested was Cora Phillips, proprietor of one of the city’s better parlor houses.1 4 0 In Los Angeles as in many other cities, officials actually benefited from the illicit business by extorting money from madams, brothel owners, and even the prostitutes themselves. Madams and prostitutes tended to be part of an elaborate network of pay-offs by which they would pay city officials and police officers for “protection” from arrest.1 4 1 In 1882, for example, Horace Bell printed a story charging police with corruption. According to the article, a special detective had arrested a dozen women in Negro Alley for keeping houses of prostitution. When the women went to trial, however, the city’s police officers swore that the women were of “good character.” The city attorney prosecuting the case ended up filing charges against the officers as well, as the police chief because of their interference.1 4 2 1 3 9 This ordinance was OrdianceNo, 269 (passed in December 1886) which was made obsolete when the Los Angd.es City Council passed Ordinance No. 19371 (a new ordinance forbidding ^dictation by prostitutes) in 1909, LAC A. 140LosAngeks Tribune, 20 March 1887. 1 4 1 LosAngeks Tribune, 20 March 1887; Rosen, Lost Sisterhood, 72, Hill, Their Sisters’ Keepers, 149. 1 4 2 Harrison, Fortum Favors, 209-10. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 60 Bell printed another story in which he suggested police corruption, saying that police had mistakenly arrested twenty-nine women at “No. 60, Los Angeles street” This “well-known resort/’ Bell explained, “was supposed to be exempt from intrusion, having the favor of the police chief.”1 4 3 Corruption continued through tie 1880s. Boyle Workman, the son of Mayor Workman (1886-1888), recalled that gambling as well as a “protected traffic in women” constituted the main, tribulations of Workman’s administration. To improve conditions and stop the corruption, Workman went on to say, his father had found it necessary to fire the chief of police as well as several officers.1 4 4 Despite the occasional protests of residents seeking to ban prostitution from, certain Los Angeles streets and areas, prostitution continued to flourish throughout the 1890s as well as the turn of the century. One author describes prostitution in this period as “open and gaudy.”1 4 5 And another writer claimed that even during this period, prostitution thrived in the city because it benefited a range of individuals, including a prominent city counci l member who was known as “the ‘King of the Macs,””4 6 In their description of Los Angeles in this period, Alfred Cohn and Joe Chisholm suggest that several different parties had their hands in political corruption, with saloonkeepers often, acting the primary brokers of police protection that people in. the red light district paid.1 4 7 Charges of corruption intensified at the turn of the 1 4 3 Harrison, Fortune Favors, 209. 1 4 4 Workman, City that Grew, 226. ui Robinson, Lawyers o f Im Angeles, 98. 1 4 6 Bonebrake, Brand Book 42-9, 1 4 7 Cohn and Chisholm, “Take the Witness, " S . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 61 . century, concurrent with a burgeoning reform movement that would ultimately result in a new official policy towards prostitution which would end the long standing toleration of a segregated vice district in the city. “Chemically Pore”: Progressive Reformers* Anti-Prostitution Campaign In many ways, the campaign against prostitution in Los Angeles at the turn of the century was part of a larger wave of national reform, aimed at ameliorating the poverty, corruption, crime, disease, and general unhealthfulness to be found in most cities. Despite the diversity of reform movements, reformers, and even methods and pMlosoplii.es of reform, the basis of the movement was a commitment to progress, thus earning it the label of the “progressive” movement. The crusade against prostitution during the Progressive Era. has been a popular subject for historians, but few historians have used Los Angeles as a point of reference for their studies. These studies thus provide valuable points of reference and paint a helpful overall, picture of the progressive campaign against prostitution while at the same time necessitating an articulation of the particular progressive campaign against prostitution that took place in Los Angeles. As in , other cities, progressive reform consisted of a number of different elements. Some reformers were interested primarily in combating the corruption that had crept into the political system 'while other reformers focused on ridding the city of its “moral” problems. In Los Angeles, the roots of the former group cam be traced to the 1.880s and 1890s with the formation of such organizations as the Board of R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 2 Freeholders, the Municipal Reform Association, and the League for Better City Governimei3t” -'Organizations which sought to take power away from a corrupt political ring dominated by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company,1 4 * These organizations connected the unofficial tolerance of prostitution, with corrupt politicians, but their focus remained on the political structure of the city rather than the abolition of the red-light district. The roots of the second group, sometimes referred to as purity reformers,1 4 9 can be traced to the growing prominence of a handful of local .religious leaders—particularly Reverend Wiley J. Phillips and Reverend. Sidney Kendall—beginning in 1902. Joined by large numbers of women—church.wom.en. as well as members of Los Angeles’ Friday Morning Club (“the most influential, women’s club in Southern California”1 5 0 ), these religious leaders concentrated on closing Los Angeles’s red-light district rather than on broad political reform. The aims of Los Angeles purity reformers corresponded to the aims of the national purity movement which sought to close do wn the red light districts in all of America and “rescue” fallen, women.. Purity reformers believed that prostitutes were victims of the greed and deception of men. Thus, Progressives directed their reform efforts at punishing the “commercial exploiters” of prostitutes and restoring the “fallen 1 4 8 Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 209-21.0, 1 4 9 iPivar, Purify Crusade t .132; SueMea Hoy, Chasing Dirt: Ihe American Pursuit of Cleanliness (New York: Oxford University Press, 1995), §0. 1 S # Judith Raftery, “Los Angeles Clubwomen and Progressive Reform,” in CaliforniaProgrexsivim Revisited, ed, William .Deverell anti Torn Sifton (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994), 150, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 63 woman” to respectable society,5 5 1 While not attracting the fame that Reverend Kendall and Reverend Phillips enjoyed, tine founder of the Friday Morning Club, Caroline Severance, encouraged tMwmeiiibers to join the purity reformers’ efforts in closing down, the red light district—also viewing prostitution as a crime against women.”2 Women participated in the purity reformer movement by visiting the red- light district and “leaving the cards of the rescue homes and pleading with them to decide to lead a new life.”1 5 3 The Door of Hope, operated by Mrs. Watson, constituted one such rescue home, and its main function was to encourage women to give up prostitution by offering residents training in household work, musical vocations, or as stenographers or bookkeepers.1 5 4 Both kinds of reform efforts-- political and moral—enjoyed a high degree of success in Los Angeles, which can be attributed partly to the new lands of migrants attracted to Southern California, particularly those from the Midwest. Many of the progressive leaders of Los Angeles, for example, had .recently come to the city from the Midwest1 3 3 Progressive organizations aimed at political, reform proliferated in the first decade of the twentieth century and pushed through important charter revisions. Purity reformers managed to dose certain portions of the red-light district temporarily. As in other cities, however, the existence of a red light district in which 1 3 1 Roy Lobove, “The Progressives and the Prostitute,’" ' The Historian 24 (1962), 317. 1 5 2 Gloria Lothrop, “Strength Made Stronger: The Role of Women in Southern California Philanthropy,” Southern California Quarterly (Summer 1989), 1S9. B' ‘ Los Angelas Times, 14 December 1903. m Los Angeles Times, 22 December 1903. 1 3 5 William Devere.il and Tom Sitton, eds.» California Pm grem vim Revisited (Berkeley; University of California Press, 1994), 5. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 64 prostitution was unofficially tolerated only ended when issues of political and moral reform converged. In Los Angeles, this occurred in 1909 when Mayor Harper was recalled over charges that he had been “protecting” vice interests in the city.! W Purity reformers in Los Angeles began their drive against prostitution beginning in 1902 after Reverend Phillips and Reverend Kendall, “discovered” the Bailerino in operation.1 5 7 Their campaign, against the business of crib prostitution began with the publication o f a semi-fictional account of what they observed in the city’s red-light district. The expose o f the crib district, written by Rev. Kendall, appeared, first in Rev. Phillips’ religious magazine, the California Voice»before it was published in book form in 1903 as The Soundings of Hell.m In publishing a sensationalized description of “actually existing” conditions, Phillips and Kendall were drawing on. the long-established technique of progressive reformers who garnered support for various movements by publicizing their causes with dramatic accounts or pictures. Jacob Riis, for example, drew attention to the problems of New York’s slums with Ms photojournalism publication, How the Other Half Lives. Purity reformers such as Kendall and. Phillips, however, drew on. the tradition established by British reformer William Stead, who in 1885 wrote an article in. the Pall Mall Gazette based on his personal investigation of prostitution, in Britain.. In 3 5 6 Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 209-21.0; Torn Sitton, “John Randolph Haynes and the Left Wing of California Progressivism,” in California Progressmmt, 20; Gerald Woods, The Police in Los Attgeks; Reform and Professionalization (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993), 21, Read Nadeau, Los Angeles; From Mission to Modem Citv (New York; Longmans. Green and Co., 1960),, 255. 1 5 7 Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 19. m Kendall, Soundings of Hell, 8. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 65 the article. Stead claimed to have evidence that young women and girls were being sold into sexual slavery.1 5 9 Reformers dubbed this phenomenon “white slavery,” and used its alleged widespread occurrence to garner support for their anti-prostitution campaign. An early example of the white slave tracts that would be published in greatest quantity between 1908 and 1914, Kendall’s work is representative of the genre,1 * The preface of the book claimed, for example, that the narrative proved “that there is an international traffic in girls, as strongly intrenched [sic] and as compactly organized as was ever the traffic in slaves.”1 6 1 In addition, the preface asserted that the author had published the account because he was convinced that “nothing would imperii this traffic like unrestricted and merciless exposure.”1 ® 2 In The Soundings o f Hell, Kendall describes how a young woman, Madeline, moves to the city looking for work in the theater. Refusing to take tawdry parts, Madeline soon runs out of money. A procuress by the name of Madame Sangster introduces Madeline to a man named BaMinson in exchange for $500. Baldmson seduces Madeline. When Madeline realizes that Baldinson’s intentions are not honorable and that the loss of “virtue” has consigned her to a life of prostitution, Madeline attempts suicide. The suicide attempt is not successful, and Madeline is nursed back to health by a former white slave victim—Gabrielle—and her brother. The experiences of the two women 1 5 9 Rosen, Lost Sisterhood, 116, 1 6 0 D’Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters, 208. 1 6 1 Kendall, Soundings o f Hell, 7. m Kendall, Soundings of Hell, 8. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 6 6 persuade a local minister that the prostitution, should not be tolerated., and he launches his own investigation, of the city's red light district, Kendall’s novel helped give momentum to the purity reformers' crusade against crib prostitution in Los Angeles. On December 3,1903, for example, the Times noted that women reformers were visiting the red light district in the hope of encouraging prostitutes to go to rescue homes they had. founded.’6 3 A couple of weeks later the Times reported that an. “immense throng” of at least 2500 church people and purity crusaders had visited the city’s red light district in order to arouse public sentiment against prostitution by raising public awareness of its existence and the conditions associated, with the “market for human flesh.”1 6 4 The reformers had also prepared tracts for distribution to both the prostitutes and. their customers. In addition, committees .had arranged for individuals to engage in “personal work” with, both prostitutes and clients in the red light district.1 6 5 Five days later, the Los Angeles Daily Times reported that the “crusade” had been successful and had resulted in “the retirement of the demimonde from the Alameda-street district.”1 6 6 A year later, the Times carried an update on the dissolution of the crib district. According to the article, Alameda. Street was shortly to be “tramfoinaecP into a business thoroughfare, and that the cribs were to be tom down along with Basket Saloon,1 6 7 1 6 3 Los Angeles Times, 3 December 1903. m Los Angeles Times, 14 December 1903. 1 6 4 ' Los Angeles Times, 14 December 1903, 1 6 6 Lm Angeles Daily Times, 19 .December 1903. 1 6 7 Los Angeles Times, 12 December 1904. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 67 In their campaign against the crib district, purity reformers faced opposition from the city’s mayor, Merideth Snyder. In, fevor of regulation over abolition, of prostitution, Mayor Snyder claimed to be speaking on behalf of the city’s poor people who preferred that prostitutes remain segregated from the rest of population. According to Snyder, shutting down the red light district would force prostitutes to work out of lodging houses and tenements where they would then come in contact with, the poor but respectable families o f the city.1 4 8 The Los Angeles Times informed readers that “it is known that the Mayor believes it will be a . sorry day when, the women o f the tenderloin [a reference to New York City’s infamous red light district] are forced from their quarters in the crib district.”1 ® Furthermore, the Times quoted Snyder as saying that toleration of the crib district lessened crime and other associated nuisances in other parts of the city.™ In some ways, Mayor Snyder’s concern proved justified. The Los Angeles Times conceded that the efforts of the purity reformers had resulted in scattering “the three hundred scarlet women of the Alameda street district” While several women had left town, the Times estimated that 150 of them were still In . town, with only twenty-three of them taking refuge at the local mission, the Door of Hope at 11.9 North Daly Street.1 7 1 Having some success closing the cribs in the city’s red light district, the purity reformers began to tarn their attention to the parlor houses beginning tit 1904. As in 190.2, Reverend Phillips and Reverend Kendall led the crusade and garnered m Los Angeles Times, I March 1902. m I m Angeles Times, 2 December 1903. 1 7 9 Los Angeles Times, 2 December 1903. 1 7 1 Los Angeles Times, 22 December 1903. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 68 support by publicizing evidence o f'‘ white slavery” The Times quoted Phillips as saying that closing the crib district had resulted in the opening of several new parlor houses. The Times then, went on to list the parlor houses that reformers hoped, to target first. Pearl Morton’s establishment topped, the list.1 7 2 . Phillips implied that parlor houses such as Morton’s employed women under duress. In the article which, publicized the new focus of the purity reformers, he contended that United States District Attorney had begun the prosecution, of a couple who routinely imported girls from Paris to Los Angeles for the purpose of prostitution.1 7 3 Kendall made the implication explicit with the publication of a new semi-fictional expose of conditions in. the city’s parlor houses. The new novel, The Queen o f the Red Lights, published in 1906 in book form, contained a preface written by Phillips in which he contended, that the parlor houses of the nation’s cities contained white slave victims and were thus as detestable as cribs.1 7 4 “White slavery” is also at the center of the narrative. In the novel, Kendall describes how one of the city’s famous madams was herself a victim of white slavery before becoming involved at the top levels of the traffic in women.1 7 5 While the efforts of purity reformers had resulted in some closures in the crib district within a few months of the publicity given to the problem of “white slavery” in, the area, the campaign against the parlor houses had less immediate success. m Los Angeles Times, 16 January 1904. Vs Los Angeks Times, 16 January 1904, 1 7 4 Kendall, Queen of the Red Light, 5-6. 1 7 5 Kendall, Queen o f the Red Light, 24. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 69 Closures of the city’s parlor houses began to occur when political reformers joined forces with purity or moral reformers. By 1908, individuals interested in political change began to view the existence of the red light district as a source of political corruption, and thus their goals changed. Instead of focusing on the reform of the political system, progressives—beginning with those in the district attorney’s office—concentrated on removing one of the major sources of its corruption, namely the red light district. In January 1908, the Times printed a story covering the district attorney’s New Year’s Day action against Pearl Morton’s establishment. According to the Times, district attorney E. J. Fleming hoped that by closing Pearl Morton’s parlor house, he was “[w]ashing the politics of a great city by removing the temptations of the red light district from the path of greedy politicians.”1 7 * The Times implied that Fleming had. succeeded where moral reformers such as Kendall had failed, noting that Kendall’s hook— Tke Queen o f the Red Lights—' had exposed the corrupt relationship between the parlor houses and city officials a few years back but that nothing had been done at that time,1 7 7 The work begun by Fleming and the district attorney’s office proved only a precursor of further action to come. A . few months later in 1908, the assistant district attorney, Thomas Woolwine, told the Los Angeles Examiner that the corrupt relationship between red light district denizens and politicians involved not only lower level politicians and police officers but also the mayor—Arthur Harper.1 7 8 In m Los Angeles Times, 5 January 1908, m Los Angeles Times, 5 January 1908. m Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 21, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 70 January 1 909, Thomas Gibbon of the Los Angeles Herald and E. T. Earl of the Los Angeles Express printed similar charges in their respective newspapers.-m At this point progressive reformers found it “expedient” to join forces with more conservative reformers who wanted to oust Mayor Harper for Ms ties to the red light district, seeing in the recall of the mayor an opportunity to realize their own. goals of an. expansion of municipal social services.1 * Thus a diverse conglomerations of organizations—the Direct Legislation League, the City Club, the Good Government Organization along with the Anti-Racetrack Gambling League, the Sunday Rest League, the League of Justice, and others—worked together in, the recall effort of Mayor Harper.1 8 1 The progressives gathered enough signatures on recall petitions to request a recall election slated for March. 27,1909. Before the recall election could be held, however, Mayor Harper resigned from office, perhaps as part of a deal made with E. T. Earl of the Los Angeles Express who agreed not to publish “certain information” in his newspaper.1 8 2 George Alexander, the progressive-backed Good Government candidate, became the city’s next mayor.1 8 3 Shortly thereafter, Alexander ordered the padlocking of remaining parlor houses, brothels, and the cribs, telling the new police chief to “rid the city of prostitution.”1 * 4 1 7 9 Woods, Police in Im Angeles, 21; Fogetson, Fragmented Metropolis, 213; Robinson, Lawyers o f Los Angeles, 114. 1 8 0 Sitton, “John Randolph Haynes,” 20. 1 8 5 Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 21. 1 8 2 Nadeau, Mission to Modern City, 256. 1 8 3 Robinson, famished Angels, 23; Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 23. m Robinson, Tarnished Angek, 23*4; Starr, Inventing the Dream, 252. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 71 This campaign against prostitution appears to have been relatively successful. While some prostitutes only temporarily relocated to the city 's rooming house district, many prostitutes moved out of the city , heading north for the red light district of San Francisco. More importantly, however, the city’s policy toward prostitution had changed. In December 1909, the Los Angeles City Council adopted, a new ordinance,, Ordinance No, 19371, which spelled out the city’s lack of toleration, regarding prostitution. The ordinance targeted women specifically, decreeing it was “unlawful for any woman to oifer her body for the purpose of prostitution, or to solicit any man for money to have carnal intercourse with, her or to commit fornication with her, within the City o f Los Angeles,”’0 In addition, the ordinance imposed a fine ranging from $5 to $.100 or jail time for a . period of not more than one hundred days or both.1 8 6 A few years later in 1912, the City Council approved an. even tougher ordinance aimed at improving the city’s sexual morality in general. Unlike Ordinance No. 19371., the new ordinance was not aimed at prostitution per se, but sought to wipe- out all forms of sexual immorality. The new ordinance, Ordinance 25640, made it unlawful “for any person upon any public street or in any rooming house, lodging house, hotel, or other place in the City of Los Angeles, to solicit a person, of the opposite sex, to whom he or she is not married, to have sexual intercourse with such person, so soliciting.”1 ® 7 Resorting to a rooming house, lodging house, hotel, etc. for the purpose of unlawful sexual intercourse also 1 8 3 Ordinance No. 19371... 8 December 1.909, LACA. m Ordinance No, 19371,8 December 1.909, LACA.. 1 8 7 Ordinance No. 25640, Section 1, 6 August 1912, LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 72 became illegal under the new law as did renting a room for such purposes. Violators of the ordinance faced a stiff fine of up to $500, by imprisonment of up to six months, or both,’” Despite some noticeable lapses, enforcement of such anti- prostitution and morality-inducing laws became the “established pattern” in. Los Angeles.1 ® Laws passed on the national and state levels reinforced Los Angeles’ new anti-prostitution stance. In 1910, Congress passed the “White Slave Traffic Act,” also known as the Mann Act, banning the transportation of women or girls across state lines for the purpose of prostitution or for any other immoral purpose. On the state level, Progressives—including religious and civic groups as well as women’s clubs—promoted the Red Light Abatement Act. The law promoted the attack of prostitution in. the established, red-light districts not by harassment and incarceration of prostitutes, pimps, or madams, “but by making property owners liable for the activities of their renters.”1 ® The bill mandated that any building that served as a place o f prostitution would be closed for a full year by the court.1 9 1 Property owners, unhappy at the prospect of losing high rental profits, organized a statewide campaign against the legislation arguing that if the law passed, a number of horrible consequences would follow. Crimes against “decent” women, for example, would increase; or the law would be used to blackmail, real estate owners. Finally, '* * Ordinance No. 25640, Sections 2-4,. 6 August 1.9,12, LACA. 1 8 9 Robinson, famished Angeis, .25-6. m Patricia O’Flinn, “The Elimination of Prostitution*?: Moral. Purity Campaigns, Mirtd'e 1 1 m Clubwomen, and the California Red. Light Abatement Act,” www.8fsu.edu/-hsa/nsdli Jit hini (downloaded 5 August 1997), 9, m O’Flinn, “Elimination of Prostitution,” 10. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 73 opponents of the law claimed that it would cause prostitution to spread throughout the community,1 9 2 Los Angeles minister Charles Locke expressed his support for the law in, his pamphlet, White Slavery in Los Angeles. He contended that the “most effectual remedy thus far discovered for eliminating this social, peril {the Red Light district] is a law which has been operating in Iowa, for the last four years and has just been adopted in Califomia.”1 M In a more spirited passage, Locke indicated that the Red Light Abatement Act should be only part of a number of strict prohibitory laws which out to be enacted “with penalties which will insure obedience.”m Progressives in Los Angeles continued their interest in suppressing commercial vice, including prostitution, until about 191.5. “A platoon of ministers” was sworn in as special, constables to aid the police in their efforts to keep the city free front, prostitution. In addition, the Morals Efficiency League, staffed by clergymen, also supervised police activity in. the city.1 9 5 One pair of writers described the new settlers as “straight laced folk” who brought with them, a “new spirit of sanctification [that] slowly but surely pertneatfed] the normally liberal- minded town.”* 9 6 In 1913 Willard Huntington Wright published an article titled, “Los Angeles— 'The Chemically Pure,” in which he lamented the change in the community, saying, “At almost every point where the innocent stranger attempts to live his normal life of pleasure seeking, he will find himself thwarted by some m Rosen, Lmt Sisterhood, 29. m Charles Edward Locke, White Slavery in Los Angeles (Los Angeles; First Methodist Episcopal Church, 1913), 13. m Locke, White Slavery, 14. 1 9 5 Woods, Police in 1 ms Angeles, 27, 1 9 6 Cohn and Chisholm, “Take the Witness, ’ f 187-8, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. ordinance,, the primary object of which is to force Middle West moralities upon all inhabitants. Puritanism is the inflexible doctrine in Los Angeles,” In another passage, Wright indicated that city’s prostitutes had all but vanished when he asked, “Where, indeed, is the notorious Pearl Morton.. . . and the phthisical Violet? The Stone Front and the Antlers’ Club are gone., . , New High. Street is a row of cheap rooming houses, and east of Alameda are small, manufacturing plants, Sonomtown is but a memory.. , . You will look in . vain for the flashing eye, the painted cheek, the silken, ankle. No yellow-haired [lasses] haunt the dark doorways of the downtown thoroughfares.” m Chemically Pure for How Long? Despite the influence of the progressive reformers and the pronunciation of writers such as Willard that the reformers had succeeded in. changing the moral tone of the city, there were indications that prostitutes continued to work throughout the city. LAPD policewomen such, as Aletha Gilbert (hired in 1902 as an assistant jail matron and promoted in 1912 to policewoman), for example, found that the “strict enforcement of vice laws neither eradicated prostitution nor reduced the incidence of venereal disease in the city.” Instead, Gilbert argued that the closing of the segregated, district in Los Angeles had actually scattered prostitutes throughout the m Willard Huntington Wright, “Los A..ngeles»~The Chemically Pure,” in Tim Smart Set Anthology, ed. Burton Rascoe and Groff Conklin (Mew York; Reyna! & Hitchcock, 1934), 90, 91-2. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 75 city, resulting in “'unprincipled men”' propositioning girls and women “in ever)' part of town ”m By 1915, a number of factors contributed to the re-emergence of organized commercial vice in Los Angeles.1 ® A new wave of corrupt city leaders contributed to the expansion, of the vice industry. Prominent individuals who profited from the city’s vice industry, for example, formed partnerships with supposed reformers in an effort to manipulate the police department2 0 0 The demand for gambling, prostitution, and illegal liquor also grew as a result of the city’s continued development The specter ofWWI and the opening of the Panama Canal prompted city officials to invest in the building of a suitable harbor so that the city could become a leading port in the West. The construction of the Los Angeles harbor resulted in the opening of new manufacturing jobs and increased both Los Angeles’ employment opportunities as wel l as its population, growth as individuals, especially the numbers of transient males—major patrons of prostitutes—grew,®1 Large numbers of women, many of whom had come to the city to work in the burgeoning motion picture industry, also migrated, to Los Angeles. By 1.915, leaders of the YWCA became so concerned about the situation that they 'persuaded members of the Hollywood Business Men’s Club to denote fifteen hundred dollars for the lease of the Twist Mansion, which would be used as “a club home for the moving picture girls and other young women 1 9 8 Appier, Policing Women, 77, 4, and 75. w Kevin Starr notes that Progressives had won sad lost Los Angeles in six short years. Starr, Inventing (he Dream, 270, 3 9 0 Woods, Police in Im Angeles, 34. 2 0 1 Woods, Police in Im Angeles, 37. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 76 of Hollywood,*5 * The local librarian, Mrs. Jones, talked of the necessity of the home because the majority of the five hundred women working in Hollywood had “no acquaintances, no place to go for clean recreation, no companions., no friends and no one to go to for advice and aid when circumstances {went] against them,” Miss Lee, corresponding secretary of the YWCA, added the “the stress of loneliness or of being out o f work and without funds frequently drove girls to do that which under other circumstances they would never countenance.”2 0 ’ Although little information regarding prostitution in Los Angeles is available for the years from 1915 to 1920, newspapers and statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department indicate that prostitution was increasing. One factor behind the increase in prostitution may have been the growth of the city itself. Between 1910 and 1920, the city’s population grew from 319,198 to 576,673 residents, which included many transient males—the segment of the population, most likely to patronize prostitutes.2 0 4 The higher numbers for prostitution, however, may also reflect the Police Department’s willingness to prosecute prostitution-related violations. The concern over the spread of venereal disease among American recruits during World War 1 had resulted in a major assault on prostitution, and a study of prostitution, in America published in 19.21 furnished statistics from Los Angeles’ “disposition of cases in the courts” in 1916 as an example of “a more News clipping, circa 1915, Box 41, Scrapbook #32, YWCA Collection, Urban Archives Center, California Stele University Northridge. m News clipping, circa 1915, YWCA Collection, CSUN, 2 0 4 McWi.II.iams, Southern California, 14. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 77 vigorous type of prosecution” of prostitution.2 0 5 For its part, in 1917, the Police Department claimed that it was still working in close conjunction not only with the Sheriff s office and the District Attorney’s staff but also the Morals Efficiency Association—an organization that had been integral, to the suppression of vice from 1909 to 1915.** A .number of factors make the estimation, of prostitution in the city in the first decades o f the twentieth century difficult. The city itself underwent tremendous growth, the policy regarding prostitution changed with the passage of two new ordinances in 1909 and 1912, and the leadership of the city—particularly with regard to the Los Angeles Police Department (between 1.909 and 1921, the LAPD had ten different chiefs) -"also had little consistency. In. addition, anecdotal accounts from newspapers or reformers regarding the amount of prostitution in the city tend to differ from actual numbers of women arrested on prostitution or prostitution-related violations. The disparity between newspaper or reformers’ accounts of prostitution and numbers of prostitutes appearing in police .reports may be due to prostitutes’ successful evasion of police, priorities of the police department’s chief regarding prosecutions of crimes, exaggerated accounts by reformers, or the arrest of prostitutes on vagrancy charges that obfuscate the women’s participation in prostitution. Nevertheless, newspaper accounts and arrest statistics from the LAPD indicate that prostitution remained more or less on the rise in the city between, 1.900 m Howard B. Wookton, Prostitution in the United States: Prior to the Entrance of im United States into dm World War (1921; reprint, Montclair. Mew Jersey: Patterson Smith, 1960), 248, 2 0 6 Los Angeles Police .Department, Annual Report, Police Department, City ofAngeles, California, fo r the Fiscal fear Ending June 30,1917,27, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 78 and 1920, and that prostitution continued to increase during the 1920s and. 1930s (table 3). The number of prostitution establishments also appears to have continued to rise between 1900 and 1940 (table 4). Table 3 Estimated Number of Prostitutes Operating in Los Aageies, circa 1900-1940 Year Number of Pft. t « u i ______ Source _ _ _____ 1 .9 0 3 450 Los Angeles Times 1909 470* Reports of Police Judges, LACA 1915-6b 387 LAPD 1916-7 459 LAPD .1.919-20 294' LAPD 1.920s 574d LAPD I 930*.. . . „ _____ b404e ...............LAPD Source: LosAngeks Tima, 22 December 1903; Reports of Police Judges. LACA; LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1916-17; LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal years 1919-1920 through 1940. * This number .includes women who appeared before Los Angeles Police Judges between January and December, 1909, on a variety of charges including vagrancy, soliciting,, keeping a house of ill fame, and “offering body for prostitution.5 * While not all of these women may have been prostitutes, the stiff penalties given to these women for vagrancy (at the minimum $25 compared to $5 for men arrested on the same charge), for example, suggest that a high number of them were. b The figures listed for 1915-6 and 191.6-7 include arrests for solicitation and violating the rooming house ordinance (Ordinance No. 25640) against unlawful sexual intercourse (not limited to prostitution). Because the LAPD included mm and women together in their arrest statistics for these years, I tabulated the probable number of women arrested using the percentages of women, arrested for these charges in 191.9-1920. Women constituted 49% of foe arrests for the rooming house violation in 1919-20, and so I calculated that women may have constituted 45% of the arrests for the rooming house violation in 1915-6 and 1916-7. Women constituted 74% of arrests for soliciting in 1919-1920, and so 1 calculated that wom en, may have constituted 70% of lire arrests for soliciting in 1915-6 and 1916-7. “ Tire figures include women arrested for the rooming house violation as well as soliciting. d This figure represents the average number of women arrested from fiscal year 1921-1922 to fiscal year .1929-30 on the charge of “Offering” (Los Angeles City Ordinance 19371 until 1924, then Los Angeles City Ordinance 49354, Section I, thereafter). c This figure represents the average number of women arrested front fiscal year 1930-1 through 1940 on the charge o f Offering." (Los Angeles City Ordinance 49354, Section 1 ) Note: The estimates made using arrest statistics from the LAPD are probably low given that a number of prostitutes were arrested for “vagrancy” rather than solicitation, offering, or violation of the rooming house ordinance. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 79 Table 4 Estimated Number of Brothels Operating in Los Atigete, circa 19M L1940 Estimated Number of Year___ Brothels Source of Estimate _ _ 1908 100 Los Angeles Country Grand Jury 1915-6 274* LAPD 1916-7 355 LAPD 1,924-5 6 15*’ ’ LAPD 1927 500 Los Angeles Times 1937 603 Citizens Independent Vice Investigating Committee Angeles Times, I April 1927; CIVIC Pamphlet, nA. (circa 1937) Folder 1-7, Box 1, Miller Collection, CSUR ® The figures green for 1915-6 and 1916-7 concern the progress of the LAPD in “coping with the prostitution problem under the led Light Abatement Law” and indicate “places investigated, evidence obtained, and nuisance abated.” The number may be artificially high if certain addresses were investigated more than once because repeat investigations are not noted. b This number reflects the “reports toceivetT of'“sexual vice” from sources outside the police department. This number may also be artificially high in that brothels constitute only one form of sexual vice. Looking at die trajectory of estimates, a figure of around 400 might be more accurate. Chief Home’s introduction to the Annual Report for 1919-1920 contained a number of statements signaling the spread of crime in. the city. Home insisted that the crime wave in Los Angeles was typical of conditions in cities across the United States because of “the break-down of social restraint following the world war.”2 0 7 Nonetheless, Home praised the LAPD’s response, alleging that police department’s actions had resulted “in the greatest number of arrests of criminals ever recorded in western police annals.”2 0 3 Despite the record .number of arrests, however, the number of women arrested on prostitution-related offenses was lower than they had been in 1915-191.6.* These low prostitution statistics may reflect the emergence of a new political alliance between Mayor Woodman and the Times” city hall reporter, Horace 2 0 7 LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1919-1920,5, m LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1919-1920, 5. m LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal, year 1919-1.920, 45. The Metropolitan Squad alone arrested 105 people for soliciting and 7 people for keeping a house of ill fame. LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1919-1.920,43. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 80 K arr. Woods contends that Woodman and Karr “decided to open a section of Central Avenue to gambling,, girls and liquor” to finance the 1919 mayoralty campaign.2 5 0 According to Woods, Karr made a deal with George Henderson and George Brown, two African-Aniericans, who offered $25,000 in installments for permission to operate. The Los Angeles Record managed to expose the deal, and a grand jw y investigated but returned no convictions. The trial, however, ended the mayor’s career while establishing Henderson as “the most powerful black boss” in Los Angeles.2 1 1 ' Prostitution in. 1920s Los Angeles thus inherited a dual legacy from the past. On one hand, continuity remained Corrupt politicians, police officers worked in . conjunction with men and women involved in the illicit business of prostitution to perpetuate and spread prostitution in and throughout the city. In the 1920s, this system of corruption (already present decades previously) deepened aid grew increasingly male as well as interracial in character. The businessmen and women involved in prostitution carved, out a niche for their enterprise in an atmosphere friendly to (and encouraging of) sexual, commodification and catered to a clientele interested, in the illicit pleasures of the twin or triple pleasures of prostitution, bootleg alcohol, and gambling. Yet reformers had also made a mark on. prostitution, Informally, city officials and police officers continued to profit from, prostitution, and contributed to its growth, but formally city officials pandered to their morally conservative 2 1 0 Woods, Police in Im Angeles, 38, 2 1 1 Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 38-9. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 8 1 constituents. The issue of prostitution (and vice in general) thus remained a prominent one through the 1920s and 1930s as hopeful, city officials attempted to gamer favor from voters by claiming to have a tough anti-crime stance. While prostitution continu.ec! to grow and spread through the city, enforcement of laws against prostitution remained sporadic and discretionary at best. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 82 Part II; Prostitution la Los Angeles in the 1921)8, An Overview The decade of 1920 to 1930 witnessed a period of unprecedented growth in Los Angeles. Gains in such industries as oil, motion pictures, and real estate as well as growing tourism helped spark “the largest internal migration in . the history of the American people,”1 The population of Los Angeles increased front 576,673 to 1,238,048 over the decade, with an average of nearly 350 individuals permanently settling in Los Angeles every day.2 By 1920, Los Angeles had already surpassed San Francisco as the largest city in. California, and by 1.930, Los Angeles was the fifth largest city in the United States;’ Although Los Angeles settlers included a large contingent of retired Midwesterners, the city’s growing employment opportunities in the expanding metropolitan economy also enticed a more diverse population consisting of Mexicans, blacks, and Japanese, among others (table 5).4 Of the major appeals of Los Angeles, Hollywood proved one of the biggest, serving as both the city ’s largest industry and as a tourist attraction. Los Angeles’ climate and geography also played a role in the city’s growth. Settlers flocked, to the city for its warm, dry weather, and streetcars made repeated, stops at the city’s beaches which could become so flooded with people over holidays such as fee Fourth of July that 1 McWilliams, Southern California, 135; Weinstock likened the Influx of settlers to a “swarm of invading locusts.” Matt Weinstock,. My L. A, (New York; Current Books, Inc., 1947), 73. 2 McWilliams, Southern California, 14; Hensteli, Sumkim and Wealth, 33. 3 Starr, Material Dream, 69, 4 Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 75. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 83 Tabic 5 Racial/Ethnic Contpoakiou of the City of Los Angeles* 1920-1930 im ' ' M % of Total ; a ________ _ % of Total White 546,864 94.8 1,073,584 86,7 Negro ,1 ,5 ,5 7 9 2.7 38,894 3.1 Chinese 2,062 0.4 3,009 0.2 Japanese 11,61.8 2.0 21,081 1.7 Indian 189 0.0 616 0.0 Mexicans0 30,000 5,2 97,116 7.8 Other 'Races 3 6 1 , 0.1 3,748 0,3 Total 376,673 100 1,238,048 100 Source: U.S. Census, Fourteenth C ensus, 110,118; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth C ensus of the United States. 1930. Volum e 1 1 1 Population. (Washington, 1932), 266,280, * "Mexicans” are listed as a separate category only for 1930, The 1920 estimate comes from Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 90 as well as Oxnam. The Mexican in Im Angeles. 5. there was “literally standing room only.”5 Booms in the oil business and in real estate proved advantageous to the city's growth as well, and these industries, in , conjunction with the popularity of the automobile, helped push, the boundaries of the city well beyond its pueblo beginnings (see map 4), By 1.921, for example, construction of Wilshire Boulevard, a major artery to connect downtown Los Angeles with the Pacific Ocean, had begun, and by the end. of the decade Los Angeles had departed from the pattern of older cities by becoming “an. expanding network of com.nouni.ties linked by roadways.” Such commttttiti.es included the oil- rich Saute Fe Springs as well as real estate developments such as Torrance, Tujunga, South (Me, Lynwood, Bell, Hawthorne, and Maywood. * In addition, communities such as Pasadena, San Marino, Glendale, Alhambra, San Gabriel,, along with the beach, cities of Long Beach, and Santa Monica, continued the growth already under 5 H.enstell, Sunshine and Wealth. 27. * Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 13, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 84 ' -w * ? ’ ( S ’ " '■ X T '" * ’ * ✓ .2 * % « * » ,. ,, ^ » .,. ,<i(* j{ _ ’ ' - j f ; .”, f ■ * ■ ■ ■'*•■•■ •.•'/•?■ / :' " ‘ ^ "' ‘ V ‘ ? v . y V " i / V . > . "• • • ' '- ; • V \'-; /-* 1 • J ' •••,.,’ L ;,,. # - /.?*. ..'•fief ' f i y & > » ^ y y y * / , • * / * h , I * , r T * ■ * - * ' w t y l , > ■ ; * * r , / i . 'r „ / - V“ * v / ' s y s - 1 v * 5 * v ' J U * * - -y r * ‘x t ■ ; '■■•" l \ " ■ ■ . • " ■ ■ v. I. ; ■ • / , % . , ' , ; x ^ y y . y ' . : / . . J. : ; : i ' ' \ ’ v>c';: . . V T r i ■.. - v . . - . u ■ .- ■ / i : -a --x x -a x ’ - \x .x m ■ ’■ ^ < • l/ f / y y y ^ y 'y v > ; * j t i - ^ V - * ^ ,/y 4 ‘\ y « , : ' y.X ,;< * *• ' ' * • • ‘ * '> • - v* ,/* ,1 y * J ,?AX I r. v r-;< w« ; 4* ^/-*uyy „ « s , f » v V v 5 ■ I Map 4 The Padfie Etertric RaUwaj- in Angries circa 1910 Source; hltp^/ftww.asc.odB/isiJ/ftfduvos/laAiistone/rcdeara/recfcar^Biap.jpeg R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 85 way, while new' developments sprang up in. Palos Verdes, Playa del Rey, Highland Park, Eagle Rock, Burbank, Van Nuys, Conoga Park, and Culver City.’ By the end of the 1920s, Los Angeles had grown to 450 square miles from the 337 square miles it had occupied in 1916.® Indeed, glancing through the minutes of the Los Angeles City Council, it appears that questions of street improvements and expansions preoccupied city leaders. Crime expanded along with the city, following the new settlers of Los Angeles into their developing neighborhoods. Prohibition, in effect in Los Angeles since 1916, encouraged the spread and expansion of crime, both because of the widespread demand for illegal alcohol and its increasing profitability as part of a larger package of illegal amusements, including gambling and prostitution. In. the Los Angeles Police Department’s Annual Report for 1919-1920, Chief Home lamented the rise of crime in the city, noting that the “crime wave” had resulted in. a “marked, increase in police activities” especially on the part of the Chinatown and Metropolitan Squads, special units within the police department aimed at suppressing gambling, prostitution, the illegal, sale of liquor, and the use of narcotics.9 A handful of bold criminals, for example, set up floating casinos on luxury boats which operated three miles off the shores of the beach, cities of Santa Monica and Long 7 Starr, Material Dreams, 84. ® Starr, Material Dream, 83-4. 9 LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1919-1920, 5,42,45. The Metropolitan Squad operated. ‘ In ail parts of the city” and its express purpose was “[pjrotecting the public morals by the suppression of gambling, prostitution and the illegal sale of liquor.” The Chinatown Squat! was devoted to the suppression of gambling and the use of narcotics. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 86 Beach, just out of state and federal jurisdiction.1 0 One writer commented that Los Angeles was a bootlegger's “paradise,” that “beneath the surface the town is one of the wettest in, the country,”1 1 Crime also prospered in such communities as Culver City, which was known for its “speakeasies, gin joints, roadhouses, and cafes,” Boasting several film studios as well as a reputation for being soft on crime, Culver City attracted crowds to back rooms filled “gambling, bookmaking, and prostitution,” 1 2 Reformers constantly complained about the beach city of Venice as well, charging that it was a “pleasure district” where gambling joints were “wide open ,”u Liquor, gambling, and prostitutes were also readily available to men working in the oil wells in such places as Saute Fe Springs, a community located several miles to the southeast of Los Angeles, Tent cities, for example, sprang up on the edges of such oil towns with casinos and gambling dives operating “with no respect for the law.... Prostitutes of every description flocked, to where the action was.”1 4 By 1926, the spread of crime in the city of Los Angeles had become so pronounced that the Times commented on it in an editorial, noting that, in searching for criminals, police no longer only looked “in that part of the city associated with gas works and railway yards, but their clews [sic] take them into exclusive 1 0 Basil Woon, Incredible land: A Jaunty Baedeker to Hollywood and the Great Southwest (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1933), xxiv. ” Mayo, Los Angeles, 323. 1 2 Jim Heimann, Sins of the City: The Real Lm Angeles Noir (San Francisco: Chronicle Books, 1999), 6. 1 3 Bob Shuler’ #Magazine 1 (Nov 1922): 32; Bob Shuler '$ Magazine 5 (June 1926); 89, 1 4 Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 34. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 87 residential districts.” ’5 The editorial also implied that crime was becoming increasingly profitable, claiming that “the fleeing criminal” was apt to be found in “a pair of radiant golf knickers,.. wielding a mashie” or at the beach “for the week end in his sport roadster.” 1 6 At least one police chief also remarked on the spread, of crime throughout the city. Already in 1.922, for example, Police Chief Oaks outlined how' prostitution in particular had benefited from the city’s urban sprawl. Instead of being contained within a red-light district well known to police, prostitution had essentially gone underground by moving into residential districts where it “has shown, a tendency to become disguised and secreted ... and..,, under the color of .respectability, get quite a hold before discovered.”1 7 Although only rough representations of the number and composition of people involved in prostitution in Los Angeles, arrest statistics nevertheless indicate an overall rise in the number of women, arrested for prostitution and related crimes. In 1921, the LAPD began to arrest only women for an offense referred to generally as “offering” in their annual reports. Women arrested for “offering” prior to 1924 were guilty of violating Ordinance No. 19371, “An. Ordinance forbidding soliciting by prostitutes.” Women arrested for “offering” after 1924 were guilty of violating Ordinance No, 49354, Section 1 which made it “unlawful for any woman to offer her body for the purpose of prostitution or to solicit any man for money to have carnal intercourse with her, or to agree to have carnal intercourse with any man for money, 1 5 Los Angeles Times, 29 June 1926, 1 6 Los Angeles Times, 29 June 1926. 171jos Angeles Times, 4 August 1922. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 88 within the City of Los Angeles.” Section 1 of Ordinance No. 495354 replaced Ordinance No. 19371, while the following sections replaced earlier ordinances forbidding “unlawful sexual intercourse” (previously Ordinance No. 25640) and using “public vehicles for immoral purposes” (previously Ordinance No. 43646)3* Although police also arrested women as well as men. for violating other sections of the 1924 ordinance., police consistently arrested only women for “offering” (presumably an abbreviated form of “offering to commit an immoral act”) from 1921 through 1949. The fluctuation in arrest statistics may be due to the high turnover in police chiefs for 'this decade (there were ten different chiefs during this time period) or to changing enforcement policies depending on the public mood (see chart 1 and table 6). In 1927, estimates of “protected” prostitutes and brothels in the city—prostitutes or brothels exchanging bribes for police protection, from arrest—ran, as high as 2,200 and 500 respectively.1 9 if such estimates are correct, for example, and the police statistics do not reflect the 2,200 “protected” prostitutes, then Los Angeles had, close to three thousand, prostitutes in the city, and perhaps several hundred more if police continued to arrest prostitutes on charges other than offering. In addition, many prostitutes also almost certainly evaded, arrest Thus, these arrest statistics can only hint at the total number of prostitutes in Los Angeles in 1920s. 1 8 Los Angeles Ordinance No. 49354, adopted by the Los Angeles City Council 24 July 1924, LACA. 1 9 Los Angeles Times, 1 April 1927; Boh Shuler’ s Magazine 5 (February ,1927): 269. These estimates may also be .low since they concerned prostitutes or brothels R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 89 Chart I Arrests of Women on Offering in die 1920* 900 i * 0 0 m + ~ f i O O 500 400 ■ 300 - 200 - I — I 100 |~ o j ..,.. "V — V mx~ 2 iw-j ftsadegut O a te# Murray Evering!## X w w s 1923-4 Y o H m e r 1 < > > < V .7 H e f t l h m 7 - % Dm Y * w a n d o l P o lite Table 6 Women Arrested for Violating City “Offering* Ordinance, 1921-19303 1921-2 1922-31 ’ 1923-4 1924-5 1925-6 1926-7 1927-8 1928-9 1929-30 248 527 1.19__ 778° 840“ 672 642 765 Source: Los Angeles Police Department, Annual Report, fiscal years 1921-1922 through 1929-1930, 8 Although the ordinance regarding “offering” changed in 1924 from O rdinance 19371 to O rdinance 495394, tire LAPD consistently arrested mainly women o k this charge. Only three men were arrested for “offering” in the 1920s and 1930s.' b Neither the Los Angeles Police Department’s Historical Society nor the Los Angeles City Archives had the annual report for this year. c Although fee annual report for this year included “im m oral use of vehicle or public lodging place” wife offering for a total of 851 women arrested, the report indicated in another table that. 73 women had been arrested for these latter charges. The figure of 778 thus represents a subtraction of fee 73 women arrested for “immoral v ise of lodging place” and “using vehicle for immoral purposes” from the figure given for “offering and im m oral use of vehicle of public lodging place.” dTbe annual report for these years included “im moral use of-vehicle or public lodging place” wife offering, with no separate statistics for “im m oral use of lodging place” and “using vehicle for im m oral purposes.” R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 90 Despite the urban sprawl occurring during the 1920s, Los Angeles's downtown area retained its vitality, continuing to function as the center of the city’s commercial and professional enterprises.** Writing in 1932, Morrow Mayo asserted that despite sprawling out over a territory of 442 square miles, Los Angeles retained its center; “no matter how far a city spreads out, the people will congregate in its financial, department-store, and theatrical districts. And it so happens that all of these . . . are within a .radius of eight square blocks.”2 1 A guide for prospective visitors to Los Angeles located the business center of the city at Broadway and Sixth Street, an intersection a few blocks south of the old Plaza area.® The construction, of financial houses on Spring Street, utility headquarters on Fifth, department stores on. Broadway, and. the Civic Center at Temple (as well as the Biltmore Hotel, a new central library, the United Artists Theater Building, City Hall, and the Richfield Building) prevented further shifting of the city’s center, despite the increasing traffic congestion which had caused businesses to relocate south of the Plaza in the first place.2 3 Although the padlocking of Los Angeles’ red-light district in 1909 and the subsequent razing o f cribs to make way for street extensions or new businesses helped redistribute prostitution and other forms of vice throughout the expanding city, the vitality of the city’s center also encouraged a renewed concentration of 2 0 Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 148. Starr writes, for example, that “[i]t is simply a myth to state that twentieth-century Los Angeles had no downtown.” Starr, Material Dreams, 78, 2 1 Mayo, Los Angeles, 233-4. 2 2 Woon, Im m iiU e iMtul, 12. n Fogelson, Fragmented M etrtpoiis, 148; Starr, Material Dreams, 78, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 91 brothels, speakeasies, and gambling joints in close proximity to the central business district. Many of these brothels, speakeasies, and gambling joints could be found on Main Street, one of the city’s main arteries, located just a few blocks east of Broadway. Dubbed the “Bowery of Los Angeles” by one author, Main Street housed the city’s “cheap brothels” which catered to a . working class male population, consisting of lumberjacks and miners as well as laborers awaiting harvesting work in. the surrounding agricultural areas or construction workers anticipating jobs building the .roads, dams, aqueducts, bridges, and docks required for a rapidly growing city.2 4 The city’s cheap boarding houses and hotels were located on Main Street as well, providing individual prostitutes easy access to prospective clients as well as affordable and convenient venues to carry out their business.2 5 Louis Adamic (a prominent writer for American Mercury? in the 1920s and. 1930s) recalled meeting a streetwalker on Main Street his first day in Los Angeles in 1.922. Adamic described the woman as “between thirty and forty, and shabbily dressed.... She apparently was on about the next to the lowest rang on the ladder of her profession.”2 6 Other questionable businesses situated on. Main Street included “speakeasies where fiery ‘alky’ is sold for as little as ten cents a gulp” as well as burlesque theaters and dance halls.2 7 One of those burlesque theaters, the Follies Theater»-at Main and Third 2 4 Woon, incredible Land, 10-1,1, 2 5 Neil Larry Shurosky, “Tacit Acceptance: Respectable Americans and Segregated Prostitution, 1870-1910,” Journal o f Social History 19 (Winter 1986): 667; Woon, Incredible Land, 10; Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 78. M Louis Adamic, Laughing in the Jungle: The Autobiography o f an Immigrant in America (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1932), 196,197, 199. 2 7 Woon, Incredible Land, 11, Dance halls on Main Street included Danceland and the Hippodrome Palace, Linda Nueva Espana Maram, "Negotiating Identity: Youth, Gender, and Popular Culture in R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 92 Street, came tinder attack in 1927 when, police arrested thirty-eight people viewing a show, charging them with “violating a». alleged city ordinance prohibiting any obscene, indecent or lewd play or representation..”3 Dance halls also provided titillating enterlammer.it In 1921, the Times reported that, the Moonlight Dance Hall at 537 1/2 South Main Street, faced revocation of its license 'because police found intoxicated persons there along with improper dancing. In addition, police also discovered, that “young women dancing teachers under 21 years of age have solicited and made appointments with patrons for improper purposes after dancing hours.® While Main Street offered a .range of illicit activities, including prostitution, to a working class clientele, another downtown, location, served, as the headquarters for the city’s local crime syndicate.3 0 Brought about by similar conditions existing in cities across the United States—namely the profitability of the illegal, liquor business and the cooperation, of corrupt police officers and city officials, the criminal syndicate of Los Angeles came to control, a large portion of the prostitution, industry In conjunction with its involvement in bootlegging and gambling. Control of prostitution, by a criminal syndicate comprised of corrupt police and enterprising men had roots in the nineteenth century, but it became more extensive during Prohibition Los Angeles’s Little Manilla, i920s-1940s” (PhD. digs., University of California Los Angeles, 1996), 182. 2 8 California vs. Dalton, Los Angeles Municipal Court #33250 (March 10,19,28), “California Mii.nici.pal Court (Los Angeles) Records, 1915-1931,” or Collection 228, Box .1 , UCLA Special Collections. 2 9 LosAngeks Times, 31 August 1921, 3 0 To be examined in more detail in chapter two, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 93 as prostitution became integrated into a larger conglomeration of illicit businesses,3 1 As in other cities, the Los Angeles crime syndicate incorporated prostitution into its operations in order to provide prospective customers with a variety of services and consequently to profit from the money prostitution could earn the organization. Unlike its infamous counterparts in Chicago and New York City, however, the criminal syndicate of Los Angeles remained, a local and generally unobtrusive organization that spumed violence and publicity. The ‘' ‘Syndicate,” also known as the “Combination,” ted its headquarters one block west of Main Street on Spring Street, but its business holdings included several additional downtown addresses as well as scattered locations throughout the city.3 2 Prostitution also became an entrenched part of increasingly ethnically diverse neighborhoods situated along the fringes of the Los Angeles’ central business district. Communities such as Sonoratown, Little Tokyo, and. Central Avenue, lying to north and southeast of downtown Los Angeles housed large populations of Mexican, Japanese, and black newcomers respectively, and as their neighborhoods evolved, the population of prostitutes grew as well. Although Sonoratown, occupying the old Plaza area of the city north of the central business district, contained a diverse population of foreign, born workers, Mexicans and Mexican Americans represented one of the dominant groups in the area. When the city’s center had begun to migrate south and east from, the Plaza beginning at the turn of 3 1 See Gilfoyte, City o f Eros, chapter 12 and Stephen F ox, Blood ami Power: Organised Crime in 1'wentiedbCentury America (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1,989), 57. 3 2 Woon, Incredible Land, 11. See chapter 2 for a further articulation of the Syndicate’s business interests. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 94 the twentieth centuiy, the Plaza area declined as a result. By the 1920s, prostitution flourished in the area, along with the availability of cheap alcohol. In 1921, the prevalence of such vices elicited a newspaper exposd of conditions in Sonoratown. Reports about the area claimed that the availability o f prostitutes operating in ‘''plain sight” along with the availability of “tainted whiskey” indicated that “an old fashioned red light district” had reemerged in Los Angeles.3 3 The communities of Little Tokyo and Central Avenue also contended with a rising population of prostitutes.3 4 The neighborhood of Little Tokyo, a predominately Japanese community in Los Angeles, bounded Main Street on the east and stretched south along San Pedro Avenue. According to one observer, Little Tokyo “enjoyed a high density of second-hand shops, boardinghouses, saloons, and whorehouses.'”3 3 The predominately African-American neighborhood of Central Avenue bordered Little Tokyo on the east, and also stretched south along Central Avenue down, to Slausom Avenue. Central Avenue in the 1920s was considered by many to be the West Coast’s equivalent to Lennox Avenue, the major black thoroughfare o f Harlem. Although Central Avenue was famous, among both black and white Angelenos for its glittering nightclubs, lavish hotels, and hot jazz, prostitution also attracted its fair share of patrons. USC sociology students f Los Angeles Times119 April 1921. 3 4 To be considered in more detail in chapter three. 3 3 Model!, Racial Accommodation, 67. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 95 conducting surveys of the neighborhood in the 1920s, for example, lamented the “outstanding problem” that prostitution had become in the area.3 6 Prostitution in both Little Tokyo and Central Avenue had, already m the 1920s, become part of a larger organized crime syndicate as well. In Little Tokyo, th ey o teo —a Japanese crime syndicate—coordinated its prostitution, liquor, and gambling interests from the Tokyo Club, a building located at Jackson, and Central Avenue.3 7 In the Central Avenue community, much of the prostitution existed through, the cooperation, of a handful of African American, entrepreneurs and corrupt police officers and city officials. In 1919, for example, newspapers brought to light only the first of several scandals regarding Central Avenue and political corruption. According to the story, George Henderson and George Brown—two African American “vice dealers,” offered $25,000 to finance incumbent mayor Frederick Woodman’s campaign, in exchange for opening up a section of Central. Avenue “to gambling, girls and liquor.”3 8 A number of enterprising women also participated in the expanding business of prostitution, many of them operating in. Hollywood.3 9 The most infamous madam of 1920s Los Angeles, for example, was Lee Francis who published, an. autobiography in 1965 detailing her experiences as the madam of “Hollywood’s * * Bond “Negro in Los Angeles,” 264, 3 7 Alee Dubro and David E Kaplan, “California’s Yakuza: Foothold in Little Tokyo,” The Californians 5 (July/August .1987): 39. 3 ® Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 38, w To be considered in more detail in chapter four. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 96 most fashionable and most fatuous chain of whore houses,”4 0 Francis, who enjoyed police protection through her relationship with the Syndicate, discussed the profitability o f providing sexual services to members of the city’s motion picture industry; noting that their “fantastic salaries” led them “to all maimer of indulgences,”4 1 Although Francis may have been the most infamous madam operating brothels in Holly wood., she faced a great deal of competition from other women. Reformers, for example, repeatedly indicted Hollywood for its immorality, complaining on more than one occasion that “Hollywood was honeycombed with prostitutes.”4 2 Many Angelenos argued that the prevalence of prostitution, in the area resulted from the large number of women who had flooded the area in hopes of motion, picture contracts but had turned to prostitution to pay the bills when studio work was not forthcoming. As a result, the innocent, aspiring film actress turned prostitute became a common literary device in stories written to discourage young women from leaving home for Hollywood. What the perpetuators of this stereotype, however, did not take into account was the increasing sexual sophistication and street smarts of women in Hollywood, as the example of Olive Clark Day and others will illustrate. To make their business profitable, the prostitutes of Los Angeles had to come up with creative strategies not only for attracting clients but also for evading law m Lee Francis, ladies on Call: The Most Intimate Recollections o f a Hollywood Maekm (Los Angeles: Holloway House Publishing Co., 1965), inside cover. 4 1 Frauds, Ladies on Call, 105. 4 2 Cedric Belfrage, Promised Lind; Notes for a History (Loadon: Victor Gollancz L td , 1938), 180. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 97 authorities. While some prostitutes certainly tailed at this effort, becoming victims of drug or alcohol abuse or the physical and emotional abuse of pimps (and sometimes clients), many others showed a business alacrity that revealed both sexual savvy and resourcefulness. Olive Clark Day, for example, did not possess Lee Francis’ connections with the Syndicate or her budget for day to day operations, so she offered prospective sexual services that most of higher class madams spumed, especially arranging sexual encounters involving supposedly (but usually not) ‘‘ innocent’9 girls. The pressure to perform a variety of sexual services to attract customers—traditionally the drawing card of higher-class brothels-affected. even smaller enterprises by the 1920s with prostitutes in Los Angeles typically offering oral and, even anal sex in addition to vaginal intercourse. In her dissertation on New York City prostitution, Elizabeth Clement connects the diversification of sexual services prostitutes offered their clients to competition from “treating” girls who would exchange the more conventional vaginal intercourse for gifts. Prostitutes had to provide prospective clients with something that treating girls did not,4 3 Because the desire to evade arrest matched prostitutes’ interest in attracting customers, prostitutes also concocted cunning schemes to elude law authorities. Prostitutes working out of a specific location, for example, often pretended to have a legitimate business. Day, for example, claimed, to be operating an employment agency. Claiming to be a chiropractic office, however, constituted the typical disguise although others also pretended to be legitimate massage parlors. Many prostitutes 4 5 Clement, “Trick or Treat,” 33 S . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 98 also evaded police with their use of the automobile—either as a means of transportation to various locations within and without the city or as the location of the sexual exchange itself The lack of affiliation with a particular location made it more difficult for police to pinpoint where prostitutes were operating, frustrating attempts at arrests. Pimps also played an important role in the lives of many of the city’s prostitutes,, often, securing customers as well as bribing police officers. As the city grew in the 1920s, prostitution expanded as well becoming wen more complex and widespread. The next three chapters of this dissertation will focus on the three major features that defined it: !) the development of prostitution under the aegis of the city’s criminal syndicate, 2) in the context of the city’s major ethnic communities, and 3) in the context of Hollywood. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Chapter 2 Prostitution and Los Angeles* Criminal Syndicate in the 1920s 99 In trod action Because it is my contention that a distinct feature of prostitution in the 1920s and 1930s was its evolution into an enterprise dominated by men, this chapter examines the process by which, men, specifically a criminal syndicate (referred to simply as “the Syndicate” by newspapers and other contemporary narratives) which dealt in. bootleg alcohol and gambling in addition to prostitution, began to control much of Los Angeles’ prostitution industry in the 1920s. Despite the focus on men, I also examine both the drawbacks and advantages women working in the prostitution business obtained as a result of their connection with the Syndicate. The Origin aid Development of the Criminal Syndicate of Los Angeles The criminal syndicate of Los Angeles began to take shape after the election of Mayor George Cryer in 1921. Cryer came to office largely through the efforts of friend and political ally, Kent Parrot, who built a pro-Ciyer coalition out of several of the many interest groups in the city.1 This coalition not only elected Cryer in 1.921, but also helped keep Cryer in office through 1.929, and. as a result, Kent Parrot, wielded considerable influence on Cryer. In 1924, Robert Shuler—already a 1 For further elaboration on Parrot’s efforts to elect Cryer see Pogelso.fi, Fragmented Metropolis, 219; Thomas Joseph Sitton, “Urban Polities and Reform in New Deal Los Angeles; The Recall of Mayor Frank L. Shaw” (PhD. dm., 'University of California Riverside, 1983). 21; Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 104. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. to o vociferous critic o f the Cryer administmtion-“ -commented that Parrot was the city’s political boss, aid the Los Angeles Record went so far as to label Parrot the “ tie facto mayor of Los Angeles.”2 Parrot’s role in the formation of the criminal syndicate is not entirely clear. Some of the most damning statements regarding Parrot’s involvement in . the orga.fflza.ticm of the city’s vice industries came from Robert (“Fighting Bob”) Staler, the fundamentalist minister of Trinity Methodist Church.. Carey McWilliams referred to Shuler as a zealot and fanatic and credited, him with being the “boss” of Los Angeles5 ethics, politics, and morals.3 Shuler represented the conservative element of the American population of the 1.920s in. his opposition to the teaching of evolution in schools, his anti-immigrant stance, and Ms attacks on immorality and corruption. Prominent and largely popular in the 1920s and 1930s, Shuler critiqued the city administration from, the pulpit as well, as in. Ms own. magazine and radio broadcasts. The veracity of Shuler’s accusations, however, is difficult to measure. One of Shuler’s contemporaries, for example, expressed scom for Shuler’s influence in Los Angeles politics, bestowing a number of derogatory epitaphs on Shuler including “[bjiggoted, ignorant,. . . the town tattler, the common scold, [and] the ecclesiastical censor.”4 In addition, the Times, reporting on. Shuler’s 2 Bob Shuler '$ Magceim 3 (November 1924): 498; Los Angeles Record, 3 March 1924 reprinted in the Los Angeles Times, 22 April 1925; Sitton, “Urban Politics,” 23; Woods, Police in LosAngeks, 105. 3 McWilliams, Southern California, 343, 4 Joseph Lilly, “Metropolis of (he West,” The North American Review (September 1931), 244. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 101 testimony before a grand jury in 1926, noted that Shuler had admitted Ms testimony had included “nothing specific,”’ Historians look critically on Shuler as well, but admit him a degree of credibility/’ After all, while many of Shuler’s charges may not have been entirely accurate, many others appear to be justified. Cryer’s administration was marked by a series of scandals, and even the current web site for the Los Angeles Police Department admits that beginning in 1920, “varying levels of corruption tainted local government and the [Los Angeles Police] Department” for the “better part of the next 20 years.”7 In addition, one historian argues that politicians in Los Angeles were under pressure by the Los Angeles public to enforce the law in such a way as to satisfy “community morality without impinging too much on the underworld elements.”8 Although certain sources, including Robert Shuler, may have exaggerated Parrot’s involvement in criminal activities. Parrot does appear to have contributed to the formation of the criminal syndicate both through his role in arranging “police protection” and his association with Charles Crawford.9 Already in 1922, for example, the Times carried a story in which Police Chief Oaks accused Parrot of 5 Las Angeles Times, 20 January 1926, b See, for example, Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 36. la Material Dreams, Kevin Stair has an extended description of Shuler. See pages 136-9, 1 See the section titled “History of the LAPD,” http://www.lapdonline.org (downloaded 28 January 20020. 8 Fpgeison, Fragmented Metropolis, 220. 9 For a more complete list of the interests opposing Cryer and Parrot as well as the political issues at stake, see Sitton, “Urban Politics/’ 23. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 102 police Interference.! t > Two years later, the Los Angela Record claimed that Parrot was behind Mayor Ctyer’s decision to oppose the California Crime Commission’s efforts to make the Los Angeles Police Department more efficient. The Record suggested that Parrot had accepted thousands of dollars from “gamblers., bootleggers, [and] painted women who live outside the law” in exchange for “tolerant consideration” from the police, and thus wanted to keep the Commission from possibly upsetting Ms elaborate pay-off system, 1 1 That same year, Shuler began printing Ms suspicions about Parrot, claiming that he received letters each week asserting that Parrot collected a “stream of protection money.”1 2 Because the following year marked an election year, Shuler’s attacks on Parrot (and the city administration) inte.tisifi.ed, and Parrot turned up frequently in. Shuler’s magazine. Shuler, for example, questioned .Parrot’s role in. the replacement of a vice squad captain, saying he feared that Parrot had made the replacement in order to make the squad “impotent and worthless while gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging yield a rich return to the ‘high-ups. ” ’1 3 More often, however, Shuler’s denunciations of Parrot consisted of general statements .linking the prevalence of gambling, drinking, and prostitution in the city to political corruption, engineered by Parrot and then calling cm readers to clean up the city by replacing 1 0 Las Angeles rimes, 28 July 1922. 1 1 Los Angeles Record, 3 March 1924 reprinted in the Los Angeles Times, 22 April i 925, 1 2 Bob M itk r’ sMagazine 3 ('November .1924): 468. * * Bob Shuler '$ Magazine 3 (January 1925): 523. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 103 “any man supported by Kent Parrot for Mayor,” 5 4 Despite Shulers efforts* Los Angeles voters re-elected Cryer; and Shuler continued to criticize the administration for its corruption* especially its connections to commercialized vice.1 5 The A o -s Angeles Times also continued to single Parrot out as the real political power in city politics, and accused. Parrot of taking protection money from prostitutes, gamblers, and bootleggers.*4 One historian has characterized the protection of the major criminal interests in the city by the Parrot-Cryer organization as a “distinct” policy.1 ' 7 By 19.29, the accusations of vice protection finally took their foil when a Shuler- backed candidate, John Porter, won the mayoral election, promising a clean administration which would, wipe out crime and vice. Not only did Parrot create the perfect setting for the rise of a criminal syndicate in Los Angeles by establishing a system of police protection, he also appears to have made a direct connection to the Syndicate through Ms associate, Charles Crawford. While Parrot was an obvious presence in Los Angeles politics, and thus the subject of numerous harsh attacks appearing in newspapers as well as Boh Shuler's Magazine, Crawford maintained a more mysterious presence in. Los Angeles—at least until, his purported involvement in an attempted frame-up of a councilman in 1929 as well as in a stock-fraud case in 1930, and then his subsequent murder in 1931. The Aw Angeles Times index forth© years 1912-1927, for example, 1 4 Bob Shuler ' $ Magazine 4 (March 1925); 6; Bob Shuler ’ $ Magazine 4 (April 1925); 25; Bob Shuler's Magazine 4 (May 1925): 54. 1 3 A few examples include Bob Shuler ’ s Magazine 4 (December 1925): 238; Bolt Shuler Magazine 6 (March 1927): 19; Bob Shuler’ s Magazine 6 (August 1927), 127, l* io$A ngek$ Times, 1 April 1927. 1 7 Woods, Police in I m Angeles, 109. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 104 contains only one reference to Charles Crawford (directing the .researcher to a story on Mrs. Lillian Glass). Leslie White, a former detective from the Los Angeles district attorney’s office, recalled in his autobiography, that Crawford—also known as the “Gray W olf5 because of his “whitish-gray thatch of hair”™was “almost a legendary figure about whom, all sorts of rumors and mysterious stories were told.”1 8 Parrot kept his relationship with Crawford mysterious as well, making few public appearances with Crawford and instead meeting him in the privacy of Parrot’s apartment at the Biltmore Hotel.1 9 According to various sources, Parrot and Crawford, became increasingly close through the Cryer administration, with Crawford eventually overseeing “matters pertaining to either vice situations or the police activities relative thereto.”2 0 Shuler referred to Crawford as Parrot’s “lieutenant,” claiming he acted as Parrot’s middleman in receiving the “stream of gold” from agents of commercialized vice and arranging for police protection in exchange.2 1 As Parrot’s hand-picked broker of police protection, Crawford stood, at the top of the criminal syndicate that he helped organize. He dominated the group of 1 8 Leslie T, White, Me, Detective (Mew York: Harcourt, Brace, and Company, 1936), 124. 1 9 Jules Tygiel, The Great Las Angeles Swindle: Oil, Stocks, and Scandal During the Roaring Twenties (Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1994), 178. Tygiel notes that Crawford and Parrot were involved in the C. C. Julian stock-fraud case of the 1920s, and according to a memo in the Hear® Collection in the USC .Regional History Center, Crawford had made some kind of deal with a judge in the bankruptcy case by which he agreed to pay back only half of his illegal profits in exchange for furnishing evidence about Kent Parrot’s involvement in the stock fraud. Memo, undated, Crawford envelope, Hears! Collection, USC Regional History Center. 2 0 Robert Shuler, The Strange Death o f Charlie Crawford, 2nd ed. (Los Angeles: Robert Shuler, 1931), 5, See also White,Me, Detective, 124; Charles Stoker, Thicker'» Thieves (Santa Monica: Sidereal Company, 195!), U; Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 46; Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 148, 2 1 Shuler, Strange Death, 5, See also Marvin 1. Wolf and Katherine Mader, Fallen Angels: Chronicles of LA, Crime and Mystery (New York: Facts On File Publications, 1.986), 116. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 105 men who, in turn., dominated such illicit businesses as gambling, prostitution, and to a lesser extent bootlegging. Already before his rise to power in Los Angeles in 192! in conjunction with Parrot, Crawford had left behind a tainted reputation in Seattle, Washington because of his involvement in vice and crooked politics. When he became the subject of a grand jury investigation there in 1910, he relocated to Los Angeles.2 2 In Los Angeles, Crawford opened the Maple Bar at Fifth and Maple—a short walk from the downtown district. The bar, which featured a gambling casino on the first floor and a bordello on the second, attracted “underworld leaders” as well as Parrot-affiliated politicians, judges, and public officials.2 3 According to Robert Shuler, the Maple Bar provided Crawford with his connection both to the Parrot machine as well as to the future members of the criminal syndicate which he would, eventually control." Crawford apparently established the Syndicate even before Cryer was elected in 1921, designating himself chief of bootlegging while appointing Milton “Farmer” Page gambling czar and Albert '.Marco (an old. associate from. Seattle) head of prostitution.2 5 It is not implausible that Crawford may have directed Ms associates to donate money to Oyer’s campaign. That would explain, in part, Parrot’s tight relationship with Crawford throughout the Cryer adminisfration,2 6 In addition, by the time Cryer was elected in 192 J, Crawford wielded enough influence 2 3 Shuler, Strange Death, 15. See also Tygiel, Los Angeles Swindle, 177; Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 147, Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 46. 2 3 Tygiel, Los Angeles Swindle, 1.77; Shuler, Strange Death, 5; Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 147. 2 4 Shuler, Strange Death, 6. 3 9 Shuler, Strange Death, 6-7; Tygiel Los Angeles Swindle, 177; Woods, Police In Las Angeles, 147. 2 6 Stoker, Thicker ’ n Thieves, 1, Stoker claims that Patrol relied on the support of Crawford in order to elect Cryer. la Ms chapter on Los Atigdes politics in the 1920s, Tom Sitton, however does not list Crawford or members of the crime community as the major political allies of Cryer or Parrot. Sitton, “Urban Politics,” 21. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 106 in the political machine to make a deal with Lee Francis, at the time the madam, of a small-scale but independent brothel in Hollywood, to become part of the Syndicate as the operator of a more luxurious brothel meant to be a “political playhouse” for members of the new city government administration..2 1 . As the head of the gambling, prostitution, and bootlegging operations in the city, Crawford became a wealthy man; and he added, to this wealth by investing in real estate. When Crawford died in 1931, the Los Angeles Examiner reported that his widow was a millionaire.® Through the 1920s, the Crawford-dominated Syndicate enjoyed a monopoly over the city’s underworld with the aid of corrupt police officers and officials. Although Crawford recruited Milton “Farmer” Page and Albert Marco as early members of the Syndicate, the organization’s operations soon came to comprise a number of so-called “Mugs of the underworld,” including a former police officer, Guy McAfee, who took over the gambling interests from Page, as well as the Gaits brothers who controlled the city’s slot machines and, Zeke Caress, who handled bookmaking.2 9 Augusto Sasso joined Albert Marco in running prostitution, and Crawford allowed Jack Dragon of the Italian Protective Association to take over the city’s liquor industry.3 0 Crawford bestowed police protection, on the enterprises run 2 7 Francis, Ladles on Call, 88-89. 2 8 Los Angeles Examiner, 1 July 1931,. Shuler claimed that when Crawford died, he bad property “alt over town,” $87,000 in insurance, and almost $200,000 in cash. Shuler, Strange Death, 42, 2 9 Robinson, Tarnished Angels, 25; Shuler, Strange Death, 8-9; Stoker, Thicker’ n Thieves, 11; lygiel, Los Angeles Swindle, 177; Woods, Police in Im Angeles, 148. 3 0 Shuler, Strange Death, 8-9; Stoker, Thicker 'n Thieves, 11; Richard Whitehall, “When the Mobsters Came West: Organized Crime in Los Angeles Since 1930,” in 20tk Century Ims Angeles: Power Promotion, and Social Conflict, ed. Norman M. Klein and Martin L Schies! (Claremont CA: Regina Books, 1.990), 131; Fox, Blood and Power, 65. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 107 by these men, allowing non-Syndieate affiliates to be raided;4 ’ Robert. Shuler claimed that Crawford’s influence extended beyond gambling, bootlegging, and prostitution into the drug trade as well, asserting that Crawford collected payments from the “Chinese dope ring,” allegedly a cartel of illegal drag operators dominated by Chinese criminals and dealing primarily in opium.3 2 Unlike the eastern mob organizations coming into power in such cities as Chicago and New York, the Los Angeles Syndicate maintained a low profile, keeping control of the city without the violence and gang shootings that characterized A 1 Capone’s organization in. Chicago or the Mafia in New York.3 3 The Syndicate protected itself from such organizations setting up rival institutions in Los Angeles with the cooperation, of the city’s police department, which sent officers to the train station to escort arriving Eastern or Midwest racketeers to the ticket booth to purchase a ticket for the next eastbound train. When. Los Angeles police officers told A1 Capone he was not welcome upon his arrival in 1927, he boarded the train back to Chicago almost immediately „ M As a result, although the Chicago-based mob had connections to Los Angeles through Jack Dragna (active in bootlegging), the Syndicate maintained ultimate control until the arrival of Benjamin. “Bugsy’ Siegel from New York City in , 1936.3 5 The Syndicate ran its operations smoothly. In his memoirs. Matt Weinstock—a former newspaper reporter, claimed that the Syndicate 3 1 Woods, Police in Las Angeles, 148. 3 2 Shuler, Strange Death, 43. 3 3 Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 45, 3 4 Weinstock, My L A,, 54-55; James Richardson, For the Life of Me: Memoirs of a City Editor (New York; G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1954), 213. 3 5 Whitehall, “Mobsters Came West,” 131,1.33; Fox, Blood m d Power, 155, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 108 had drawn up a chart which mapped out the organization’s setup—a model business practice that allowed effective coordination. In addition, the Syndicate left few details to its individual participants, consolidating its operations at a “central ‘icing plant” 5 (possibly Crawford’s Maple Saloon) where oops and prohibition agents were paid. 3 6 One estimate of Syndicate’s holdings in 1936 attributes to the organization “more than a thousand brothels, bookie joints and gambling dens.”3 7 A key element in the Syndicate's supreme power through the 1920s and into the 1930s was the corruption within the police department Various scandals plagued the Los Angeles Police Department in the 1920s. The police department had half a dozen different chiefs during Cryer’s reign as mayor, and with the exception o f reformer August Vollmer, the chiefs all suffered disgrace during their respective terms.3 ® A persistent critic of the police department, Robert Shuler claimed responsibility for exposing Chief Oaks (April 1922-August 1923), telling readers he had “personally watched Oaks” take a prostitute into a brothel, and that after Oaks had been, arrested in a neighboring town with the woman, .he had. been kicked out of the police department.3 9 Shuler attacked the police department in more general terms as well, alleging that ‘Vice and crime in any large city is dangerous but not one tenth, as dangerous as the fact that such vice owes its very life to connivance on. the part of sworn officers of the law who accept divid.en.cls from these denizens of 3 6 Richardson, Life o f Me, 166; Woon, Incredible land, 11. 3 7 Wolf and Matter, Fallen Angels, 149. 3 8 For a more in depth look at the quality of leadership in theLAPD during these years, see Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 47*66,105-129 as well as his chapter on August Vollrner, 71-97. 3 9 Shuler, Strange Death, 4-5; Bob Shuler’ s Magazine 3 (January 1925): 51!. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 109 infamy and immorality,”4 0 The Los Angeles Times also carried stoii.es discussing the periodic concerns of police protection in the city. When Farmer Page (a member of the Syndicate involved in gambling) shot A1 Joseph in a “liquor establishment” in 1925, for example, public concern about the police department and its vice protection reached a high point for the decade. According to the Times, the shooting prompted a coalition of the city’s ministers to issue a resolution calling upon the Chief of Police as well as the Mayor, the District Attorney, and the Sheriff either “to enforce laws or give up their office.”4 1 A former reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News suggested that opportunities for co.rrapti.on in police departments were rampant, and that collections from “illegal, . . amusement places such as brothels, gambling houses, etc., are usually made by officers appointed, to the force for that purpose.”4 2 Mickey Cohen, a gangster affiliated with the Los Angeles branch of the Mafia in the 1930s, reflected in Ms autobiography that until Siegel (and the Mafia) moved into Los Angeles, the Syndicate controlled the underworld of the city, but that “gambling and everything. . . was completely ran by cops and stool pigeons.”4 3 4 0 Bob Shuler 's Magazine 5 (April 1926); 44. 4 5 LosAngeks Times, 10 February 1925; Los Angeles Times, 17 February 1925. 4 2 Charles Hams Ganigwes, You're Paying For lib A Guide to Graft (New York and London: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1936), 50; Nadeau, Mission to Modem City, 258. 4 3 Michael Mickey Cohen and John Peer Nugent, Mickey Cohen: In My Own Words: The Underworld Autobiography of Michael Mickey Cohen, As Told to John Peer Nugent (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1975), 44. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 10 “The Local Overlord of V ice**; Albert Marco and Prostitution Under tSie Syndicate in 1920s Los Angeles With tacit political, 'sanction, police protection, and. a ruling crime syndicate in place, the business of prostitution in Los Angeles became a competitive and highly organized enterprise headed by Marco Albori, better known as Albert Marco. In contrast to Charles Crawford, who maintained a low profile through most of the decade,, Marco bumbled his way into the newspapers and. onto the public scene several times before his 1928 arrest, trial, and subsequent incarceration on two counts o f assault, with a deadly weapon, A former associate of Crawford’s from Seattle, Marco appears to have followed Crawford to Los Angeles in order to take over the prostitution interests of the Syndicate’s business ventures.4 4 Marco’s involvement in prostitution, did not come to public light until. 1925, despite a couple of previous arrests. In 191.9, the Tim es reported that Marco had been arrested, in Los Angeles for a burglary he had supposedly committed in Sacramento, The article described Marco simply as “a Seattle garage owner,” and noted that the case had been dismissed.4 5 When Marco was arrested, a few years later for his third, violation, of prohibition laws, the Times misspelled Marco’s first name and made no mention, of his involvement in prostitution.® Marco made local news again in 1925 for his involveinent in a brawl with a police officer and his friend who had been, called to investigate a . complaint of disturbing the peace. According to the Tim es, Marco became agitated, when an. officer tried, to question him ., and struck the officer’s friend 4 4 Shuler, Strange Death, 6; Stoker, Thicker it Thieves, 11; Woods, Police in I.,o$ Angeles, 147, 4 3 Los Angeles Times, 8 March 1919. * Los Angeles Times, 1 .2 December 1922. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Ill on the nose, Marco then polled out a revolver, but the police officer was able to disarm Marco, The Times reported that although Marco had been booked on, suspicion, of assault with a deadly weapon, the charges had 'been reduced to disturbing the peace, and Marco had left the police station on $1,00 bail4 7 Marco may have returned to relative anonymity after this incident, but a city council member made the reduction of the charge a matter of public importance. The councilman, calling for the investigation of Marco and the police department was Carl, Jacobson. Jacobson, who “typified the moral reformers,”4 * introduced a resolution, to the city council three days after the reduction of charges against Marco that demanded an explanation by the Chief of Police of the reduction. Implying that Marco had received special treatment by police, Jacobson’s resolution requested that the Chief “handle the said Albert Marco in the same manner as any other person.”4 9 Another councilman, Robert Allan, supported Jacobson’s resolution, noting that Marco was known as “the owner of a number of ‘ joints,’ and was known to police and Federal officers.”3 0 The Chief duly submitted an explanation of the reduction, of charges against Marco to the City Council, According to the Chiefs report, Marco bad become involved in an, altercation with the investigating officer’s friend, but the officer’s friend—when interviewed by police the following moming—“refused to swear to any complaint or have anything further to do with the case.” Because of the lack of evidence, and the refusal of either party to testily,, 4 7 Los Angeies Times„ 26 December 1925, 4 8 Woods, Police in 1m Angeles, 114. 4 9 Los Angelos City Council file 8407 (1927), LACA; LosAttgekst Times, 29 December 1925, 5 0 Los Angeles Times, 29 December ,1925. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 112 the prosecuting attorney and “all those involved, in the case” decided to dose the case without further action.5 1 Jacobson was not satisfied with the Chiefs explanation, claiming that the investigating officer. Officer Mayer, was reluctant to be a witness against Marco because “Marco’s friends” had threatened Mayer with dismissal from the police department® 1 Jacobson’s dissatisfaction with the police department's management of the Marco case resulted in periodic calls for investigations into Marco’s business affairs as well as the city’s vice conditions in general. Jacobson, for example, claimed to have testimony from a woman who claimed to have been brought to Los Angeles by “a man who was a ‘king of the underworld.’” The woman, swore this man “owned or controlled a number of disorderly houses in. Los Angeles.”5 ' 5 ’ Although the newspaper did not identify Marco as the “king of the underworld” in the woman’s testimony, Marco was mentioned by name in a story in the Times only four days later. Once again, the article discussed Jacobson’s ongoing crusade against vice in the city, and mentioned that Marco had come to the attention of the Internal Revenue Service for failing to pay taxes. The Times disclosed, that Marco had. deposited $500,000 into bank accounts over the last few years, and. that the IRS was seeking $1.51,000 in unpaid income tax.5 4 Sometime in. 1927, Jacobson’s accusations against Marco finally resulted in a raid against one of Marco’s establishments. In a f Council FHe 8407 (1927), LACA. 5 2 Los Angeles Times, 30 December 1925. n Los Angeles Times, 1 .6 January 1926. s* Los Angeks Timm, 20 January 1926. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 113 resolution to the city council, Jacobson, pointed out that Federal Prohibition Agents rather than local police had made the raid, and had found liquor at the address.” Jacobson’s actions along with Marco’s own. indiscretion would lead to an exposure of Marco’s illicit activities and his incarceration. On August 5, 1927 police arrested Jacobson on a morals charge, claiming they had caught the councilman literally with Ms pants down at the home o f Mrs. Callie Grimes. Jacobson claimed that he had been, set up because of his commitment to ridding the city of vice and because he had been accusing the police department of accepting protection money.5 6 The following year, Grimes repudiated her testimony before a grand, jury, recounting that Marco had been behind the frame-up. On her testimony, the grand, jury indicted Marco along with Charles Crawford and the police officers involved in the arrest of Jacobson on charges of criminal conspiracy,5 7 Before Marco could be brought to trial on these charges, however, Marco was arrested on two other charges—one involved the sale of illegal alcohol and the other .resulted in two counts of assault with, a deadly weapon in connection with a shooting in a Venice cafe. The liquor arrest netted Marco six months in jail, while the latter charge put Marco in San. Quentin for two to twenty years.3 Marco had more success at the trial for criminal conspiracy. At the trial, Jacobson testified that in 1926 Marco had tried to bribe him with $25,000 “to M ay off.”’ He claimed to have refused the bribe, and said that his arrest on morals charges was a result of his refusal to cease Ms investigation, of crime 5 5 Council File 6104 (1027), LACA. 5 6 Woods, Police in Im Angeles, 1.22; White, Me, Deteciiw, 125. 5 7 Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 123. 3 * Los Angeles Examiner, 14 September 1928; Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 124, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 114 in the city. While Jacobson’s testimony on these points remained steadfast, his version, o f the Grimes encounter and subsequent police action wavered. The jury acquitted both Marco and Crawford, and according to former district attorney’s office detective Leslie White, the ease was ‘laughed out of court.”3 5 1 Newspaper reporters as well as reformers such as Councilman Jacobson and Robert Shuler credited Albert Marco with being a king of vice within Los Angeles, but Marco~~while undoubtedly powerful and influential—also possessed several flaws that explain his eventual undoing as a leader in the criminal syndicate. When Jacobson’s predicament with Grimes became public, reformers such as Robert Shuler were quick to help Jacobson propagate the frame-up defense. As the person who had allegedly bribed Jacobson, Marco came under the most direct fire. In one of his longer articles devoted to detailing Marco’s crimes, Shuler pegged Marco “King of the Underworld.”® 1 In the same article, Shuler insisted that Marco—a “man of might”-— controlled the “destiny of a little less than a thousand girls of the underworld.”6 1 Shuler also claimed that Marco controlled both Kent Parrot and the current chief of police James Davis. As Jacobson had pointed out earlier to the city council, Shuler remarked that only federal agents had made any effort to curtail Marco’s illegal activities.5 2 Marco did appear to have control over local police. When, federal agents raided Marco’s North End Pleasure Club on suspicion of liquor ® White, Me, Deteciiw, 125-6; hos Angeles Examiner, 16 March 1929; Im Angeks Examiner, 27 March 1929. Los Angeles Examiner, 27 June 1929, ® Bob Shuler's Magazine 6 (December 1927): 224. a Bob Shuter’ sMagazine 6 (December 1927): 224. 6 2 Bob Shuler '$ Magazine 6 (December 1927); 224. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 115 violations, local police officers tried to convince the agents that Marco sold non alcoholic beer,6 3 In addition, although Marco did not escape arrest in . connection with the shooting in the Venice cafe, arresting officer Carrey claimed that Marco offered him and other officers a bri.be, and there were later investigations of jury tampering in connection with Marco’s trial for assault with a deadly weapon/ 4 After Ms incarceration, Marco’s infamy became a fixture in local news stories reporting cm people and. crimes allegedly connected to Marco. In such, stories, newspapers referred to Marco as the ‘Vice baron,” “Vice King,” or “former local, overlord of vice.” 6 9 Although Marco played a leading role in . the Syndicate in terms of controlling its prostitution interests, Marco displayed certain personal characteristics that undercut Ms skills as a “vice baron” and. interfered with his ability to run an illicit business, First of all, despite all the alleged police protection secured by the Syndicate, Marco showed a propensity to get arrested, and therefore arouse public attention. Unlike Ms associate Charles Crawford, for example, who managed to avoid arrest and therefore publicity in local newspapers until his involvement (with Marco) in the frame-up of Councilman Jacobson, Marco was arrested several, times before being jailed in 1.928. Between 1919 and, 1928, police or federal agents arrested Marco at least five times for assorted liquor violations, twice for assault with 6 3 Woods, Police in ,to Angeles, 124. 6 4 Reporter’s Transcript, filed 8 October 1928, California v. Albeit District Court of Appeal, 2B < i District Court, California State Archives, 257; Los Angeles Examiner, 20 March 1930. 6 3 Los Angeles Examiner, 21 March 1929; Lm Angeles Examiner, 15 March 1932; Los Angeles Examiner, 7 September 1935. These references provide only a sample of the various epitaphs newspaper reporters gave Marco. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 116 a deadly weapon; and they investigated him at least once for tax evasion.w These arrests indicate that Marco was not particularly good at concealing what should have- been clandestine activities. In addition, the two arrests for assault with a deadly weapon, suggest that Marco had an explosive temper, and that he had trouble keeping cool under pressure—a quality' sure to be at odds with the .necessity of keeping a low profile. Marco’s two arrests for assault with a deadly weapon also imply a certain, carelessness on Marco’s part. After all, it was .Marco’s first arrest on, this charge that raised Councilman. Jacobson’s ire against Marco in the first place. Did Marco really believe that he could get away with it again? Probably not Marco appears to have lost his control in both situations due to an overindulgence of alcohol With .regard to Marco drawing a gun at a Christmas party, the Los Angeles Record insinuated that the attack has been alcohol-induced. According to the Record, Marco had been drinking before the altercation took place.6 7 The trial transcript for Marco’s second arrest for assault with a deadly weapon confirms that the cafe where the shooting took place was serving alcohol in the form of “ginger ale moonshine grape brandy highballs.”® Not only does the transcript indicate that Marco was drinking, however, the testimony of witnesses at the cafe presents a sketch of Marco’s less than sophisticated personality. According to one witness—a friend of one of the men. “ Los Angeies Times, 8 March 1919; Los Angeies Times, 12 December 1922; LosAngeks Times, 20 August 1923; Los Angeles Times, 26 December 1925; Los Angeles Times, 17 January 1926; Los Angeles Examiner, 28 June 1928; Los Angeks Examiner, 16 October 1928. 6 7 Los Angeks Record, 26 December 1925. 6 4 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Alban, 63, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 117 who was shot, the trouble started tiller Marco approached him and made a derogatory comment about his dancing partner, implying she was a prostitute.4 9 In one Los Angeles reporter’s view, Marco’s lack of discretion only became more pronounced with the increasing publicity in the local press. Coming to believe he was the “gangster” the papers described Mm as, Marco bought an. armored car, hired a bodyguard, and began to frequent night clubs in the company of “fast women” instead of staying at home and counting the money earned for him by the women in his employ.7 0 The “Harlot City” of Los Angeles in the Hands of Marco and the Syndicate The 1920s brought about tremendous physical growth in Los Angeles, as the city’s expanding population settled further and further away from the old pueblo area. Prostitution accompanied this development, spreading out of its old red-light district to other areas of the city. In 1922, for example, Police Chief Oaks noted the tendency of prostitution to become entrenched in residential districts of the city. According to Oaks, police had a difficult time discerning where prostitutes were working in these residential areas because they disguised their operations so well under the “color of respectability.” Oaks called on. the public to cooperate with police on bringing disreputable establishments to the attention o f law enforcement.7 1 A few years later, an editorial in the Times reiterated the difficulty police faced with 4 9 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Aibori, 126. 7 0 Gatrigiies, Guide to Graft, 31. 7 1 Los Angeles Times, 4 August 1922. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 118 regard to the “undcaworld” noting that police could no longer search “that part of city associated with gas works and railway yards” but had to investigate “exclusive residential district,” “Nowadays” the Times commented, “the places where crooks hang out mostly present a respectable business front”7 2 Although the extent o f Marco’s business holdings and the exact locations of all his operations remain unclear, the few known addresses of Ms “resorts” indicate that prostitution under Marco conformed to the general pattern of prostitution in Los Angeles in the 1920s. Estimates of Marco’s establishments range from “a couple of small brothels catering to the middle-class trade” up to sixty-five.7 ’ The probable number lies somewhere between these two extremes, but remains difficult to estimate since Marco did manage to elude police on. arrests relating to prostitution. (Estimates regarding the number of “protected” brothels and prostitutes were rare. In 1927, the Times claimed that the city contained 500 protected houses of prostitution, and Robert Shuler contended a source had confided to Mm that 2200 prostitutes paid for protection.7 4 ) Whatever the truth of the matter, the popular conception of Marco found in newspapers of the time as well as in secondary sources portray Marco as a man who dominated the city’s prostitution scene. Newspapers described Marco as a “vice lord” and various secondary sources credited. Marco as controlling “the chain of whorehouses in the city” or as having a “prostitute monopoly,”7 5 Of this 7 2 Los Angeles 'Times, 29 June 1926. 7 3 Garripes, Guide to Graft, 29; Wolf and Mader, Fallen Angels, 116, 7 4 Los Angeks Times, 1 April 1927; Bob Sfmler S Magmtm 5 (February 1.927): 269. 7 5 Richardson, Life ofMe, 222; Stoker, Thicker 'n Thieves, 11; See earlier paragraph on newspaper descriptions of Marco, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 119 "''prostitute monopoly,” I have been able to connect a handful of addresses to Marco. Three addresses all lie in close proximity to Los Angeles’s central business district of the 1920s located approximately between 2n d and 9th Street, Hill and Main Street (see map S).w The Herald-Examimr, for example, asserted that Marco’s “vice headquarters” were at Third and Figueroa Streets, just west of the business district.7 7 Marco’s North End Pleasure Club, at 130 1/2 South Spring Street—the site of one of Marco’s numerous liquor violations, functioned as a combination brothel and speakeasy just north of the city’s central business district.7 * The third address, further north of the central business, provides some evidence that despite the diffusion of prostitution into the city, prostitution lingered in the city’s old red-light district, as well. Marco’s Dante Hotel, shut down under the Red Light Abatement Act, was located at 327 New High Street, the old address of parlor house madam Pearl Morton..7 9 Crawford’s Maple Saloon— -at Maple aid Fifth Street—also appears to have been situated at the edge the central business district, and one travel guide of the time commented that two main, arteries of crime were Main and Spring Street. The guide advised visitors that they could find “cheap brothels and speakeasies” on. Main Street, and that Spring Street was “the gambling and bootleg exchange” of the city’s “big shots.” (see map 5)“ With some shifting, K Mayo, Los Angeks., 234. 7 7 Los Angeks Examiner} 5 October 1931. 7 8 Los Angeks Examiner, 16 October 1.928; tar Angeles Examiner, 13 May 1932; Lm Angeks Examiner, 15 May 1.932. 7 9 Los Angeks Examiner, 27 October 1928; 1m Angeks Times, 9 November 1928, Despite changing tenants, the building retained the same owner -Juan Marrieta. “ Woon, Incredible Lund, 1 i . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 3 #3 S 3 r > . 631 S. Westlake & Sixth & Valencia lo fsW K S < Dante Hotel Third & Fifiaerora « North End Pleasure Club ^ g Wr4 Maple Bar 7 £ < Jgxa □ODE § X / < Map 5 Syndicate “Vie# EstsbiiiaeBts* in freslsiity toDowntown U rn Angeles in the 193»s Soares: Modification, of map foand at hitp:/Av^wdib.atexas.cd«/m«ps/lustoric^io8_angclesM ,ce!itral„t917.jpg R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 121 then, prostitution remained part of the city’s vital downtown, scene even as it also spread outwards with the larger pattern of settlement Marco’s other business holdings stretched west and south from the city’s center. One such establishment that Marco may have managed was located in the Westlake district of Los Angeles, a respectable tipper class neighborhood east of downtown, built around Westlake—now MacArthur—Park. In 1925, the Times reported on a shooting that had occurred in a liquor establishment controlled by Milton “Farmer” Page, one of the Syndicate leaders. The newspaper stated that one of Marco’s close associates—Augusto Sasso—ran a business next door to Page’s liquor establishment, at Sixth and Valencia, in the Westlake district (see map 5).*1 Given that Sasso worked for Marco, one can assume that prostitution took place at this location. Reformers, outraged by the shooting and evidence of bootlegging, made this charge, claiming that location of the shooting also functioned as a rendezvous for prostitutes.8 2 Marco’s first arrest on the charge of assault with a deadly weapon, also took place in . the Westlake district The arrest took place at. 631 South Westlake Ave, “a fashionable apartment hotel,” due to complaints by citizens who called police to report ‘“an orgy in progress’” (see map 5),8 3 Marco also rented a combination hotel and cafd known for its “bad reputation” in Sawtelle—an area in West Los Angeles, south, of Westwood. In 1925, 8 1 Im Angeks Times, 10 February 1925. 8 2 Los Angeks Times, 17 February 1925. 8 3 Los Angeks Record, 28 December 1925; Los Angeles City Council File 8407 (1927). LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 122 the owners sued Marco for $2000 for unpaid rent** Reformers such as Councilman. Jacobson claimed that Marco’s operations extended even to “a number of joints” in Tijuana, Mexico.*5 In addition to running brothels at these particular locations, Marco also controlled prostitutes working various city streets. Former newspaper editor James Richardson indicated that the police could expect, for example, sexual favors -from Marco’s streetwalkers, noting one instance when a cop was “arrested for shaking down a streetwalker who wasn’t one of Marco’s girls.’* It is impossible to determine, however, the number of women working for Marco—either on the streets or in one of his brothels— -let alone their background, age, or work habits. A newspaper article attacking Marco’s former lawyer does provide a rare glimpse of the women working for Marco. In 1932, Marco’s former lawyer, Thomas White, came under attack for a recent ruling he had made in his new occupation as Superior Court Judge. In the attack, newspapers used White’s old affiliation with Marco as a means of questioning White’s integrity, and in so doing the Herald-Examimr also printed the names of several women who had worked, for Marco. The newspaper charged that White’s associate and brother-in-law, Vincent Hickson, had appeared in court seventy-five times in a period of eight months during 1929 to defend these women. m Los Angeles Examimr, 15 May 1932. * 5 Los Angeks Record, 28 December 1925. * * Richardson, Life of Me, 222. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 123 The list contained the names of fifty-six different women arrested on charges ranging from vagrancy to offering and keeping an immoral house.” More than half of the arrests stemmed from vagrancy charges., and police tended to arrest the women in groups of two or three which indicates that many of these women were working on the streets rather than in a house. In the few cases when police arrested a woman for “keeping [an] immoral house,” the other additional women arrested were charged with “offering [to commit an. immoral act]” rather than, vagrancy. Also, as I mentioned in chapter one, vagrancy was the common charge under which police arrested streetwalkers. For police to charge women with “offering,” they needed to utilize a stool pigeon to make an. exchange of money for some kind of sexual act (see chapter four for more details).®* The Syndicate agreed to these occasional arrests of their prostitutes as a way of protecting the police from complaints about the lack of law enforcement When the prostitutes appeared before the judge, however, they usually received suspended sentences and went back to work.® Syndicate Women Working under Albert Marco or for the Syndicate afforded women unique disadvantages as well advantages. As the previous paragraph indicates, for example, at least some prostitutes could expect to provide free sexual, services to police ® 7 Las Angeks Examiner, 22 May 1932, * * Las Angeks Examiner, 22 May 1932. * 9 Woods, Police in Los Angeks,110. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 124 officers as part of the Syndicate’s protection deal with the department,® Prostitutes could also anticipate periodic court appearances. These temporary interruptions of business, however, may have been annoying but still preferable to the hassle they might have endured working independent of Hie Syndicate, Thus, the most obvious beneficiaries of Syndicate protection and supervision were women who worked as streetwalkers since they were subject to the most police harassment as well as physical danger. Unfortunately, there is no account from any of the Syndicate’s streetwalkers to verify that the sexual services they provided to police officers compensated to some or any degree for police protection. What is apparent, however, is that the Syndicate made an effort to protect them from law enforcement in ways prostitutes may not have been able to engineer. The Syndicate employed a specific lawyer to appear in court on. their behalf to obtain suspended sentences.9 1 Also, the numerous Syndicate-run saloons and gambling establishments provided, a network of safe havens for streetwalkers to gather in their leisure time or as locations for rendezvous with, prospective customers.9 2 Working for the Syndicate may have also been more profitable than, working independently despite having to give the Syndicate a cut of earnings. 'Unfortunately for this study, Marco was arrested on a no.n-pfostita.te related charge, so testimony from prostitutes regarding their role in the industry is non-existent. Testimony from a 1930s trial involving a 9 0 .Richardson, Life o f Me, 222. 9 1 I m Angeks Examiner, 22 May 1932. 9 1 Los Angeks Examiner, 13 May 1932; Los Angeks Examiner, May 15,1932. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 125 Syndicate employee, however, does indicate that women who worked for the Syndicate did make more money than independent entrepreneurs. A prostitute who worked for the Syndicate, for example, made $18-30 a day compared to $48 a week, or $8-10 a day, when she did not work for the Syndicate, One -prostitute described the reaction of her pimp when the prospect of working for the Syndicate emerged, saying that “He [the pimp] said that was a good place for me, and if I got in with Iter I could go a long ways; I would get into real money.”® At least one contemporary of Marco’s, however, viewed Marco’s operation with derision, claiming that that the women working for Marco suffered unduly compared to other prostitutes in the city. In an. autobiography detailing his adventures as a gangster in both New York and Los Angeles in the 1920s, James Spenser acknowledged that Mateo was the “big boss” of Los Angeles with almost the whole city “in his pocket.”9 4 Spenser claimed to have worked for one of Marco’s rivals, Niley Payne, who operated a two-story bouse on Yucca Street, north of Hollywood Boulevard, that offered gambling on the first floor, prostitutes on the second floor, and alcohol on. both.9 3 According to Spenser, the women who worked out of the Yucca house were “high-class professional, prostitutes,” while Marco’s girls were girls who had “ultimately hit the street” after unsuccessfully trying to break .into the movie business. Hie girls ended up working for Marco, maintained Spenser, because the cops (who were controlled, by Marco) “would harry and badger 9 3 Reporter’s Transcript, filed 30 December 1940, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, District Court of Appeal, 2n d District Court, California State Archives, 657, 9 4 lanses Spenser, lim ey: An Englishman Joins the Gangs (London. Neville Speaman, 1957), 96. 9 1 Spenser, lim ey, 1.37. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 126 them until they took; refuge in one of Marco’s joints ” Spenser conceded that while the women worked for Marco,, they received abundant food, clothing, and. shelter, but he claimed that Marco made sure the women did not earn enough money to leave town.* Spenser’s portrayal of Marco, however, is misleading. At least one of the girls who eventually went to work for Marco— -Sophie Magnolia, for example, had been the girlfriend of a character named “Hicky the Killer” who S h ad a reputation for being a “professional assassin.'”9 7 Also, Spenser noted that on the first occasion when he had seen Sophie (while still in the employ of Marco), she had been “beautifully dressed.”9 8 On another occasion, Spenser described Sophie as wearing a “short fur coat over a tailor-made suit.”9 9 If Sophie was typical of “Marco’s girls,” the association of Sophie with dangerous men and the description of her as well- dressed indicate that Marco may have culled, his employees from the ranks of women already well-affiliated with the underworld who were satisfied with drag money and nice clothes. Spenser’s view of Marco’s operations may have been, biased by his loyalty to one of Marco’s competitors and his interaction with Sophie Magnolia. In the autobiography, Spenser takes credit for helping cure Sophie of her morphine addiction, and sending her back home to Iowa. Although Sophie admitted to Spenser that a former boyfriend had gotten her hooked on morphine, Spenser condemned Marco for tolling advantage of her addiction—using Sophie’s morphine habit to 9 6 Spenser, lim ey, 160, ■ n Spenser, Limey, 164. 9 8 Spenser, lim ey, 116. 9 9 Spenser, Limey, 166. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 127 induce her to prostitute herself. Spenser quoted Sophie as saying, “ 'Marco made me go with all sorts of men. Every fcinda guy.... Fellers he wanted to please, I kept all hopped up.”n i“ With Spenser’s help, however, Sophie managed to kick her morphine habit and leave town—all with no apparent interference or protest from Marco, Women working for the Syndicate benefited in more subtle ways as well due to reforaiers’ propensity to assign culpability for the actions of prostitutes to the men in cahoots with the Syndicate. Evidence of this sentiment can be seen in the reformers’ persistent conflation of prostitution with the limited phenomenon of white slavery. The concept of “white slavery” implied that the woman engaging in acts of prostitution had not chosen the activity through her own will but rather had been coerced into a life of prostitution as the result of the actions of a sinister mart or (less frequently) woman. In asserting that prostitutes were the victims of a handful of men, Robert Shuler and other Los Angeles-based reformers were bucking the growing contention of writers, sociologists, and reformers in the 1920s that prostitutes were “willing participants” in the business of prostitution.1 4 1 Instead, Shuler downplayed the agency of prostitutes to focus on the criminality of men associated wife the Syndicate. In 1927, for example, Shuler wrote that men. such as Albert Marco had. “prospered and grown, fat within our city, while they have promoted great, gambling institutions, a flourishing white slave business and m Spenser, Limey, 1.72, 1 9 1 Meyerowitz, Women Adrift, 137, I will be .returning to this phenomenon in a later chapter. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 2 8 bootlegging.”’® In another article, Shuler called Marco the “King of the White Slave Trade;” and in yet another issue of Ms magazine, Shuler commented that Marco would pay for his lawyers by making his “collection off his little white slaves.”1 0 3 In the wake of Marco’s incarceration for the shooting in a Venice cafe, Shuler published a lengthy satire on. the implications of the arrest for “hundreds of little painted beauties” left wi thout a “king to worship and divide their earnings with.” In the piece, Shuler called the prostitutes who worked for Marco “waifs of the night,” and alleged that “ffjor years, they have handed out to their ‘Big Papa’ [Marco] the larger share of the coin that their visitors left in their hands.” Shuler also credited Marco with “discovering” most of Ms employers, and insisted that Marco had “paid good money for quite a few” and “shipped many of them in ” With Marco no longer around, Shuler quipped, “the little girlies that live about here and there will have nobody to divide with, poor things!”1 0 4 The attention, paid to the supposedly “real” criminals in the prostitution business had the effect of taking the heat off the women, who worked for the likes of Marco and Crawford, a pattern that chapters 5 and 8 will examine more closely. Still, even in conjunction with Marco’s conviction, it is interesting to note that although newspapers and reformers such as Shuler credited Marco with being the head of the city’s prostitution trade, there is no evidence to suggest that anyone ever questioned Marco about the women lie supposedly managed nor is there evidence m Bob Shuler '$ Magazine 6 {August 192?); 127. 1 K Bob Shuler’ s Magazine 7 (August 1928); 135; Bob Shuler ’ $ Magazine 7 (September 1.928): 160, 1 0 4 Bob Shuler ' $ Magazine 6 (December 1927): 223. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 129 that prosecutors ever secured the conviction of any of Marco’s prostitutes in the wake o f his arrest, Satisfied with the con.victi.oit of the man the public viewed as the ultimate crim.in.al in the prostitution business, prosecutors appear to have followed the example of city reformers and ignored the culpability o f prostitutes themselves, The major disadvantage for women involved m the enterprise of prostitution in conjunction with, the Syndicate lay in the lack of top-level positions available to them; but even within in. the disadvantageous, mde-dominated power structure, some women managed to carve out positions of infl uence for themselves that rivaled those of men at the top. Lee Francis, for example, began running a brothel at Charles Crawford’s request in 1921 and soon ran the most infamous and surely one of the most lucrative brothels in Los Angeles in the 1920s. As perhaps the only woman to manage her own. brothel without being subject to Marco, Lee Francis enjoyed a unique position of independence within the Syndicate. In addition, in terms of the type of brothel she managed, Lee’s prestige easily outmatched Marco who ran a larger quantity of brothels but catered to a less affluent strata of society. Lee ran “Hollywood’s most fashionable” brothel, and by her account, her clients included some of the most well-known actors, actresses, writers, directors and politicians of the 1920s.1 0 5 In contrast, Marco is credited with running “small brothels catering to the middle-class trade.”5 0 0 According to her autobiography, her business only began to fall apart after Crawford’s murder in. 1931 because she had to pay “protection” money to three or four different people. Francis claimed that these payments, 1 8 5 Francis, ladies cm Call, inside cover. 1 0 6 Garrigues, Guides to Graft, 29, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 130 combined with the operating costs associated with running a luxurious brothel, eventually made her broke.1 0 7 Another high-ranking woman, within, the Syndicate in the 1920s and 1930s was June Taylor. Taylor maintained a much lower profile than either Francis or Marco. Newspapers dabbed Taylor “Marco’s sweetheart,” noting that she frequently visited Marco in jail.1 0 8 Taylor remained, involved with, the Syndicate’s prostitution business long after Marco’s imprisonment, and Robert. Shuler claimed that June Taylor had been, “even more important in the old Crawford-Marco machine than was Chito [also known as August© Sasso and the person, newspapers dubbed as Marco's successor].”1 ® When a former police officer, Guy McAfee, moved to the head of the Syndicate in . 1931, another almost unknown woman, began to wield tremendous influence. According to historian Bruce Henstell, when McAfee took over the Syndicate, control of the organization “passed to Strmgbeart [Guy] McAfee or, more precisely, to his wife who was rumored to have the smarts in the family.”1 1 0 Although lacking the independence of other women in the prostitution industry , women working for the Syndicate thus experienced other kinds of privileges such as police protection, more personal protection, better money, and in some cases, tremendous power. Francis, la tte on Call, 187-8, 173. 1 W Los Angeks Examiner, 29 May 1931. 1 0 9 Shuler, Strange Death, 9. m Hoistell, Sunshine and Wealth, 52. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 131 Shifting Control in the Syndicate Throughout the 1920s and the administration of Mayor Cryer, the Syndicate .remained strong and relatively unchanged, but beginning in 1928 with the imprisonment of Albert Marco, major shifts in the organization began to occur. With Marco in jail, for example, August© “Chito” Sasso—described as Marco’s “lieutenant”—appears to have stepped into Marco’s shoes., but while Sasso ostensibly took over Marco’s duties when Marco went to San. Quentin, Sasso initially did not enjoy Marco’s influence in the Syndicate.1 1 1 Assisted, by June Taylor, Marco continued to play an. important role in. the Syndicate even while in jail. According to one historian, Marco remained the head of the Syndicate’s prostitution business, using Sasso and Taylor to conduct Ms affairs.3 1 2 Even after Marco’s deportation in 1933 to Italy, Marco may have retained control over Ms Los Angeles brothels. In 1935, for example, one newspaper reported that authorities were investigating reports that Marco had been seen in Los Angeles, visiting his “former haunts” in the company of “sweetheart June Taylor.”3 1 3 The concentrated power over prostitution that had once belonged to Marco, however, must have been diluted by Ms lack of proximity to his business interests and the rising influence of Augusto Sasso, an individual examined more closely in. chapter 5. A . more fundamental shift in power transpired in 1929 when John Porter, a candidate backed by reformer .Robert Shuler, managed, to win the mayoral election, m Shuler, Strange Death, 3; Im Angeks Examiner, 5 October 1931. 3 1 2 Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 124. ’1 3 Los Angeks Emmimr, 1 September 1935. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 132 promising to end corruption in his administration and enforce vice laws."4 With Porter as mayor, Kent Parrot no longer possessed Ms old role as city boss. Charles Crawford’s power declined abruptly as well since Crawford's power had depended on Parrot’s position, and Crawford temporarily suspended Ms participation in illegal activities."5 Crawford’s flight from the Syndicate created a power vacuum soon, filled by Guy McAfee, one-time head of the Syndicate’s gambling interests.1 ’ 6 In 1931, Crawford appears to have made a bid to regain his former position as the head of the Syndicate, but before he managed to gain control of the Syndicate, Crawford was murdered.1 1 7 McAfee, who seemed to have the most motive in killing Crawford, emerged as the Los Angeles Police Department’s primary suspect until former deputy district attorney Dave Clark took responsibility for the killing. Robert Shuler and at least one newspaper speculated, that Clark had killed Crawford because Crawford, in league with. Albert Marco, had pictures of Clark in a compromising position with one of Marco’s prostitutes. According to this theory, Clark had killed Crawford to prevent him from using the pictures to blackmail Clark in, his campaign to become a Los Angeles Municipal Court Judge."8 At Ms trial, Clark claimed that he had killed Crawford in self-defense. Crawford, Clark testified, had pulled a gun on him when Clark had refused to help Crawford frame LAPD Police Chief Steckel, 1 .4 Silton, “ Urban Politics,” 27; Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 125-6. 1.5 Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 148. 11 6 Shuler, Strange. Death, 10-11. 1 1 7 Woon, Incredible Land, 35. m Los Angeks Examiner, 25 May 1931, Shuler, Strange Death, 46-7. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 133 Clark had then pulled his own gun and had shot Crawford,1 1 9 Neither version is probably entirely accurate, but jurors believed enough of Clark’s story to return, a verdict of not guilty. Crawford’s murder effectively secured McAfee’s role as chief of the Syndicate while renewing public conce.rn about the political corruption and the protection of criminals and illegal activities. By August 1931, for example, the Los Angeles Examiner noted that McAfee was “reputed to be the current boss of the gambling and other illicit-producing resorts of Los Angeles/’1 2 0 At the same time, reformers used the murder of Crawford as evidence that despite the promises of the new mayor, vice continued to receive protection from public officials. In May 1931, on the heels of Clark’s arrest for Crawford’s murder, Councilman Jacobson introduced yet another resolution to the City Council calling for “some definite action.. to put an end to ’racketeering’ in the City,”1 2 1 Jacobson even went so far as to demand the intervention of the Federal Government, if necessary, in . order to “clean up the City.”1 2 2 Despite shifts in the Syndicate’s power structure and attacks on political corruption by reformers, however, the Syndicate would remain powerful in. the 1930s although subject to increasing competition from eastern mobsters. 1 1 9 Tygiel, Lm Angeks Swindle, 308; Henstell, Sunshine and Wealth, 54; Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 149, m Los Angeks Examiner, 15 August 1931. 1 2 1 Council File 3448 (193IX LACA. 12 2 Council File 3448 (1931), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 134 Chapter 3 On the Fringes; Prostitution Across the Color Line in 1920s Los Angeles Introduction Id the 1920s, Los Angeles attracted a diverse population of migrants. Along with retired Midwest farmers, large numbers of Japanese, Mexican, black and other racial minorities moved to Los Angeles, making the city “racially heterogeneous” by 193G.1 Drawn, to the city for its employment opportunities, especially in. the field of construction as well as the outlying agricultural industry, many of these newcomers settled in. neighborhoods on. the fringes of the city’s central business district, in such communities as Little Tokyo, Sono.rat.own, and. Central Avenue. Of the challenges facing these communities—overcrowding, substandard housing, chronic unemployment—prostitution figured prominently. Because of discrimination, members of racial, or ethnic minorities often, had little choice but to move into areas of the city where the preponderance of prostitution and crime had resulted in making the neighborhood undesirable to white settlers and consequently open to settlement by racial minorities. In addition, the presence of prostitution and crime (along with the poor condition, of .housing) also helped bring down the rents on. property in. the neighborhood, making the area more accessible to the often financially strapped working class, ethnic populations of Los Angeles, The presence of prostitution and crime, while making certain neighborhoods affordable to the city’s ethnically diverse 1 Fogetson, Fragmented Metropolis, 8 i. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 135 population, also had the effect of contributing to continuing prejudice against such communities since it afforded another basis for associating crime with, minorities. In addition, members of the communities themselves also protested against the prevalence of crime, especially prostitution, in their neighborhoods, seeing it as an affront to their standards of respectability as well as an impediment to development of their community in general. Prostitution in Sonoratown: The Red Light District Resurfaces? In the 1920s, Mexican laborers moved in large numbers to Los Angeles, settling near the Plaza area of the city also known as Sonoratown., a reference to the birthplace of Mexican miners who had settled in the area in the 1850s after being forced out of the mining industry in the northern part: of the state.2 Historians estimate the city’s Mexican population rose from approximately 30,000 to 97,000 between 1920 and 1930.3 Many of these laborers worked in the expanding industry of railroad construction.. Others toiled in California’s agricultural industry', harvesting crops throughout the state during the summer, but spending their winters in Los Angeles.4 Many Mexican laborers settled, in Sonoratown—an area of the city just east of the Plaza and bounded by North. Main, Orel, North Broadway, and 2 Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 72. 3 Sa.fl.chez, Becoming Mexican American, 90; Fogetson, Fragmented Metropolis, 76-77. 4 McWilliams, Southern California, 316; Romo, East Los Angeks, 68, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 136 Bellevue Streets—because of the availability of cheap, sometimes even free, housing (see map 6)3 Railroad companies, for example, often supplied workers with “'small shacks, boxcars, and lots at no cost to the laborers.”* Other workers sought cheap housing in. Sonoratown’s numerous boarding houses where men could rent rooms for twenty cents a night, or in the apartments, low cost hotels, and house courts in the area/ By the 1920s, many middle and upper class Mexican families had moved to the Boyle Heights area— traditionally Jewish neighborhood lying east of the Plaza across the Los .Angeles River.8 Even when Mexican, families began seeking housing in other areas of the city beginning in . the 1920s, however, the Plaza area continued to lure Mexican men and women to the area throughout the decade with its pool halls, movie houses, and penny arcades.9 Although. Progressive reformers had ostensibly closed, down the city’s old red. light district (which had been located in close proximity to die Plaza area) in 1909, local newspapers began speculating in 192.1 that a red light district had re-emerged in Sonoratown. In April. 1921, the Los Angeles Times published an. expose of vice conditions prevailing in the city. The story singled out Sonoratown as the location of “what is to all intents and purposes an old-fashioned red-light district.”1 0 Part of the reason for the exposd lay in . the Times supposed, concern for the morals and health of the II. S. Navy’s sailors who were, claimed the Times, “die special, prey of [the] 5 la s Angeles Times, 19 April 1921. * Romo, East £m Angeles, 72, 7 Romo, East Los Angeles, 7.2; Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 78. 8 Romo, East Im Angeles, 144. 9 Romo, East. Los Angeles., 83. ™ Los Angelas Times, 19 April 1921. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Sonoratown Chinatown ss </M W < i/A , lokvoCiub m rokvo m % s i F Central Avenue m f/wfi m i 0 Map € Approximate BoBaiaries of Sonoratown, CI»iB.*town, Little Tokyo, and Centra! Avenue Communities Source: Modification of map found at littp://www,lib.alexas,i»:l«/raaps/iiistoricaI/J.osj0jgeIes„centraf„J917,jpg R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 138 scarlet harpies.”" According to the article, newspaper investigators found that the area abounded in prostitution along with the availability of illicit liquor, and that there was no effort to conceal the ongoing illegal activities. Prostitutes solicited customers from the doorways of small shacks, house courts, as well as from the windows of rooming-houses or hotels where they sat in their negligees. Among the various locations discussed in the article, the Times asserted, that one block of North Main. Street, between First Street and the Plaza housed three different ramshackle prostitution operations, the worst of which, was “a three-story building with broken windows and. an abandoned look” presided over by a . woman in her thirties “who wears youthful clothes and sits at the head of the stairway.”* 2 The Times estimated that over a hundred women “o f the underworld” lived and worked in . Sonoratown.1 3 The Times' expose of prostitution in Sonoratown indicated that the city’s new so-called red light district contained a diverse population, of both vice operators and clients, a charge that city officials tried to repudiate. Reporters, for example, highlighted the huge number of sailors who visited the area both for sex and alcohol, and the omission of a description of their race/ethnicity indicates that they were white men. Despite the length of the article, the Times included only three specific references to race or ethnicity. Joining the “sailors in uniform” in the area were ” la s Angeles Times, 19 April 1921. David Plvar has written about the Federal Government’s efforts to keep men in the armed forces free from venereal disease by establishing prostitution-free zones near army bases and naval stations beginning around World War I, David 1. Pivar, "Cleansing the Nation: The War on Prostitution, 1917-21,” Prologue 12 (Spring 1980): 32. 1 2 Los Angeks limes, 19 April 1,921. n Los Angeles Times, 19 April 1921. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 ,3 9 nondescript “civilians” or “scores of mm.”1 4 Only twice did the article mention Mexicans in the area. One reference included, a '“young Mexican” working in a two- story North Spring establishment who sewed as a go-between for the prostitutes working upstairs and prospective clients. The following day, after police had made a few arrests in the area, reporters noted that a “silk-shirted Mexican” had followed them, around the area, suspicious of their presence in , the area. Reporters never claimed to have observed Mexican men as the prospective clients of the prostitutes in the area. Instead, the Mexican men in the area had a more managerial role in the illicit operations of Sonoratown. In addition, reporters never described the prostitutes as being Mexican or of Mexican descent, generally referring to them simply as “painted women.” On the one occasion, when reporters described a prostitute in more detail, they asserted tlmt she was “an. American girl.”1 6 In response to the Times' explication of vice conditions in Sonoratown., police and city officials tried to downplay the existence and threat that Sonoratown posed for the city, and especially the young Navy men, by claiming that Mexicans constituted the majority of Sonoratown’s prostitutes and customers. In a follow-up story, for example, the Times reported, that the Police Commission, believed that the suspected prostitutes “were practically all of them Mexicans- very few, if any, women of other races being observed”1 7 In addition, the Police Commission maintained “the patrons of these houses were almost wholly of the same clas s, u Los Angeles Turns, 19 April 1921. u Los Angeles Times, i 9 April 1921. l f > Los Angeks Tim s, 1 .9 April 1921. 17LosAngeks Times, 21 April 1921. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 140 principally 'Mexicans- -very few Americans being observed”M Finally, the Police Commission contested reporters’ claims that a red-light district operated openly. The Police Commission claimed that prostitutes in the area engaged in . their trade discreetly, operating from houses located next door to respectable dwellings or establishments and otherwise keeping a low profile—a pattern typical of other prostitutes working throughout the city.1 9 The Police Commission,, although downplaying the threat Sonoratown posed to naval officers, did admit that the area did contain a “a considerable degree of immorality.”2 0 The Los Angeles Police Department thus subjected Sonoratown to periodic raids as part of an effort to prevent a red light district from resurfacing. In 1921, for example, a newly appointed Chief of Police Jones expressed concern about the probability of a red light district being established in Sonoratown, and discussed the police department’s efforts to prevent this from happening.2 1 Throughout 1922, the Times continued to report on the LAFD’s activities in the Plaza area, commenting on July 10 that the vice squad was giving Sonoratown. and the north end “another cleaning.2 2 ” While the Times'’ expose of vice conditions resulted in. heightened police activity in Sonoratown for a time, there was little commentary on. the in.cideo.ce of Mexican women, for prostitution. As 1 have already mentioned, the Times generally 1 8 Im A n g eks Times, 21 April 1921. ,w Ims Angeles Timm, 21 April 1921, 2 0 Los Angeks Times, 21 April, 1921. 2 t Los Angeks limes, 31 August 1921. 2 2 Los Angeles Times, 10 M y 1922 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 41 failed to identify prostitutes in Sonoratown as women of Mexican descent. Reporting on the various raids police made in Sonoratown, in fact; the Times made only one allusion to the ethnicity of the women arrested, noting that tire police had arrested seventeen women who “''smoked, laughed and chatted in Spanish on their way to the station”® The Los Angeles Police Department itself had little to say regarding the number of Mexican, women involved, in prostitution. In a 1924 study of arrests of Mexicans which utilized police statistics for the fiscal year 1923-1924, the Los Angeles Police Department noted that police had arrested fifty Mexican, women under the charge of “offering,” the abbreviation, for the charge associated with, the city ordinance prohibiting a woman from M oiTe.r[ing] her body for the purpose of prostitution.”2 4 The Los Angeles Police .Department made no special point of discussing the arrest figures, only commenting that “the number of arrests is small” and that “[a]s would be predicted, the greatest number of arrests occurs in the age 21-30.” Of the fifty women arrested, thirty-seven came from this age group.2 5 Although there is no dear portrait of the role of prostitution in the lives of Mexican women in Los Angeles, statistics from, the Los Angeles Police Department’s annual, reports combined with, fragmentary information found in a handful of newspaper articles, indicate that a number of Mexican women did participate in the business of prostitution. The Los Angeles Police Department began publishing arrest statistics by race/ethnicity beginning with their 1927-1928 n Im A ngek$ Times, 3 .2 November 1922 2 4 Los Angeles Police Department, “Brief Study of Arrests of Mexicans,” (1924), LACA, 15; City Ordinances 1.9371 and 493 54, LACA. 3 LAPP, “Arrests of Mexicans,” 15. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 142 report Including the 1924 report detailing the arrests o f Mexican women for offering, then, I have been able to calculate that police arrested Mexican, women for offering in numbers disproportionate to their population, in the city. In, 1924, for example, arrests of Mexican, women, represented 9.5% of the total, arrests for offering. By 1.928, that percentage had risen to 14% , tailing to 12% of the total number arrests for offering by the end of the decade (see table 7).2 6 These percentages are considerably higher than the estimates for the percentage of the city ’s Mexican population which ranged from 5.2 to 7.8% of the total population.3 7 Table 7 Number and Percentage of Women Arrested for “Offering” for Fiscal Years 1927-1928 through 1929-1930, by Race/Ethnicity N 1927-8 % of Total M ISM % of Total. N 1929-30 % of Total While 405 60 405 63 451 59 Black 169 25 146 23 217 28 Red 97 14 91 14 95 1 .2 Yellow I 0 0 0 2 0 Brown 0 0 0 0 0 0 Total 672 1 0 0 642 100 765 100 Source: 1-os Angeles Police Department, Annual Reports, fiscal years 1927-1928 through. 1929-1930 Note: The Los Angeles Police Department devised the “ethnic categories” of White, Blade, Red, Yellow, and Brown. The color “red” designated Native Americans, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans; the color “yellow” designated Asian and Asian Americans (primarily people of Chinese and Japanese descent); and the color brown designated people of Filipino descent. Police also arrested Mexican women, in large numbers for vagrancy. In the police report for fiscal year 1928-1929, arrest statistics were grouped by type of 2 6 LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1923-1924; LAPD, Amytal Report, fiscal year 1927-8; LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1928-9; LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1929-30. 2 7 In 1920, the Mexican population is estimated, at 30,000 (or approximately 5.2%) out of a total population of 576,673 while in 1930, the Mexican population is estimated at 97,000 (or approximately 7.8%) out of a total population of 1,238,048. McWilliams, Southern California, 14; Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 90. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 143 oftfense, and two vagrancy offenses (“Vag Dissolute” and “Vag Lewd”) appeared in a list of sex-related offenses.2 8 The existence of such categories of vagrancy allowed police to arrest prostitutes loitering in public places without evidence of a sexual exchange. Once again,, Mexican women were arrested in disproportionate numbers to their larger population in the city (see table 8). That police charged Mexican women with “vagrancy” just about as often as they charged them, for “offering” suggests that Mexican prostitutes maintained a visible presence in the city, and thus it is also likely that many of the Mexican, prostitutes police arrested worked as streetwalkers. Streetwalkers would have been most visible to police, and as historians have already affirmed, streetwalkers generally dealt with the most police harassment. Table 8 Number and Percentage of Women Arrested for “Vagrancy”8 for Fiscal Years 1927-1928 through 1929-193®, by Race/Ethnicity M 1927-8 % of Total M 1928-9 % of Total ,1 9 N 29-30 % of Total White 419 56 397 56 363 65 Black 228 30 212 30 103 19 Red 93 12 99 14 89 1 6 Yellow 2 0 3 0 0 0 Brown 0 0 1 0 0 0 Total 748 wo 712 1 .0 0 555 too Source; Los Angeles Police Department, Amnml Reports, fiscal years 1927-! 928-1 930. * “Vagrancy” designates “Vagrancy Lewd” and “Vagrancy Dissolute.” Aside from its stories on Sonoratown, the Los Angeles Times published a handful of art,ides on Mexican women, involved in prostitution. In 1924, for 2 8 The list included such charges as “Adultery,” “Contributing to Delinquency of Minor,” “Indecent Exposure,” “Offering” and “Sodomy.” for die complete list of charges, see LAPD, A m rnl Report, fiscal year 1928-1929. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 144 example, the newspaper reported on the kidnapping of a twelve-year-old Mexican girl from Los Angeles who officers had. found in “a dazed condition, apparently suffering from the effect of opiates,”2 9 According to the Times, the kidnapping had convinced fee city’s “ juvenile authorities” of the existence o f a “widespread plot to abduct young Mexican, and. Spanish girls in Southern California and sell them into white slavery.”® Despite this alleged concern, on the part of fee juvenile authorities, however, no follow-up story appeared. Another story in. the Times, consisting of only a paragraph, gives some indication of fee deterrents Mexican women considering prostitution faced. The paragraph noted that Gregoria Gomez de Jaure had been found guilty of “having re-entered fee United States from Mexico after having been deported on a morals charge.” The Times went on. to say that fee woman had re-entered, the United States to join her husband and. three children.3 1 Although the Times did not say specifically what the “morals charge” entailed, prostitution would have constituted a morals charge, thus making a Mexican, woman’s involvement in prostitution grounds for deportment, even if she were married with children. According to Richard Romo, author of£os/ Los Angeles: History o f a Barrio. following the passage of the Red Light Abatement Act of 1913, a law that gave the courts the power to close any building feat served as a place of prostitution, prostitution, relocated from “progressives’ own communities or business 2 9 ' Los Angeks Times, 12 August 1924, ® Los Angeks Times, 12 August 1924, n Los Angeles Times, 5 April 1929, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 145 communities to areas near the Black ghetto and Mexican barrio of Los Angeles,” ® Certainly, racial prejudice allowed Angelenos to ignore prostitution in ethnic neighborhoods. Concern about the “moral” conditions in Sonoratown only emerged after Naval authorities threatened to make the city off-limits for its sailors of “a tender age.”3 3 'When, however, the city expressed interest in cleaning up Sonoratown beginning in. 1921, it actually used the Red Light Abatement Act to close properties or houses associated with prostitution, gambling, or other violations of the law.” In addition, although Romo notes that barrio residents protested laws they felt encouraged the emergence of prostitution in their neighborhoods, Romo has no comment on. the participation of Mexicans themselves in commercialized vice. Mexican, women, dabbled in prostitution on some occasions, and the Times suggested that Mexican men also had a role to play in. the business, arranging rendezvous between prostitutes and clients. Also, Sonoratown contained a large number of potential customers in. the predominantly working class, male dominated, population inhabiting the area. Although many of these men. immigrated to the United. States with wives or were married, a higher proportion of single men came to the city than single women. These men frequented the Plaza area, enjoying the pool halls, movie houses, and penny arcades, and perhaps the services of prostitutes as well.3 3 Prostitution in. the 3 2 Romo, East Los Angeles, 130-1. 3 3 Los Angeles Times, 29 April 1921, u I m Angeks Times, 30 April 1921. 3 5 Romo, East I m Angeles, 52, S3. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 146 city’s Mexican community thus resulted from a . number of factory-including but not limited to aftershocks of anti-prostitution crusades o f reformers. Prostitution and Crime in Chinatown and Little Tokyo In contrast to the expanding communities of Sonoratown, Little Tokyo, ant! Central Avenue, Chinatown maintained only a small population and saw its impact on the city wane during the 1920s. In the 1890s, Chinatown—bordering Sonoratown. and the Plaza on the east—had been, at its peak, both in terms of its population and as an important nucleus o f prostitution in the city (see chapter one). By the 1920s, the Chinese population had been in decline for three decades, and although the population did grow throughout the decade, the gain was not significant compared to the growth of the city as a whole. By 1930, the Chinese population in Los Angeles County had grown from. 2,591. to 3,572, a . figure less than what the population had been in 1890“ In addition, the cribs of Chinatown had been replaced by legitimate businesses beginning in 1.909 as part of the city’s anti-prostitution campaign.. Chinese prostitutes had already left the trade in significant numbers beginning in 1886, running away from the tongs that controlled them, buying out their contracts, and sometimes getting married.” The influence of the tongs 'themsel ves also began. to subside beginning in the 1890s as the Chinese merchants of Chinatown launched campaigns against the tongs in , order to make the area more attractive to prospective visitors. Tongs retained some power through the 1930s, but many tongs had by then J 6 McWilliams, Southern California, 85; U, S, Census., Fifteenth Census, , 266. 3 7 Lou, “Chinese American Community,” 303. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 4 ? turned their attention to legitimate business as opposed to (or in , addition to) commercialized vice,3 8 Despite its shrinking population, Chinatown, retained its reputation as a place of illicit pleasures through the 1920s. In 1913, an investigating committee touring Los Angeles’ Chinatown commented on the danger of strolling through the area at: night because of the high number of “ ‘drunk gangs and other disorderly groups of men.’”® To handle the volume of crime in the area, the Los Angeles Police Department formed a special squad known as the Chinatown Squad. This squad, in operation from approximately 1916 through the 1920s, reported that gambling and possession of opium constituted the bulk of its arrests.4 0 In 1919, Chief Home commented on the increase of crime in the city, and he noted that along with the Metropolitan. Squad, the Chinatown Squad had achieved “records in checking vice and crime in districts where they are most rampant”4 1 Throughout the 1920s, Chinatown continued, to function as the center of the city’s opium trade, and gambling thrived as well.4 2 “Gambling,” along with “Lottery Possession” (possessing a lottery ticket) and “Lottery Visiting” (visiting an establishment which, sold lottery tickets and usually featured other games of chance as well) topped the list of charges under which police arrested Asian, men in Los Angeles in 1928.4 3 3 8 Ivan Light, “From Vice District to Tourist Attraction: The Moral Career of American Chinatowns, 1880-1940,” Pacific Historical Review 43 (August 1975): 388, 392. 3 9 Quoted in. Light, “American. Chinatowns,” 387. 4 0 LAPD, Annual Report, fisc*! vear 3916-1917. LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal, year 1919-1920. 4 2 HenstelJ, Sunshine and Wealth, 89-90. 4 3 LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1927-1928. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 148 Utilizing studies of arrest records across the state from 1900-1927, one researcher concluded that Chinese individuals continued to be arrested most often for gambling and narcotic offenses,4 4 While the gambling and narcotics industries continued to flourish in Chinatown in the 1920s, it is less clear that prostitution, continued to do so. in. 1930, for example, the Los Angeles Times carried a story discussing allegations o f vice protection in. Chinatown.. According to the Times, a prominent tong member had informed the Los Angeles Police Commission that police were being paid off by an unidentified Chinese naan in exchange for the “privilege” of maintaining vice establishments. The article went on to disclose that the Commission was investigating charges that “gambling, sale of lottery tickets and houses of ill repute are existent in Chinatown.”4 5 Only eight addresses, however, were under scrutiny in. the investigation, While a study of “Oriental Crime in California” concluded that gambling and narcotics did pose a problem for Chinese communities across the state, the study concluded that the Chinese could not be accused of “gross immorality” since arrests of Chinese women for prostitution statewide between 1900 and 1927 accounted for only 3,5% of the total arrests made in the Chinese communiiy.4 6 Arrest statistics from, the Los Angeles Police Department support the study’s conclusion for the subsequent years of 1928-1930. In those years, police arrested only three “yellow” women for offering, and only live “yellow” women for 4 4 Walter G. Beach, Oriental Crime in California: A Study of Offenses Committed by Orientals m Thai State, 1909-1927 (Stanford: Stanford. University Press, 1932), 65,67-8, 4 3 Los Angeles Times, 10 April 1930. * Beach, Oriented Crime, 72, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 149 committing sex-related vagrancy offenses (see tables 7 and Because the Los Angeles Police Department classified both Chinese and. Japanese women, as “yellow,” it is impossible to know the exact number of Chinese women arrested for prostitution. A state-wide study of “oriental crime,” however, indicates that 230 Chinese women were arrested for prostitution, compared to 52 Japanese women. It is likely, then, that Chinese women were part of this tiny number of women arrested, in Los Angeles for prostitution.4 ® If prostitution, did continue to flourish in Chinatown, the lack of Chinese arrests for prostitution suggests either that individuals involved, in Chinese prostitution successfully evaded police ('possibly through a pay-off system) or that prostitutes working in. Chinatown came from a different ethnic background. A 1933 story about a police investigation of Chinatown, and Little Tokyo, for example, claimed that in the “wholesale clean up of oriental vice dens,” police had found “many white girls . . . living with Japanese and Chinese in rooming houses.”4 9 Although the newspaper did not explicitly say these white girls either were living with Chinese or Japanese men. or that these girls were prostitutes, but the tone of the article implied, that the giris were disreputable. Unlike the declining Chinese community of Los Angeles during the first decades of the twentieth century, the Japanese commumty experienced tremendous growth. Between 1910 and 1920, for example, the Japanese population, of Los 4 1 LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1927-8; LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year S 928-9; LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1929-30. The LAPD Annual Reports only began, to give arrest statistics by rece/etbnicity in 1927-8. 4 8 Beach, Oriental Crime, 57. m Los Angeles Times, 5 February 1933. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 150 Aagel.es increased, from 4,238 to 1.1,618.® Only ten years later, the Japanese in Los Angeles numbered 35,3902’ The Japanese community of'Los Angeles settled in , an. area of the city that bordered Chinatown, oa the north, and the African American community of Central Avenue on the east. The intersection of First Street and San Pedro functioned as the center of the community, which had become widely known as “Little Tokyo” by 190422 By 1924, little Tokyo continued to be the largest Japanese community in Los Angeles, and its borders included Aliso Street on the north. East Fourth. Street on. the south, Vignes Street on the east and Los Angeles Street on the west (see map 6).5 3 Like other newcomers to the city, the Japanese came to the area in search of economic opportunities. Male laborers comprised the bulk of the Japanese population, finding jobs prima.rily in the outlying agricultural industry.5 4 The Japanese soon found it advantageous to become involved in business, especially those catering to members of their own communities. Thus, by 1915 a large number of Japanese operated hotels and boarding houses for the Japanese laborers. Japanese restaurants also proliferated in the area.” Japanese- American laborers and other recent arrivals found affordable but also “generally 5 0 Koyoshi Uono, “The Factors Affecting the Geographical Aggregation and Dispersion of the Japanese Residences in the City of Los Angeles” (Master’s thesis, University of Southern California, 1927), 18. 1 1 U. S. Census, Fifteenth Census, 266, 5 2 William A. Mason and John A. McKinstry, The Japanese o f Los Angeles, 1869-1920 (Produced by the History Division of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, Contribution No. 1 , 1969), 8. ‘ 5 3 Gretchen Long Tuthill, “A Study of the Japanese in the City of Los Angeles” (Master’s thesis, University of Southern California, 1924), 25, 5 4 McWilliams, Southern California, 321. 5 3 Isamu Nodera, “A Survey of the Vocational Activities of the Japanese in the City of Los Angeles” (Master’s thesis, University of Southern Cdiforaia, 1936), 28, In 1915,153 Japanese listed their vocations as “Hotels” and another 48 listed “Boarding houses and rooms for rent.” Forty-eight operated “Japanese-style restaurants.” R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 151 . cramped and often dilapidated housing” in Little Tokyo beginning at the torn of the century but also well into the 1920s.5 * As in Sonoratown and Chinatown, the intersection of First and San Pedro streets that would, become the center of Little Tokyo had a 'history of prostitution and vice. An observer in 1903, for example, claimed, the area contained many saloons along with several, houses of “questionable morality.”5 7 In 1904, tin ts Los Angeles Times identified the block of San Pedro Street between First and Second Streets as the city’s “negro tenderloin.”3 . The article claimed that several activities patrons described were “too degraded to mention,” but alleged that gann.bli.Eg and drinking took place, in addition, the article commented that white women also patronized the clubs, mingling with “vile black prostitutes and drunken, negro gamblers.’5 ® Although the Times identified the “row of dives” on San Pedro and Second Street as black clubs, the Times also observed that across the street from one of the worst places was “a Japanese dive not much better.”6 0 By the 1.920s, however, the Japanese community had managed to bring a degree of respectability to the neighborhood, enough for University of Southern California sociology student Gretchem Tuthill to observe in her master’s thesis that what had been an. area of “saloons, pool rooms, second hand stores, and junk shops” and, “a disgrace to they city” had been transformed into an. “up-to-date” and “picturesque” shopping area—a 3 6 Model!, RacialAcwmmotbtim, 55-6. 5 7 Los Angeks Socialist, 8 August 1903, quoted in Model!, Racial Accommodation, 67. 5 8 Los Angeles Times, 22 December 1904, Thanks to Tom Sittom at the Seaver Center for this reference, 5 9 Los Angeles Times, 22 December 1904. ml m Angeles Times, 22 December 1904. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 152 “great improvement” for the neighborhood.6 ' Tuthill also remarked that “[t jhe Japanese as a race are a most law-abiding people. The Japanese American comimmity in Little Tokyo retained its reputation of respectability in the 1920s. By 1905 already, the Japanese Association had begun, efforts to control criminal activity in the community by setting standards of behavior for the community. The Association, for example, made gainb.li.iB g in Chinatown, off- limits to its Japanese residents and encouraged citizens to report on the infractions of others.® The Association, aided by members of the community along with other church and lay groups, largely succeeded in keeping the Japanese community free of crime. Arrest rates for Los Angeles Japanese remained low, and most violations consisted of minor liquor, traffic, or drunk and disorderly violations.*4 The 1927 study of “Oriental Crime in California” substantiates the view of both contemporary sociology students as well as later historians that the Japanese of Los Angeles were generally law-abiding citizens, commenting that “the record of the Japanese in California is clearly that of an orderly and industrious people, obedient to the laws of the state.” With regard to prostitution, in particular, the study found that, at least as far as arrest records indicated, prostitution in the Japanese community appeared to be virtually mom-existent Across the state for the years 1900-1927, only fifty-two Japanese women were arrested on prostitution charges.6 5 Between .1928 < s Tuthill, “Study ofjspmese,” 25. 5 2 Tuthill, “Study of Japanese,1 ' 13. 6 3 Mason, and. McKinstty, Japanese o f Los Angeles, 14. 6 4 Modell, fa cia l Accommodation, 85. ® Beach, (Mental Crime, 57. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 153 and 1930, less than eight Japanese women faced prostitution-related charges in , Los Angeles" While Little Tokyo began to acquire the reputation of respectability in the early decades of the twentieth century, the community was not without its criminal operations. One historian includes the reference to Japanese participation, in , criminal activities in a footnote, commenting that despite the effectiveness of anti-crime measures taken by the community, the Japanese of Los Angeles, like other urban immigrants groups in America, also had individuals within their community with “occupation, specializations outside the law” i)nclucli.ng drug trafficking, prostitution, and gambling. Such, illicit activ.iti.es became the concentration of a Japanese organization called the Tokyo Club, “a powerful, institution, that dominated the community in most of its unlawful and much of its legitimate activity.”4 7 Run by older, first-generation Japanese immigrants described as “businessmen-gangsters,” the Tokyo Club resembled Chinese tongs in that both provided their members—mainly single, working class men—with financial assistance in times of need and other services associated with mutual aid societies. Also like the Chinese tongs, however, the Tokyo Club sought to serve its members5 social and fraternal, needs through the provision of unlawful services, particularly but not limited, to gambling. w LAPD, Ammal Report, fiscal year 1927-8; LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal, year 1928-9; LAPD, Ammo!Report, fiscal year 1929-1930. 4 7 Alec Dubro and David E. Kaplan, “California’s Yafcuzai Foothold in Little Tokyo,” The Californians 5 (My/August 1.987): 37. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 154 The Tokyo Club owned a three-story building at the corner o f Jackson Street and Central Avenue within the neighborhood of Little Tokyo that contained newspaper offices on the first floor, an auditorium on the second floor, and a gambling parlor on. the third floor that featured a wide range of games to cater to every taste (see map 6). The Tokyo Club’s gambling parlor was a "coin.immi.ty institution” as opposed to a secret spot, and profits from the parlor’s table in the 1920s netted the Tokyo Club more than $ 1 . million a year,** Gambling provided the Tokyo Club with the most of its profits, but the Club also participated in the sale of illegal alcohol as well as in the business of prostitution. Unfortunately, no details regarding the organization’s involvement in prostitution, are available. In all likelihood, the Tokyo Club began, its involvement in prostitution as a way of providing sexual services to the large population of unattached working class Japanese living in Little Tokyo’s boarding houses and. hotels. A 1927 sociological study, however, noted that about one-third of Little Tokyo’s hotels and boarding houses contained only white laborers.6 0 In addition, the diversity of gambling games indicates that the Tokyo Club welcomed customers of a various backgrounds. The Tokyo Club, then, probably serviced a diverse clientele in its prostitution industry, and it is likely the Club controlled, a diverse group of prostitutes, including Anglo women as well as Japanese and women of other minority groups. Chapter Six will explore this possibility more fully, drawing on a 1.933 expose of an, alleged white 6 8 Dubro and Kaplan, “California's Yakuza," 39. 6 9 Uono, “Geographical Aggregation.;” 46, This same study also claimed that the few remaining saloons that had been in existence previous to Prohibition had whiles rather than Japanese as owners. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 155 slave ring “in which white girls are forced into a . life of shame,, the victims of Orientals [Japanese and Chinese men'].” The discovery came as a result of the testimony oflrapi Ylonen, a Finnish woman, who told, police she had been, held in one of Little Tokyo’s rooming houses against her will by a Japanese man and Ms common. law white wife.7 0 Although Chinatown and Little Tokyo obtained different reputations regarding the amount of crime in their .respective neighborhoods in the 1920s, these two sections of town resembled each other in regard to certain aspects of crime in their communities. In both, cases, a small network of'men dominated the community’s criminal activities. In Chinatown, tongs maintained, a waning control of crime through the 1920s while in Little Tokyo, the Tokyo Club began to dominate the community’s crime scene beginning in the 1.920s, sustaining a monopoly over the gambling, prostitution, and drug trafficking in the area into the 1.930s, In addition, prostitution functioned as only a subsidiary interest of a larger criin.itt.al operation in much the same way that it did in for the Syndicate, adding to an already profitable business in gambling and narcotics taking place in both neighborhoods. Furthermore, by the 1920s, it is increasingly clear that the individuals with “occupation special.featio.ns outside the law” in. Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and even Sonoratown extended the bulk of its illicit sendees to a diverse clientele, including not only the men of their own racial backgrounds but also the white laborers (in. Sonoratown, this included Italian immigrants) living in their midst. n 1m Angeks Examiner, 14 January 1933, See chapter six for the full coverage, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 156 By the 1920s, the gender ratio imbalances sociologists and historians cited as the main reason behind the proliferation of gambling dens and houses of prostitution in both the Chinese and Japanese community had largely begun to even out, thus leading crime analysts and budding sociologists to conclude that both the Japanese and Chinese were generally law-abiding people. Instead, the gambling and narcotics industries relied on a mixed clientele including a large number of white clients who indulged in prostitution on a smaller scale. Prostitutes working in little Tokyo and Chinatown, also appear to have been from mixed racial backgrounds, and arrest statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department along with anecdotal evidence from newspaper reports support this conclusion. Throughout the 1920s as well as the 1930s, arrests of "yellow” women under any prostitution charges remained, a tiny fraction of the total number of women arrested under such charges. Instead, white women, joined in alarmingly high numbers by black women (and by Mexican women in a smaller but expanding proportion), continued to account for the majority of prostitution arrests in. the city. Prostitution in Los Angeles’s Central Avenue Community By the 1920s. what had been a relatively small and dispersed population of African Americans in Los Angeles grew into a thriving but increasingly segregated community which was concentrated along thirty blocks of Central Avenue.'7 1 Located to the south and east of Little Tokyo (the site of the city’s first black 7 1 Lawrence B. De G b ra a f, “The City of Black Angels; Emergence of the Los Angeles Ghetto, 1890- 1930," Pacific Historical Review 39 (August 1970), 335, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 157 community), the Centra! Avenue neighborhood contained about forty percent of the city’s black population and comprised an area bounded on the north and south, by Fourth Street and Slauson Avenue, and on the east and west by Alameda and. San Pedro Streets (see map 6),T i During the decade Los Angeles’ black population doubled, rising from 15,579 to 38,894 by I930.7 3 Many of the blacks who settled in Los Angeles during the decade migrated to the city from the South, hoping to leave behind economic hardship and deep racial prejudice,” In Los Angeles, they found jobs predominantly as common laborers, janitors, porters, and domestic servants.” Although, many of Central Avenue’s residents came from rural, working class backgrounds and encountered limited job opportunities and racism (notably in the form of racially restrictive housing deeds), the community as a whole prospered in the 1920s, enjoying an increasing literacy rate as well as an unprecedented degree of home ownership.7 6 By the end of the decade, the neighborhood boasted several churches, a YWCA as well as YMCA, a hospital, branches of the National African. Ame.rica.it Business League and. the National Urban League, a theater, and the Dunbar Hotel which featured a hundred .rooms as well as a pharmacy, beauty shop, barber shop, and flower shop.7 7 The Central Avenue community, however, became more famous for its music scene and colorful night life. Called the “Beal. Street” or 7 2 James McFsrlioe Ervin, “The Participation of the Negro in the Community Life of Los Angeles” (Master's thesis, University of Southern California, 1931), 12; Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 75. 75 Stan; Material Dreams, 148 7 4 McWilliams, Southern California, 325; Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 77. 7 5 De Graa£ “Black Angels,” 332, * Starr, Material Dreams, 148; Skies, “Working Away,” 29. 7 7 Bette Yarbrough Cox. Central Avem«i~-Ms Rise andFall (1890-^.1955) Including the Musical Renaissance of Black Los Angeles (Los Angeles; BEEM Publications, 1993,1996), 23,30, 35. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 158 the “Lennox Avenue” of the West (references to black communities in . Memphis and Harlem), Central Avenue emerged, as the West Coast’s jazz capita.! in tie 1920s.” According to one author, Central Avenue became a hotbed of “juke joints, jazz clubs, and glorified seediness” that attracted both black residents as well, as slumming whites, including Hollywood celebrities.7 9 As in other Los Angeles coinmuniti.es,, prostitution had been part of the African American community since its beginnings at the turn of the century when it had been situated at First and Los Angeles Street.8 0 As the settlement migrated south, prostitution followed. In 1921, for example. Police Chief Jones singled out the “Central-avemie district” as one of the areas of the city that, because of its “open vice” warranted elevated police activity.8 1 In addition, scandals regarding the protection of prostitution, gambling., and the illegal sale of alcohol by city officials in league with Central Avenue community members appeared in the city’s newspapers periodically through the 1920s. In 1.919, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that Detective Glenn, a “negro detective sergeant” in charge of “the negro squad of detectives,” had been, suspended in connected with his alleged protection of “colored alley workers”—a reference to women who routinely robbed their customers during a sexual exchange that took, place in . an alley. Having completed the robbery, the prostitute would claim the police were coming, and both client and 7 8 Gilmore Millen, Sweet M m (Mew York; The Viking Press, 1930), 267; Nadeau, Mission to Modern City, 239. Beifnano, Real Los Angeles Noir, 10. 8 0 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 47. See chapter one for further details. u Los Angeles Times, 31 August 1921. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 159 prostitute would depart from the alley, the client 'usually none the wiser that lie had been, robbed.*2 The Times indicated that Detective Glenn enjoyed a sexual relationship with one such prostitute (Ida Russell), who worked in conjunction with a female partner (Ruth Butler), who had been arrested the previous month on charges of grand larceny for stealing “a diamond stick pin, a watch, and $60 in cash from King Lee, a Chinese, who had just entered the city.”* 3 In 1923, the lo s Angeles Record claimed that John S. Ealey, described as the colored political “boss” of Central Avenue, had been part of an “underworld plot” involving Los Angeles Police Department officers, looking to make thousands of dollars in. profits by offering vice protection to bootlegging and gambling establishments as well as “houses of ill-repute.”w Charges of vice protection in the Central Avenue district continued throughout the 1920s, leading Robert Shuler to remark in. 1927 that “Central Avenue has literally been submerged in vileness under the present administration.”8 5 In addition to newspaper .reports indicating the prevalence of prostitution and other crime in the Central Avenue neighborhood, arrest statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department also provide evidence that prostitution affected the African American community. In the last three years of the 1.920s, for example, police arrested African. American, women in numbers disproportionate to their 8 2 Los Angeles limes, 8 March 1919. For a description of the "Alley Worker,” see Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 59-60. 1 1 Im Angeles Tims, 8 March 191.9, 8 4 Los Angeles Record, 27 January 1923. 8 5 Bob Shuler's Magazine 6 (August 1927): 127 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 160 overall population, in. the city. While African Americans comprised approximately three percent of the city’s total population in the 1920s, black women accounted for approximately twenty-six percent of the total arrests for “offering” to commit an immoral act African American women also accounted for approximately twenty- seven percent of the total arrests for sex-related vagrancy offenses.8 5 Despite representing a declining percentage of the total arrests for vagrancy and offering in the 1920s (see table 9), this trend did not continue into the 1930s. Table 9 Number and Percentage of Women Arrested for “Offering” and * 'Vagrancy'” for Fiscal Yews 1927-1928 through 192M930, by Race/Ethnicity 1.927-8 M % 1928-9 M % 1225 M >-30 % White 824 58 802 59 814 62 Black 397 28 358 26 320 24 Red 190 13 190 .1 4 184 14 Yellow 3 0 3 0 2 0 Brown 0 0 1 0 0 0 Total 1.420 100 1354 too 1320 100 Source: Los Angeles Police Department, Annual Reports, fiscal years 1927-1928 through 1929-1930. Note: These figures include women arrested for violating Ordinance No. 49354, Section 1, “ Vagrancy lewd.5 ’ and ‘Vagrancy dissolute.” Although police arrested black women in disproportionate numbers in Los Angeles, the figures appear relatively low in comparison to arrest statistics for New York and Chicago. In New York, for example, African Americans accounted for a teeth of the total population but forty-six percent of the arrests for prostitution in 1.924, In Chicago in 1930, African American women comprised 3.5% of the total 8 5 LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1927-1928; LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1928-1929; LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1929-1930. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 161 population and sixty-nine percent of the total number o f convicted prostitutes.®7 The cooperation in Los Angeles between a corrupt police department and powerful Central Avenue community leaders may help explain this disparity—m other words, police may not have been arresting a large number of black prostitutes.** In addition., several historians have concluded that until the Depression, Los Angeles did represent a land, of possibilities for black m igrants.®9 Black women simply may have found more job opportunities outside of prostitution in Los Angeles than they did in other cities. Prostitution as well as sexual, immorality in the community, however, did pose a serious concern for Central Avenue’s female leaders. In. 1.916, for example, the Los Angeles Police Department hired the country’s first African American policewoman, Georgia Ann Robinson, in direct response to the request, of African. American women in the community who belonged to the local affiliates of the National Association of Colored Women. This request reflected the concern of African American women, about the “sexual exploitation, of black women and girls by men and boys of all races”—an. alarming situation which, racist myths regarding black female sexuality seemed to encourage.* In addition, Central Avenue leaders had other organizations in place to combat sexual immorality and prostitution in their community. Such organizations included the Community Welfare League for Girls, 8 7 Mumford, Intmoms, 38. “ Woods, Police in Im Angeles, 110. 8 9 McWilliams, Southern Californio, 324; De Graaf, “Black Angels,” 340; Stair, Material Dreams, 14$. ® Appier, Policing Women, 12$. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 162 which operated, a home for “colored unmarried mothers and delinquent girls” at 833 Central Avenue. In addition, the East Side Mothers’ Club, located at 1627 East 22n d Street, .focused on “protective and preventive work for young colored girls.”3 * Although. Central Avenue emerged by the end of the 1920s as Los Angeles’ most well-known Mack neighborhood, the area retained a distinct interracial quality—a characteristic marking the area’s prostitution industry as well. Mexicans, Italians, Japanese, and Jews all lived, in the Central. Avenue community, and the area also attracted white visitors with its nightclubs and other entertainment9 2 The white patrons o f such nightclubs included members of the Hollywood elite as well as university students and shop girls who delighted in. the clubs’ “ ‘dusky atmosphere.’”9 3 Although historians and sociologists have lumped together any club that attracted an interracial crowd as a “ black and tan,” the nightclubs of Los Angeles defy this categorization.9 4 Kevin Mu.mfo.rd claims that black and tans were interracial clubs that were spurned by both blacks and whites as “intrinsically immoral” and that they “defined the slums.”9 5 The nightclubs of Central Avenue, by contrast, attracted a mixed crowd but did not earn the social opprobrium that other mixed crowd clubs did, especially by the black community itself. In. contrast to Club Alabam (previously known as the Apex Club) which, one former black Central. Avenue described as “the most 9 1 Annual Report of the Social Service Commission, 1923-1924, LA.CA 9 2 De Graaf, “Black Angels,” 335, Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 141. 3 3 Cox, Central Avenue, 267; Milleo, Sweet Mm, 272; Ervin. “Participation of the Neg.ro/' 1 .9 . 9 4 Gtifoyle, City c»f Erm, 231; Wafter C. Reckless, Vice in Chicago (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1933), 118. 9 5 Mumford, Jmenams. 30. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 163 exclusive class club" that the residents of the neighborhood could hardly afford to go to because is was so expensive, for example, the Humming Bird was a club that both blacks and whites condemned. In 1925, the Los Angeles Times devoted an entire column to the Humming Bird, describing it as a “ostensibly a negro cafe and dance hall ” but really “the worst ‘ joint1 * in town-- a . place where negroes and whites, including women, mix in unbelievable orgies, where liquor is sold freely .,., where ex-convicts and ‘hopheads’ consort.”9 4 The Times commented that despite die complaints of “good citizens of both races” against the “flagrant and shameless” conduct of the club, police had done little to close it.9 7 Because the Times mentioned the club-located at Central Avenue and Twelfth Street—as part of a larger story on “vice suppression” and “vice joints" it is likely that prostitutes frequented the club, and that they were more than likely the white woman participating in the “drunken, debauches” with “negroes.”9 ® In 1931, a University of Southern California sociology student, James Ervin, completed a master’s thesis in which he discussed the interracial character of prostitution in. the Central Avenue community in detail. Ervin based his thesis on interviews he conducted at various “haunts,” which be was able to visit through, the help of friends who had introduced him to the area’s pimps. His visits and interviews led. him to conclude that approximately “268 to 300 white girls” operated in. black communities as “regular prostitutes.” Ervin estimated that about half of 9 6 lm Angela,i Times, 24 March 1925. 9 7 Los Angeles Tunes, 24 March 1925. * Los Angeles Times, 24 March 1925. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 164 these prostitutes worked out of houses in the black community, ran by a pimp and his wife or female accomplice. Ervin claimed to have visited forty-six such houses, arid that each had two to four girls per house who worked, during the day. Each house, however, could also call upon the services of " ‘ swing girls”’ or girls who did not work regular hours but could “be called at all hows.’’ ’ The other white prostitutes working in the black community did so in conjunction with black musicians who played at the “cheap Main Street, dance saloons and vaudviile [sic] houses.” Such girls were show girls or taxi-dancers who relied on the black musicians (with, whom they would, split their fees) to set them up with clients who they would meet for their sexual .rendezvous at the rooms of the musicians or even in rooms of the “regular houses” after the theaters and dance halls had dosed.® Ervin, claimed that women working at the houses made two dollars per client, with one dollar going to the operator. In addition, these women generally saw five clients a day, and thus made about sixty dollars a week. Prostitutes could make extra money by working parties where they would arrange “shows” which featured “the very lowest and most unusual tendencies in sex-perversions” for the men. White prostitutes also earned extra income by selling nude pictures of themselves to clients,1 0 0 Why did white women choose to operate in African American neighborhoods? Ervin explored possible answers to this question, by conducting interviews with white women. Some of them told Ervin that their motive was w Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 56. 1 0 0 Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 58. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 165 purely financial, since they could make more money by having sex with African American men than with white men,’ 0 1 One prostitute described her entry into interracial prostitution by saying that, “1 soon gave up the [department store] job, as my [bank] account was getting very low. , . So 1 started in the game I am in right now... 1 make good money . . , Some weeks I make as much as $80.00 ”m Another prostitute said,“ ‘It just gives me fits to have some of them, touch me, but you see I want their money and therefore I allow them to see me.”’1 ® Money was not the sole motive, however. Ervin quoted one prostitute who said she turned to African American men after white men had mistreated her at length. “ ‘My men [meaning white men] are the biggest bunch of brutes on earth... I thought of the kindness of the Negro janitor in Cleveland, and... I decided to see if I could not find a like treatment among the Negroes here.”’ She met an. African American, chauffeur who then quit Ms job to work full time getting her clients. The prostitute claimed that the two of them planned on getting married.1 0 4 Ervin analyzed the occurrence of white prostitutes working in African. American neighborhoods in negative terms, com.pIain.iBg about both the degradation of the prostitutes and the depravity o f African American, men. Ervin, for example, argued that the white prostitutes were worn out, money-hungry women who only worked in black .neighborhoods because they were no longer attractive to white 1 0 i One prostitute told Ervin, “ ‘It ain’t that I’m so crazy about Colored men, but I can make snore money here among them.”’ Ervin, "Participation of the Negro,” 64. Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 69, m Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 70, 1 ,0 4 Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 65. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 166 customers, The majority of these prostitutes, he maintained* were wrinkled women with “putrid bodies” or “has beens” from white neighborhoods who were in their early thirties and above. (The “youthful and good-looking class of white prostitutes” avoided the black community, according to Ervin* because they could make better money in white communities.) Ervin was somewhat less disparaging of these prostitutes5 black clients, but he attributed the presence of the white prostitutes in Mack communities to their ability to “ ‘cash-in* on the ignorant Negro and Ms seeming ‘sexual craze for whiteness/”5 0 5 Ervin also investigated the incidence of black prostitutes servicing white clients in Los Angeles’ black community. His thesis indicates that black prostitutes encountered a number of obstacles that white prostitutes did not. First of all, black prostitutes did not have the organization or the contacts that white prostitutes did. Black prostitutes did not rely on. a white man, to help build a clientele. Instead, black prostitutes worked independently, making contacts with possible white clients while working domestic service jobs, taking public transportation, or attending theaters. In addition, black prostitutes did not work from, within white districts, but instead invited clients to a rented apartment or room located In a black neighborhood. Ervin also commented that other black women simply stood on street comers, or walked toe streets “rather promiscuously, awaiting the flirtation of some white man. who frequents the Negro neighborhood for immoral purposes.”5 0 6 Such, methods exposed black prostitutes to potential police harassment, and Ervin noted that the chief 1 0 5 Ervin, “Participation of the Negro/ 73. 1 0 4 Ervin, “Participation of the Negro/ 59. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 167 concern for black prostitutes was to “avoid, police agents.5 ’1 ” Because black prostitutes who serviced, white clients lacked the organization and ‘“ permanence of location” of their white counterparts, Ervin found it more difficult to calculate both. the number of black prostitutes with white clients as well as how much money they .made. Based, on interviews with, black business owners who observed black prostitutes arranging rendezvous with white clients, Ervin concluded that 200 black prostitutes catered to a white men. About half of these women made enough money to keep them “just above the poverty line most of the time” while the other half made significantly more money--up to $1,500 a night in some cases,M The women who managed to earn. high, incomes fell into three categories in Ervin5 s study. These three categories included the “alley workers” as well as the “home raiders” and “down town sucker hunters.” All three types of prostitutes supplemented what appears to be meager sexual fees with some Mud of scam which involved robbing the white customer of his money. The alley workers, already mentioned in connection with the 1919 Los Angeles Police Department scandal involving the alleged protection o f black prostitutes by Detective Glenn and his squad, robbed white clients in the midst of performing a sexual act in ait alley. Prostitutes known as “home raiders” worked in conjunction with, male partners. The woman would find work as a domestic servant in wealthy homes where she would lure the “man of the house” to an address in. the black neighborhood. In the middle of their sexual exchange, the woman’s accomplice (posing as her husband) would m Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 59. m Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 63. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 168 come In and threaten to kill the white man. The white man would then plead for his life, and the accomplice would agree to leave town for a good sum of money,1 * ® Ervin described “down, town sucker hunters” as girls who hung out in places where men worked night shifts, arranged, for sexual exchanges, and then .had male accomplices rob clients shortly after the completion, of the sex. act,1 1 0 Black prostitutes who combined prostitution with larceny found their white clients to 'be an excellent source of revenue. The other fifty percent of prostitutes, whom. Ervin classified as “automobile riders,” did. not profit to the extent of these other types of prostitutes, and they managed to stay just above the poverty line. Prostitutes in this category simply performed sex acts with white clients in . the man’s car rather than, in a room or apartment.1 1 1 As he had with white prostitutes, Ervin also interviewed black prostitutes about why they solicited white men as clients. He found that African Ani.eri.cai prostitutes, like the white prostitutes, pursued a white client because “he will give her more money for a contact than, she can make from her contacts with, several Negro men.”"2 One prostitute told Ervin, “ ‘I don’t fool with Negro men, I like to have white trade because they will pay more.’”1 1 3 In addition, however, Ervin claimed that the African. American prostitutes tie interviewed ail desired white customers “because of ‘the opposite attraction’ just as in the case of the Negro men in . their m Ervin, "Participation of the Negro,” 60*1. Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 6i. 1 1 1 Ervin, "Participation of the Negro," 62. 1 1 2 Ervin, “Participation of the .Negro," 73. m Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 72. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 169 efforts to secure contacts with white prostitutes,”1 1 4 Ervin suggested that blacks were constantly exposed to images of white people, and that these images suggested that white people had “power, charm, [and] beauty.” Blacks, he said, then developed an attraction for white people because white people were associated with such desirable characteristics.U ! The extracts of the interviews that Ervin includes in this section, however, do not substantiate his assertion that black women liked white men. because of any particular sexual attraction.. Economics clearly play the dominant part in black prostitutes5 expressed preference for white men over any other race of men.. One prostitute, for example, who said she preferred white men to Mexican men did so because she found it easier to get her fees from white men. Ervin quotes her as saying, “ ‘Where I lives... most all of the mem [sic] are Mexican, and White... I like the white mens [sic] better... They gives you your money without any trouble.”’ 1 1 6 Because Ervin was interested in only the inter-racial nature of prostitution in the African American community, he includes no information, on the i 11 c.ide. 1 1 .ce of black prostitutes who retained primarily black clients. Ervin’s study, however, clearly shows that African American men were involved in prostitution as pimps, both for white and black prostitutes, Ervin, for example, claims that the majority of black men. who facilitated contacts between white prostitutes and clients of color were musicians working in the city’s taxi-dance halls. Los An.gei.es’ taxi-dao.ee halls 1 1 4 Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 72, M Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 73, ,w Ervin, “Pa.rticip3ti.on of the Negro,” 72. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 170 had long troubled reformers because they allowed Filipino* Asian, and Mexican men to dance with, white women.1 " By 1921, the dance halls o f Main Street became the target of police raids because they were supposedly “infested” with “loose women, and girls.”1 1 8 Ervin maintained that Los Angeles hat! twelve taxi dance halls that warranted this characterization, noting that they served as “ ‘contact centers’ for low white girls and Oriental and Negro tn.cn.”'1 ,9 Although, the Los Angeles dance halls barred African American men. as patrons, catering instead to a largely “Oriental” clientele, the taxi-dancers could make contacts with black men through the black, musicians who worked at the halls. Ervin, contended that the dance halls attracted a certain “type of girl” usually willing to participate in “immoral situations.” Black, musicians then, facilitated these immoral situations, by introducing female dancers to black friends, “for commercial purposes ”> 2 ° Ervin estimated that about eighty-five musicians participated “in this game.”1 2 1 Ervin unfortunately does not discuss in detail the relationship between, black prostitutes and black pimps, other than to indicate that prostitutes often worked in, conjunction with pimps in order to scam white customers.1 2 2 Although Ervin does not discuss African American men as clients of African. American, prostitutes, it is likely that black prostitutes working in the Centra! w Clyde Bennett Vedder, “An Analysis of the Taxi-Dance Hall as a Social Institution with Special Reference to Los Angeles and Detroit,” (Ph.D. digs., University of Southern California, 1947), 48; Bob Shuler ’ $ Magazine 4 (Oct 1925); 177. m Los Angtiks Times, 39 April. 19.21. 1 1 9 Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 19-20. Depending on the qualify of the places, African American musicians made between twenty to thirty dollars a week. 1 2 0 Ervin, “Participation of die Negro,” 20, 1 2 1 Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 56. m Ervin, ‘'Participation of tise Negro,” 60-1. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 7 ! Avenue community serviced members of their own community. Black prostitutes in Harlem, for example, attracted both neighborhood residents and “curious whites.’ ”1 2 3 Los Angeles Police Department statistics give some indication that black raen did get arrested for having “sexual intercourse with a person to whom .he or she is not married” made illegal under City Ordinance No. 49354, Sections 2 through 4, but there is no way to tell what percentage of men arrested for violating the ordinance were arrested for having sex with, a prostitute.1 2 4 (Because, however, Section I of the ordinance directly banned women from offering their bodies for the purpose of prostitution, it is probable that the majority of men arrested on other sections of the ordinance had been engaging in sex with prostitutes. Also women accounted for only twenty-two percent of arrests made in connection with Sections 2 through 4 of the ordinance, suggesting the other sixty-eight percent of women either were released without being charged or faced a different charge, possibly of prostitution.) Nor is it possible to tell the race or ethnicity of the arrested, roan’s sexual partner. The following statistics thus include black men. arrested in connection with sex between unmarried couples of any race, rather than only prostitutes. The lack of a specific charge targeting clients of prostitutes stands as further evidence of how anti- prostitution laws have been, skated to punish only one party when, there are clearly m Clement, “Trick or Treat," 337. m City Ordinance No. 49354 contained several sections. The first section made prostitution a crime. Sections 2 and 3 made it illegal for any person to solicit “a person of the opposite sex to whom he or she is not married” for sex in various locations or tbr an unmarried heterosexual couple to resort to these various locations such as a rooming house, hotel, or park. Section 4 made it illegal for a person to rent or assign a room or apartment to an unmarried couple intending to use the location for sex. Section 5 made it illegal for the driver of a “public vehicle” (any ear available for hire such as a taxicab) to permit the vehicle to be used for “prostitution, lewdness or assignation,” LAC A. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 .7 2 two (and sometimes three or four) culpable individuals. The statistics are interesting, nonetheless., for showing that white African American men continued to be over- represented in the arrest statistics, it is not to the extent that African American women were. Table 1 0 Ma«/EthBk»fy of Mea Arrested fo r Using a Vehicle or looming House for Ibj moral Purposes'* imam imam imam H H . „ 0 /t _ M % White 340 72 318 60 203 58 Black 28 6 74 1 ,4 21 6 Red 66 14 101 19 76 22 Yellow 23 5 .23 4 28 8 Brown 1 1 2 1 1 2 23 7 Total 472 100 527 100 350 100 Source: Los Angeles Police D epartm ent, Annual Reports, .fiscal yeans 1927-1928 through 1929-1930. “ In 1927-1928, the charge is listed as '''Rooming House, Hotel or Public Vehicle for Im m oral Purposes”; in 1928- 1928, the statistics combine Ac charges of “Use of Public Lodging House for Immoral Purposes” and “Using Vehicle for Immoral Purposes”; in 1929-1930. the comparable charge is “Rooming House Ordinance, CM 49354, Secs 2,3,4.” While prominent Central Avenue community members worked to suppress vice in their neighborhoods, other individuals contributed to, and in . some cases applauded, the spread of prostitution and crime in their community. Certainly, black men. kept prostitutes in business as clients and as pimps, but the Central Avenue community also contained a handful, of powerful men who worked in league with the city’s white establishment to protect criminal interests in. exchange for political favors as well as a cut of the profits, Ervin, for example, expressed his disgust at the role that black, men in. the community played in encouraging white prostitutes to ply their trade along Central Avenue, noting that such prostitutes came “at the invitation o f white men working in conj unction with Negro men to further ensla ve their R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 173 group,”1 2 5 The 1919 scandal, for example, that resulted in . the arrest of Los Angeles Detective Sergeant Glenn for his alleged collusion with “colored alley workers” brought to light the connection of the mayor’s office with two black “vice dealers’“ George Brown and George Henderscin--who had offered $25,000 to finance incumbent mayor Frederick Woodman’s campaign in exchange for opening up a section of Central Avenue to gambling, alcohol, and prostitution,1 2 * When the deal, was leaked to the newspapers, a grand jury indictment followed. George Brown received immunity for testifying against the mayor, while George Henderson gained freedom when at Ms second trial, the jury failed to reach a verdict.5 2 7 Both men would continue to be active in promoting criminal activities in the Central Avenue community throughout the 1920s. The link between city politics and Central Avenue, particularly its “underworld element,” continued for the next two decades.. Although not alone, George Brown, appears to have been Central Avenue’s equivalent to “vice lords” such as Albert Marco operating in other parts of the city. Brown, for example, provided important support to the Cryer-Parrot partnership in Cryer’s bid for mayor in 1921.1 2 8 In 1923, Brown’s connections in city hall reappeared, when then Chief of Police August VolJmer attempted to shut down George Brown’s illegal boxing 1 2 5 Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 70, m Woods, Police in Lm Angeles, 38; Richardson, Life of Me, 98; LmAngeks Times, 8 March 191.9. 127 Woods, Police in J m s Angeles, 38. m Woods, Police in t m Angeles, 46. Brown’s hacking of Cryer correlates with Torn Sittoo’s observation that the black Central Avenue district (along with organized labor, ex-political progressives, municipal power advocates, civic reformers, and city employees) composed an element of Parrot’s political machine. Sitton, “Urban Politics,” 22. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 174 matches held at “Madison Square Garden, ” a boxing club built on Central Avenue, The police commissioners simply refused to withdraw the club’s license, causing “Fighting Bob” Shuler to query: “What hold has George Brown .,. upon the Police Commission, that the Mayor and Ms associates dare not interfere with his nefarious and vicious practices within our municipality?”1 2 * In 1924. an interview with George Brown by Don. Ryan appeared in. the Los Angeles Record, According to Ryan, it was true that Brown was “King of Central Avenue.” “You would never think,” remarked Ryan, “that this polite, bullet-headed, golden-toothed negro could reach into his pocket and present any candidate lie chooses with 20,000 ebony votes. Twenty thousand. George holds the biggest single bloc in Los Angeles.”1 3 0 Brown reportedly spoke with. Ryan about the unfair prosecution of crime along Central Avenue. Ryan quoted Brown as saying, for example, “ Tt has always been the custom here... when, the town gets too bad... to go over to Central avenue and dean up the negroes. That always satisfied the longhairs. And the blow has fallen where there is least resistance—on those who have the smallest chance of a comeback.””3 1 In 1.929 during John Porter’s term, as mayor, George Brown again flexed his political muscles, this time joining African-American reformers Hugh McBeth and Charlotte m Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 88; Bob Shuler f sMagazine 2 (October 1.923): 1.62. ,w Las AngeksRecord, 20 March 1924, 1 3 1 Los Angeles Record, 20 March 1924. Ryan also reported that Brown’s credo was “Give the negro the same chance to be a good black man that the white has to be a good wliite man," Brown reported said that African Americans did not currently have that chance— 4 ‘We’re made the butt for police brutality and the pawns in the political game. Until the conditions are changed what can you expect but jatb full of poor, ignorant negroes, misunderstood, herded into crime like sheep into a slaughter house.'” R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 .7 5 Bass (of the California Eagle) in an effort aimed at preventing city politicians from, exacting the weekly payoff from. Central A venue,1 3 2 Bob Shuler claimed that “Brown’s reputation in Los Angeles is spread tar rad wide and, few there be who do not know his ill.-smelli.rig fame..., The report has come to this Editor that this man is the political manipulator of the underworld negro population of Los Angeles and that as such, be has .rendered Mayor Gtyer and other members of the Police Commission a great service on. several occasions.'"1 5 3 In a later issue of Ms magazine Staler called Brown a “famous proprietor of .numerous gambling places in Los Angeles and recognized political power among the negro gambling element”1 3 4 In 1.923, the participation of other African Americans in Los Angeles5 ' game of vice protection and political corruption came to light. This time the scandal, involved a black politician, from Central Avenue named. John S. Ealey who disclosed that he had bribed police officers in return for vice protection in collusion with the mayor’s secretary.1 3 3 The Los Angeles Record reported that Ealey, “colored political ‘boss* of Central Avenue,” would furnish police an initial payment of $75 with, monthly payments of $50 in exchange for protection of a bootlegging establishment.-m The Record further reported that there were rumors that 'this deal was part of a larger underworld plot “to gain thousands of dollars from, bootlegging, m Woods, Police in Las Angeks, 146, 1 3 3 Bob Sfmkr’ sMagazine 2 (October 1923); 162. M Bob Shuler's Magasim 2 (February 1924); 257. 1 3 5 Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 69 fn 53, 1 3 6 Los Angeles Record, 27 January 1923. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 176 gambling and houses o f ilLrepute.”1 3 7 In a later article in the Record, Ealey claimed to be Cryer’s campaign manager in the Central Avenue district during the previous election in 1921 when, according to Thomas Si W on, the Central Avenue district was one o f the major elements backing the Cryer-Panrot coalition.1 3 * Other allegations regarding the connection o f Central. Avenue vice operators and city politicians continued to surface throughout the 1920s. A 1923 investigation into the termination of the police chief and other police department transfers resulted in. other accusations regarding the connection of city hall and Central Avenue vice operators. The Times reported, for example, that a former commander of the Los Angeles Police Department’s vice division had testified that “Central avenue... politically is close enough to the City Hall to virtually control the vice squad and in other ways cause trouble and. turmoil in the conduct of the police department.”1 '5 9 The commander then claimed that black politicians from Central Avenue actually controlled the mayor’s office as well, as the police department1 4 0 In addition, Robert Shuler continued to lament the “unworthy conduct” of city officials who had helped submerge Centra! Avenue “in vileness” because of “the policy of the city boss to cultivate the underworld and such financial support therefrom,”1 4 1 By 1930, Central Avenue had become the object of a grand jury' investigation. According to the 1 ,7 Los Angelas Record, 27 January 1923. m Los Angeles Record, 3 1 . January 1923; Sitton, “Urban Politics/’ 22. 1 3 9 Los Angei.es Times, 17 August 1923. 1 4 0 Los Angeks limes, 17 August 19.23. W ) Bob Shukr ’ $Magazine 6 (August 1927): 127. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 177 Times, the grand jury had collected, fifty-five affidavits that revealed alliances between police and members of the “underworld. w 2 Los Angeks Tim.es, 11 March 1930, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Chapter 4 The Harlot City?: Prostitution ii Hollywood, 1920-1940 .178 Introduction By 1920, Los Angeles had emerged as the film capital of the world. Hollywood film studios such as Paramount Fox, Universal, Metro, Goldwyn, United Artists, and Warner Brothers dominated the motion picture industry, controlling the production and distribution of films across the nation and throughout the world. The film industry thus evolved into a multi-million dollar monopoly which paid its top executives and film stars enormous salaries and exerted a huge influence on the millions of movie-going audiences. Over the next two decades, the film industry continued to grow, and while movie studios increasingly moved out of Hollywood itself into other areas of Los Angeles (including Culver City, Burbank, etc.), Hollywood continued to syneedochically represent the motion industry.1 Hollywood, however, also remained a specific geographical entity within and part of the city of Los Angeles, containing 153,000 residents by I930,2 To discuss the incidence of prostitution in Hollywood, then, represents a two-fold task in that it requires attention to the prostitution, in the context of both the film industry as well as the geographic setting. The examination of prostitution in both its imaginary and geographic setting of Hollywood offers a conflicting view of female agency., particularly female sexual 1 Starr, Inventing the Dream, 313, 315; May, Screening Out, 177; Fogdson, fragmented Metropolis, 127. 2 Cm , City of Dream, 272. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 179 agency. Although historians of sexuality have claimed that the new twentieth century ethos encouraged sexual expressiveness resulting in more sexual autonomy for women, most of these historians have also pointed out that the new sexual standards also came with new kinds of boundaries and limitations. Christina Simmons and Kevin White, for example, note that the emergence of modern sexuality in American culture in the 1920s carried with it both the possibility of increased sexual expression for women as well as a new threat o f violence implicit in the emerging new models of masculinity which encouraged men to be sexually dominant over men.’ In. addition, although historians indicate that the modem, sexual ethos encouraging sexual expression had replaced the Victorian ethos of sexual restraint and repression by the 1920s, this chapter shows that the development of modem sexuality continued through the 1920s and 1930s as visions of young women as sexual innocents persisted—despite growing evidence to the contrary. The conflict between the modern view of women as sexual sophisticates and an older., Victorian view of women as sexual innocents can be dearly seen in the study of prostitution in Hollywood. Concerned social observers of the 1920s and 1930s, for example, believed that Holly wood, or the motion, picture industry, was synonymous with immorality. These writers, reformers, and city residents viewed the film, industry as an insidious lure that drew thousands of young, innocent girls to the city, at best, to crash their dreams of stardom or, at worst, transform them into 3 Christina Simmons, “M odem Sexuality and the Myth of Victorian Repression,” in Gender and American History Since 1890, ed. Barbara Melosft (London: Routledge, 1993), 25; Kevin White, The First Sexual Rmdwtkm: The Emergence of Male Heterosexuality m Modern America (New York: New York University Press, 1993), see chapter three. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 180 prostitutes when they were unable to find other employment in the city. The examination of prostitution, in the geographic setting of Hollywood, however, provides an alternative view of the young women flooding into the city to work in film. In contrast to the innocent, passive, victimized girls that reformers portrayed, prostitutes working in Holly wood displayed sexual sophistication and street smarts~-4raits that fiction writers writing about Hollywood and the film industry picked up on. and included in their books. The anxiety over the film industry’s supposedly degrading effect on young women as well as the forms of prostitution within the city of Hollywood shows that despite an ascendant, modem, view of women as sexually autonomous beings, an older Victorian comprehension of female agency persisted. The anxiety regarding the loss of sexual in.ii.ocen.ce wrought by the film industry, for example, reflects a Victorian conceptualization of women in the sense that such reformers and writers viewed women who lived independently of family in the city—“women adrift5—as in need of moral protection since they were ready victims of sexual exploitation. In their conceptualization of the film industry as the agent of sexual corruption, reformers and others denied the young women of Hollywood their own often complex and complicated sexual identity and, agency.4 In her study of women adrift in Chicago, Joanne Meyerowite claims that by the 1.920s a new discourse regarding independent female wage earners had emerged, one that eclipsed the turn of the century view of such women as “passive exploited 4 Meyerowtte, Women Adrift, xix. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 1 .8 1 vietimfs]” and instead emphasized how they were “active opportunistic exploiter^].”5 Despite competing conceptions of young women who asserting their sexual agency, however, the dominant 1920s narratives regarding girls who had come to Holly wood to pursue film careers remained firmly turn, of the century in nature, As this chapter will illustrate, competing views of women came from the testimony of prostitutes themselves who worked in Hollywood—the film industry and physical location. Writers of the Hollywood novel also contributed to a representation, of the young women of Holly wood as sexually savvy, active agents rather than, simply as passive victims of a sexually exploitative industry or city. While these competing views of women never eclipsed the inclination to view women as sexual innocents, narratives provided by prostitutes as well as Hollywood novels did contribute to a shifting view of gender and sexuality. A few women now joined a few men as sexual predators and the objects of public derision, while young men joined the ranks of young women, as sexual innocents and the objects of reformers’ anxieties. Anxiety over the Young Women, (and Men) Flocking to Hollywood Although the estimates vary, Hollywood—located a few utiles west of downtown Los Angel.es— -attracted numerous young men. and women who hoped to become movie stars. One estimate claimed that the motion picture industry had 5 Meyerowitz. Women Adrift, xix. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 182 drawn “50,000 wonder-struck girls.*1 6 Another writer described Los Angeles in the 1920s as “besieged by a new kind o f inamigrmt—the movie-struck youth.’ * 7 It should come as no surprise that so many young people were captivated by the film, industry. One did not need professional training to become an, overnight success in movies; success generated astronomical salaries; and most of Holly wood’s stare were young. Three-fourths of the motion picture’s female performers, for example, were under twenty-five years of age.8 Despite the monumental success of a handful of film stars, however, most migrants to the city would .find their film aspirations disappointed. Although many of the disappointed young people returned home, many also chose to stay in Los Angeles seeking employment in other industries. Young women, for example, often took jobs as waitresses or salesgirls. Others remained on. the fringes of the motion picture industry as “extras”—actors or actresses who worked on a temporary part-time basis at bit parts when movie studios needed them. Yet “extra” work also proved hard to attain. In the 1.920s, 30,000 extras competed for 1,000 jobs.9 The lack of employment for the thousands of migrants to the city concerned Los Angeles citizens, and they began efforts to curb migration to Hollywood. In May 1.924, the New York Sun reported that the YWCA had begun, distributing placards to cities and towns discouraging young women from migrating to the studio. According to the article, the YWCA. showed photographs of “ thousands of girls 6 McWilliams, Southern Californio, 159. ‘ Nadeau, Mission to Modem City, 214. * May, Screening Out, 187-8. 9 Nadeau, Mission to Modern City, 214. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 183 applying for jobs at the big Hollywood employment office... with the deliberate purpose o f deterring young women from breaking home ties and setting out for the coast”1 " What organizations such as the YWCA. feared most about the influx of young women, into the city was that, finding no employment in the film industry or elsewhere in the city, the young women would turn to prostitution. By 1915, the YWCA had established its Holly wood Studio Club to be used as a home for both aspiring actresses and. other young women, of Hollywood..”1 5 At least part of the reasoning behind the creation of the Studio Club was a concern for the morality of women in Hollywood who found themselves lonely and. out of work. Soliciting the Hollywood Business Men’s Club for the funds to rent property for the club, Miss Lee, extension, secretary of the YWCA, “told of how the stress of loneliness or being out of work and without funds frequently drove girls to do that which under other circumstances they would never countenance.”1 2 In 1919, the YWCA made a study of the motion picture industry and found many opportunities in which strict standards of morality were not upheld. Commenting on the lack o f recreational activities for young women in Hollywood, the YWCA noted that they often went to Los Angeles to have fun. The YWCA then, cited the opinion of a reformer who believed that “while the town, [of Los Angeles] itself was not really worse than San Francisco or other cities known to be open, it offered, the maximum temptation with 5 0 News clipping, New York Sun, May 1924, Book 41, Scrapbook#32, YWCA Collection, CSUN. u New York Sun, May 1924, Box 41, Scrapbook #32, YWCA Collection, CSUN, n News dipping, circa 1.915, Box 41, Scrapbook #32, YWCA Collection, CSUN. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 184 a maximum opportunity.”1 3 As proof, the YWCA offered, the “several large dance halls in. Los Angeles which are not believed to be sufficiently supervised.” In addition, the hotels, attracting “an eiioriiMms number of tourists during the season,” potentially housed a great deal of immorality because the tourist men, “believed to be wealthy, are sought by questionable women.”1 4 This fear that disappointed film career seekers would turn, to prostitution to make ends meet can. be found in a myriad of publications. In 1924, an article by Ruth Waterbury in Photoplay (a popular fan magazine), for example, urged young women to stay away from Hollywood. Waterbury claimed that “I saw things in Hollywood, heard them, learned of them, when I was posing as a girl trying to break into movies that I want to forget.”1 3 The Literary Digest issued a more explicit warning in 1924, describing Hollywood as “the port of disappointed youth., . , The chance of becoming a ‘star’ in the movie firmament is only one in tens of thousands, while the chance of becoming a moral wreck is in inverse ratio.”1 5 In addition, a 1928 issue of Harper ’ $ Monthly Magazine, for example, discussed how “[everybody knows how 1 3 “Report oa the Motion Picture Industry,” ca 1919, Box 12, folder 12-20, page 15, YWCA Collection, CSUN. 1 4 “Report on the Motion Picture Industry,” 15. An earlier portion of the report claimed that while young women preferred to find an apartment in Hollywood to live, “the men who are atone live down, town in Los Angeles in. cheap hotels.” 1 5 Ruth Waterbury, “Don’t Go to Hollywood,” in . The Movies in Our Midst: Documents in the Cultural History o f Film in America, ed. Gerald Mast; (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1982), 214. u Limmry Digest 82 (August 23,1.924); 30. The article quoted the Rev, Edwin P, lyland as saying that" ‘ [mjany more never get employment in the movies at ail... some becoming a virus in the blood of the community already corrupted by love of gain and the too low moral standards of many movi ng-picture citizens. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 185 ... all sorts of organizations were swamped by the emergency o f girls who left homes . . . to offer their profiles to the screen and frequently ended up by offering their charms to the street”1 7 While newspaper and magazine articles indicated the Holly wood streets were filled with prostitutes, prostitution also appeared to be inextricably linked to the film industry itself. One of the earliest film success ofHollywood came in 1913, for example, with the production and. distribution of Traffic in Souls, a movie that portrayed the phenomenon of white slavery by which a young woman is coerced into a life o f prostitution by an evil, enterprising man. '8 By 1935, one writer, speculating on why there was so much crime and prostitution in movies, concluded that “that the minds of the motion picture executives are so sordid, ignorant, and debauched that they cannot conceive of anything being interesting unless it features flagrant crime or immorality.”1 9 In addition, a 1933 study on the effects of film, viewing on adolescents linked the “sex” picture—stories about prostitutes, gold diggers, flappers, vamps—with various forms of prostitution and delinquency among adolescent women.® That the prostitute was a popular character in Hollywood movies is further substantiated by Academy Award winning performances from Janet Gaynor, Gloria Swanson, Ruth Chatterton, Greta Garbo, Marlene Dietrich, Helen Hayes, and Anne 1 1 Sarah Comstock, “The Great American Mirror,” Harper ' $ Monthly Magazine (May 1928): 717 1 8 Starr, Inventing the Dream, 321. 1 9 Max Knepper, Sodom ami Gomorrah: The Storv o f Hollywood (Los Anssdes: End Poverty League, 1935), 54. 3 0 Jacobs, The Wages o f Sin, 5, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 186 Baxter all for roles as prostitutes between 1920 and J950.2 1 Writing in the Overland Monthly in 1927, Carey McWilliams went so far as to claim that Los Angeles was “a harlot city,”” Predictably, some o f the most virulent local disapproval of Hollywood could be found in the pages of Bob Shuler ’ $ Magazine, The first article in the magazine’s first issue, for example, was an article on Hollywood which, made Reverend Shuler’s position, on, Hollywood clear. Shuler proclaimed that behind “the sex-full. film, is the sex-overflowing movie colony of Hollywood,”2 3 In. 1927, Shuler devoted an article to the occupation of movie extras in which, he detailed how prospective film stars were subject to sexual harassment, and. that the no girl could expect to break into the movies without bequeathing sexual favors on a myriad of men involved in die motion picture industry. Shuler claimed that “the lecherous proposition that she [the prospective film star] will meet from, both the first and last producer, director,.. will be the same and her success as a movie queen will depend upon, her swiftly accepting i t ”2 4 What often happened, Shuler asserted, however, was that the girl who had “paid the price” for extra work would soon find herself rejected by her benefactor. “Thousands of young girls,” Shuler wrote, “have come to this city to be stars and have become the most pitiful creatures of the night.”2 3 This was the time, suggested Shuler, “for the red-eyed star that did not star to... start out a little 2 1 James Robert Parish, Prostitution in Bollywood Films: Plots, Critiques, Casts and Credits for 389 Theatrical and Made for-Tekvision Releases (London: McFarland & Company. Inc., 1992) xiii 2 2 McWilliams, “Los Angeles,” 135. 2 3 Boh Shuler’ s Magazine I (March 1922): 1. M Bob Shuler’ s Magazine 6 (March 1927): 21. 2 5 Boh Shuler's Magazine 1 (May 1922): 42. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 187 independent enterprise in a cheap rooming h o u s e .'Shuler applauded the efforts of the YWCA's Studio Club, calling it “an institution recently promoted, to salvage girls who have movie aspirations.” Shuler believed that the Studio Club helped to prevent the eventual prostitution of “fully ninety percent” of aspiring actresses who did not manage to attain film careers. The YWCA also had doubts regarding the morality of those involved in the film industry itself. The YWCA’s 1919 study of the motion picture industry, for example, revealed that in one man’s opinion, “extra work” had, been “an alibi for prostitution” for several years. Although this man also voiced his belief that moral standards had begun to improve in the film industry over the last few years, the YWCA’s report went on to quote from a motion picture industry which claimed that “the extra girl is ‘not recognized as... a working woman. She frequents doubtful places of amusement Her morals are loose and her intelligence is below the average.”2 1 The YWCA concluded that although immorality did. not actually exist in the studios, “the general weakening of a girls’ standards starts there through her intercourse with themtnen [sic] for whom she is working and the extra men who hang around all day do nothing but talk to the young girls.”2 8 The image of young girls flocking to Hollywood as naive, innocent, easily victimized people contrasted pointedly with as, image of the men of Hollywood as wolfish., sexual predators who employed various means to prey on gullible girls. As 2 6 Boh Shukr 's Magazine 6 (March 1927): 21. 2 7 “Report on the Motion Picture Industry,’' 16. * “Report on the Motion Picture Industry,” 17. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 188 noted in the previous paragraph, the YWCA attributed the loss of moral standards among Hollywood girls to their interaction with “extra men,” Robert Shuler indicted movie directors and producers for their sexual advances toward aspiring stars.® Magazine articles also warned its readers o f the men. who lured girls to .Los Angeles “under false pretenses or for cheating or taking advantage of them,”3 0 Even historians writing about Hollywood have implied, that the city drew a great deal, of sinister men who readily preyed on women. One of these historians, Carey McWilliams, for example, claimed that in addition to “50,000 wonder-struck girls,” the motion picture industry also attracted “pimps, gamblers, racketeers, and confidence men.”3 1 Another author, writing about Hollywood in the 1920s, described the rise of “a parasitic collection of fake casting agents, screen test coaches, dramatic teachers, and plain mashers—all preying on the wide-eyed, ambition of undiscovered stars.”3 2 While many writers believed that individuals within the film industry preyed upon innocent girls, inducing them to give up their virginity in exchange tor promises of work in the movies, other writers had a different perspective. Anthropologist Hortense Powdermaker, for example, who published her study of the film industry in 1950, claimed that “young girls who come to Hollywood for careers as actresses are prepared and ready to use sex as a means of getting ahead. It is part of the prevailing attitude of manipulation of people for career purposes, and sex is 1 9 Bah Shuler '$ Magazine 6 (March 1927): 21. 3 0 Literary Digest 66 (July 3 ,1920), 63. ' 3 1 McWilliams, Southern California, 159. y ,‘ Nadeau. Mission to Modem City, 214. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 189 just one of several techniques.’9 ” This, according to Otto Friedrich, was also the opinion o f Theodore Dreiser who wrote to his friend H. L. Mencken, of Hollywood being full of'“ ‘hard boiled savage climbers’” including “ ioafers, prostitutes, murderers and 'perverts.’” While it is difficult to document the extent to which men. in Hollywood did prey on the vulnerability of young women, this next section—an. examination o f the women, who worked as prostitutes in Hollywood and therefore should have represented the embodiment of the anxieties of reformers and other writers-—complicates this simple dichotomy of naive girls and all-powerful men. Certainly sexual harassment and even sexual, abuse took place in Hollywood and within the film industry. Historians have correlated sexual expressiveness among women with a growing sense of entitlement among men regarding their access to women’s bodies.3 4 Thus, the sexual predators of Hollywood in the 1920s should be seen as part of a larger national phenomenon tied to changing sexual mores. Writers who warned readers about dangerous men in Hollywood, then, were expressing a legitimate concern. These writers failed, however, to recognize that these men represented only a fraction, of an increasingly complicated sexual landscape—one in 3 3 Hortense Powdermaker, Hollywood the Dream Factory; An Anthropologist Looks at the Movie- Makers (Boston.: Little, Brown and Company. 1950), 23. 3 4 Simmons, “Myth of Victorian Repression,” 25; White Sexual Revolution, see chapter three. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 190 which women, increasingly asserted sexual expression and claimed a degree of sexual sophistication that contrasted sharply to the images of gullible, sexually naive girls.3 9 Prostitution in Hollywood: The Case of Lee Francis In Hollywood—both the motion picture industry and the city, Lee Francis dominated the prostitution business in the 1920s and 1930s. Working in. cooperation with Syndicate leader, Charles Crawford, Francis operated a chain, of high-class brothels which catered to the Los Angeles5 most elite citizens, including a large number of individuals from the movie colony. In her autobiography, Francis disclosed that she had begun, operating a brothel in Los Angeles in. 1919 which, because of Francis’ reputation, for discretion, soon attracted clientele from the movie business. In 1.921, Francis claims that she moved her operations out of a little bungalow' on. Norton Avenue in Hollywood to a mansion at the comer of Fourth and Virgil Streets—just west of downtown—at the request of Charles Crawford who had recruited her to ran. a “political playhouse.” In this location, only briefly, Francis returned to Hollywood to open, business at another unspecified address where she claims to have “entered the hey-day of my life as Holly wood’s most celebrated Madam. ”M Throughout her years as Hollywood’s most infamous madam, Francis operated out of several different locations—clue in p r t to business expansion but 3 3 Several historians have treated the increasing sexual agency and sexual sophistication of young women in . the 1920s in great detail. See, for example, Alexander, "GirlProblem, "2; Petss, Cheap Amusements, 6; Meyerowltz, Women Adrift, 103. 3 6 Francis, Incites on Call, 87-93, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 191 also in. cooperation with police in order to avoid raising the ire of local citizens. Francis tended to have her brothels within the Sunset Strip area of Holly wood—an area popular with tourists and the film industry. According to Francis, her three most popular and welhpatroiiized establishments were “in the heart of Hollywood” on Hayworth Avenue, near Sunset Boulevard. One of those establishments consisted of three floors that Francis bad rented out o f a huge apartment building. Francis’ brothel thus occupied an entire wing of the building,, with a restaurant on the first floor, bedrooms on the second, and a bar and parlors on the third floor.” Lee’s establishments also included houses on New Hampshire Street and King’s Road as well as a mansion, on New Bedford Dri ve.® Despite the popularity of Francis’ brothels, Francis recalled that Hollywood differed from, other cities where she had worked in that the “business of sending droves of beautiful girls to hotels, apartments, homes and penthouses, flourished.” Francis claimed that there nights that she almost had to dose her own. establishments because her girls were all “out on call.”3 9 During her stint as a Holly wood madam, Lee Francis gained local and national fame for her business. In 1926, for example, when H. L. Mencken—one of America’s most well-known writers—visited Los Angeles, Francis was one of the first people he expressed interest in meeting.'" By 1930, Lee Francis’ had gained. 31 Richard Lamparski., Lamparskl's Hidden Hollywood: Where (he Stars Lived, Um d, m d Died (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1981), 65; Francis, Ladies on Cali, 113, M Francis, Ladies on Call, 1,26,136,141, 5 9 Frauds, Ladies m Cali, 170. 4 9 Lamparski, Hidden Hollywood, 65. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 192 enough notoriety to appear in a thinly veiled disguise (“Madame Frankie Lee”) in a popular novel about Hollywood called Queer People, The book’s authors referred to Francis as aa Hollywood, institution” and noted that visitors to her “gaudy establishment” included famous stars, celebrated directors, and prominent producers.4 1 In her autobiography, Francis recounted that her clients had included “the great actors, directors and producers o f the motion picture and business industry.”4 2 Other clients included “society women” who dropped in for a game of bridge and a drink.4 3 Sounding almost wistful at times in the autobiography, Francis averred that “[e]veryone knew Lee Francis, and the major number of male celebrities of Holly wood, the famous stars, actors, writers and directors, patronized me regularly. I was literally the reigning queen of the Hollywood half-world.”4 4 Francis left the prostitution! business at the end. of the 1930s, due in large part, to the increasing costs of running her brothels combined with higher pay-off sums for protection. Francis then attempted, to open, her own night club on Sunset Strip, but that business venture failed. She was eventually arrested in. 1940 on. charges of “soliciting” for her role in allegedly arranging for a couple of “out of town visi tors” to have sex with two young women. In her autobiography, Francis claimed the arrest was bogus—that she had simply arranged for “pleasant feminine 4 1 Carroll and Garrett Graham, Queer People (1930; reprint, Carbondale; Southern llli.Q o.is University Press, 1976), 199-200. 4 2 Francis, Ladies an Call, 132. 4 4 Francis, Ladies m Cali, 113. 4 4 Francis, M ilks on Call, 103. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 193 companionship’—not sex—for the visitors.® Unfortunately for Francis and the young women, these out-of-town visitors tamed, out to be two Sheriffs Department vice squad officers. Francis ended up serving thirty days in the county jail on the soliciting charge.4 6 In reporting on the case, newspapers made repeatedly vague references to Francis’ former occupation, in one instance calling her the “mistress of nocturnal gayety” and in another “an important if shadowy figure in Hollywood nocturnal goings-on.”4 7 Francis’ autobiography provides information as to how she herself became involved in prostitution as well as details about the personal backgrounds of the prostitutes who worked for her in Hollywood. Both Francis’ own story as well as the stories of Francis’ employees suggest that there had been no transformation from innocent girl to hardened prostitute. In Francis’ case, she had worked as a prostitute in San Francisco at one of the better brothels before marrying a customer, briefly, in order to obtain the diamond ring he had offered her. After a brief stint “doing the town” in Reno, where she obtained her divorce, Francis befriended one of the madams in Reno, and together they decided to move to Hollywood. In Hollywood, Francis married again, but after this (also brief) marriage ended, Francis took up residence in a bungalow on Norton Avenue in Hollywood where she started her career as a madam.4 * 4 5 Francis, Ladies m Call, 191, 4 6 Los Angeles Examiner, 26 April 1940. 47 Lm Angeles Examiner, 29 March 1940; I m Angeles Examiner, 30 March 1940. 4 8 Francis, Ladies on Call, 53,78, 8!, 85-87. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 194 In. her autobiography* Francis does not discuss the details of how she became a prostitute or at what age; she does say* however* that her biggest problem in those early years was “her conscious,”4 9 In addition, Francis clearly dominated the men she encountered rather than vice versa. She classifies herself as one of the “smart” girls who spumed pimps. Francis also discusses how she often managed to manipulate clients into paying for her company alone rather than sex. She also earned extra money by telling clients she was trying to save money to give her (non existent) daughter a respectable future. At one point, Francis goes so far as to call men. “pawns to insure a good income— --they were a vehicle to a goal.”5 0 In 1919, at the age of twenty-two, Francis realized her goal when the head of Los Angeles’ crime syndicate, Charles Crawford, set up an alliance with her that resulted in her career as Hollywood’s most infamous madam. While Lee Francis did not fit the profile of the gullible girl turned prostitute after failing to find fame in the movies that most concerned reformers, several of the women working for her had. indeed turned to prostitution after finding no work in the motion picture industry. These women, however, departed from the profile in that they were not innocent, gullible girls but rather sexually sophisticated and. practical young women, who saw prostitution as an attractive alternative to their existent careers or lifestyles. One of Francis’ employees—Judy De.Love—- bad become a prostitute after a quick succession of careers including modeling, stripping* dancing, and acting. Francis explained that Judy had. become a prostitute after accepting 4 9 Francis, Ladks on Call., S3. 8 0 Francis, todies on Call, 57,75,80, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 195 money for sex from an actor. According to Francis, Judy “enjoyed the experience so much—getting paid for that which she loved—she kept it in mind for other dates.” After working independently, Judy decided to work for Francis.1 5 Another woman, Joan, who worked for Francis after failing to make it in the motion picture industry had been married and divorced before coming to Hollywood.” Only Alma, another woman who tried to break into the movies before working for Francis, provides substantiating evidence regarding the fears of reformers about male predators in Hollywood Francis described how Alma, in trying to obtain work in the film business, consistently encountered men “on the make” for her. While these men did play some role in Alma’s decision to become a prostitute, it was not because she had lost her innocence to any of them. Instead, she decided that “if she was going to bestow her favors on men, without love, she might just as well get paid for i t ”5 3 Francis consistently described her employees as seasoned girls rather than wide-eyed innocents. At one point in the autobiography, Francis notes that she never employed a virgin or “an inexperienced girl.” In addition, Francis claimed that all of her girls were over “the minimum age requirement” and that they “knew what it was all about”3 4 In other words, Francis did not lure young girls into working for her under false pretenses—a charge reformers leveled at madams and pimps with regularity. Most telling, however, is Francis’ description of her employees as 3 1 Francis, Ladies on (Ml, 70. 5 2 Francis, Ladies on CaU, 155. 5 3 Francis, Ladies on CaU, 154. 5 4 Francis, iMdies on CaU, 155. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 196 “typical Hollywoodians™ "<>ut for what they could get.”® The vultures in Hollywood that reformers and others so worried about appears to have included a number of n o t* * so-gullibie young women in addition, to men. Prostitution in Hollywood; Francis’ Competitors Lee Francis faced competition from a number o f individual entrepreneurs working in Hollywood, including women who posed as massage parlor operators. In 1932, the Times printed a story detailing the work of the police department in combing newspaper classifieds for “suspicious” advertisements for massage parlors.5 6 According to the story, police estimated that about 75% of the advertised massage parlors were poorly disguised houses of ill fame. Although the article alleged that many such massage parlors could be found in downtown office buildings or apartment houses in residential districts, Hollywood also may have seen its share of such establishments.5 7 In. 1931, Harriet and Barbara Brooks faced charges of prostitution in a Los Angeles municipal court for their actions at the Hollywood Health Institute and Massage Parlor, located at 6418 1/2 Hollywood Boulevard. The court transcript reveals that officers had arrested the two women, previously on charges of offering and vagrancy. On this occasion, officers had. arrested Barbara Brooks after one of the officers had given her a marked five-dollar bill in exchange for an arranged sexual, exchange Barbara Brooks, however, testified that although 3 5 frauds, LasHes m Call, 1.89, 5 6 Los Angeles Times, 14 February 1932. 5 1 Los Angeles Times, 14 February 1932, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 197 her patient had asked for sex, she had refused, Brooks then asserted that when she refused, the officer had then arrested her. Unfortunately, the transcript reveals nothing about the background of either of the women arrested. The transcript also does not indicate if the judge convicted either of the women, for prostitution. What the transcript does reveal, however, if one is to believe the testimony of Los Angeles Police Officer Selby, is that Barbara Brooks did not convey any naivete about what her customer wanted, and she was willing to provide “extra” services in order to make more money. Selby testified, for example, that when he asked her for a massage, Barbara replied, “ 6 You didn’t want a massage, did you?”5 When Selby replied that he didn’t, she allegedly replied, “ ‘How do you want it?’” When he answered that he wanted it “the old fashioned way,” she matter-of-factly responded that it would cost him three dollars. Selby then claimed that he given her a five dollar bill, and that she had made the following offer: ‘ “Well, how about letting me keep the whole $5.00 and doing it half French ja reference to oral sex] and then we will finish the old-fashioned way?’”5 8 By 1933, massage parlors had become so notorious that one travel guide for the city included a reference to the “scores of phony ‘massage’ parlors which offer ‘manipulative treatments by young nurses’ and often advertise quite openly in the newspapers.”5 9 Lee Francis also faced competition from small-time gangsters whom the Syndicate allowed to ran gambling/prostitution establishments in . Hollywood as long 58 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Barbara Brooks and Harriet Brooks, filed 31 March 1931, “California Municipal Court (Los Angeles) Records, 1,915-1931,” (Collection 228, Box I), University of California Los Angeles Special Collections. * Woon, incmdihk Land, 104. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 198 as ttiey did not compete with Syndicate interests. One such gangster was Niley Payne, whom former employee lames Spenser described in, his memoirs. Spenser credited Payne with controlling “a little district the other side of Hollywood Boulevard.”'* Payne’s business interests included a couple of speakeasies as well as a couple of gambling joints. The most elaborate of the gambling joints could be found at Hollywood and Yucca Street. At this establishment, gambling took place on. the first floor and prostitution took place on the second. According to Spenser, women frequented the house “in the hope of picking up money,’5 * 1 Although Spenser’s account o f the house also lacks background information on the women who used the upstairs for prostitution, he implies that the women were not passive or innocent. Instead, men are described as “marks” and women are described as being “on the make.” Spenser’s attitude about the power relationship between men and women in. the house becomes even more clear in his depiction of Mavis, “one of the regulars,” Spenser noted, that Mavis “would come into the rooms, stroll up and down once or twice, and mark down her victim as surely as a gunman. She specialised in middle-aged buffers of about fifty ... whose whole attitude proclaimed his belief that there wasn’t anybody who could fool him, That kind of man. always fell for Mavis.,x f f l In addition, to Niley Payne’s gambling house with its second floor prostitution enterprise and the “phony massage parlors,” Francis also faced competition from a m > Spenser, Blimey, 101. 6 1 Spenser, £AJM ry, 136-7, 6 2 Spenser, Blimey, 137. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 199 number of other individual entrepreneurs. Investigations of vice conditions in. the city by reform groups usually revealed a handful of suspicious addresses in the Hollywood vicinity. The Triangle Apartments, located at 4514 1/2 Hollywood Boulevard, came up more than otice in . investigations of the city’s vice conditions by concerned citizens as a suspected location of prostitution.*3 Other addresses under scrutiny by reform organizations included 5272 Hollywood Boulevard, Apt. 29; 543 North Sycamore; 901 South Citrus Ave; 6770 1/2 Hollywood, Room 222; and the Cahuenga Hotel at Cahuenga and Hollywood.6 4 Aside from Lee Francis’ string of brothels, however, the best known prostitution operation, in. Hollywood in the 1920s was Olive Clark Day’s “love market.” Day first came to the public’s attention in March 1931 when newspapers reported that she had been arrested in connection with, an investigation, of “an asserted ‘girl bazaar,’ at which high school girls of tender years virtually were ‘sold’ on the block to the highest male bidder.”6 3 The “love market” case, as it was dubbed by newspapers, grabbed local, headlines (and at times entered into national newspapers) throughout the year because of its particularly sordid and sensational details. Newspapers, for example, quickly categorized the young women, involved in the “love market” as teenage slaves whose “innocence” had been sold off by the Olive Clark Day and her male accomplice, William Jobelman for a quick profit. 6 3 See Council File 2737 (1935) LACA, According to a letter to the City Council circa 1936, this location had closed but reopened at 2801 Sunset Boulevard. See Council File 307 (1.936) LACA. 04 Box 1, Folder I.-28 and Folder 1-43, Rev, Wendell M iller Collection, 1926-1988, Urban Archives Center, California State University, ® Los Angeles Examiner, 6 March 1931. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 0 0 Newspapers also seemed to take particular pleasure in. reporting feat Day’s clients consisted, of wealthy clients, including millionaires John Mills and Jesse Shreve as well as the well-known theater magnate, Alexander Pantages. Because Day and Jobelman had supplied girls to Mills at a Los Angeles location, and then later supplied girls to Mills, Shreve, and Pantages at a San. Diego location, there were two trials. In the course of the two trials, Day and Jobelman along with the three men faced various charges, but only Day ended up with, a conviction and jail time. Day’s prostitution racket, based in Hollywood, provides the best perspective from which to consider reformers’ fears about Hollywood as an immoral place which encouraged gullible girls to transform themselves into prostitutes. Day herself had been an actress before becoming involved in. the prostitution business. Several of the young women who had worked for Day had also tried to break into the movies. In addition, throughout the course of the newspaper coverage of the case, fee newspapers consistently emphasized fee supposedly young age and innocence of the girls or young women who had worked for Day. In portraying the girls as “high school girls of tender years” who were “ ‘sold’” to the highest bidder, newspapers also seemed to confirm the fears of reformers and others who believed that the young women, flooding into Hollywood in the 1920s and 1930s became prostitutes through someone eise’s agency or infliien.ee rather than their own. The only element lacking in the love market case that was present in reformers’ tales of Hollywood was that of the male sexual predator. To some extent, William Jobelmatt— Olive Clark Day’s partner—played this role, but even the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 201 newspapers recognized that Olive Clark Day dearly dominated both the love market business as well as her partner, The newspapers tried to portray Mills, Shreve, and Pantages—the men arrested as alleged clients ofDay’s—as sexual predators., but once again, the newspapers laid the blame for the girls’ Joss of innocence on Day’s shoulders. To a large extent, the newspaper coverage of the love market case appeared to substantiate the concerns of many about the demoralizing affects of Hollywood and its ability to transform gullible and innocent girls into prostitutes. The newspapers, however, only told part o f the story. Leslie White, Day’s arresting officer, later averred in his memoirs that the girls working for Day lacked the naivetd and innocence that newspaper had credited to them. Day herself insisted she was responsible for the loss of innocence of only one of the girls working for her. Newspaper coverage of the arrest and trial of Day is also interesting for its lack of reporting on. Day’s own history in Hollywood which, if it is to believed, would have been a much better substantiation of reformers’ fears about Hollywood. Day’s prostitution business in Hollywood differed from. Lee Francis’ in a number of ways. Unlike Francis, who enjoyed police protection because of her Syndicate connections and who maintained a series of lavish establishments as the headquarters of her prostitution business, Day (and Jobelman) worked out of one location in Hollywood, a house located at 2573 Glen Green. Unlike Francis, who used her establishments as both, housing for her employees and as a place of biis.in.ess. Day’s operations relied on being fluid and mobile. Although Day and R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 0 2 Jobelman claimed to have paid some bribe money to police officers,. Day's business did not have the same kind of police protection that Francis’ did. Thus, the mobility ofDay’s business helped her to evade police and avoid raising the suspicion of curious neighbors living near the Glen Green address. While some meetings took place at the Glen Green address, for example, the bulk ofDay’s business lay in . arranging for trysts at hotels in Los Angeles as well as in greater Southern. California,*5 In addition, while some of Day’s employees may have used the Glen. Green address as temporary living quarters. Day appears to have contacted most of her employees via the telephone at their own houses or apartments.^ It is unclear even where Day herself was living at the time of her arrest. Although, she told newspapers that h a home was at the Glen Green, address, the investigators who arrested her had found her “in a cheap hotel on. Sixth Street.”6 * Because Day lacked, the sumptuous surroundings that Francis offered to her perspective clients, Day had to provide potential clients with a different selling point as well. Thus, while Francis steadfastly denied that she had never employed a virgin or “an inexperienced girl,” Day attracted clients by offering then what Francis would not—virgins or inexperienced young girls.6 9 Day, however, departed from Francis on one other important point, as well. In her autobiography, Francis claimed that she “ Los Angeles Examiner, 6 March 193 J .; Los Angeks Times, 8 March 1931, Another girt, Billie Timmons, also claimed that she had met a man at M iss D ay’s urging® at a downtown hotel. Los Angeles Examiner, 8 March 1931. 67 Los Angeks Examiner, 8 March 1931. * White, Me, Detective, 250. The Times claimed that Day lived at 1.026 W est 6* Street. Los Angeks Times, 6 March 1931. w Francis,. Ladies m Call, 155. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 205 had ma.de a reputation for herself as being “entirely honest”7 ® Day made 00 such assertions for herself. Although Day told clients, for example, that they were getting innocent or inexperienced young girls, this was not the case. The girls working for Day came from a variety o f backgrounds. Day told the newspapers that she and Jobelman had used a number of methods in order to locate the right kinds of girls for their operation. The “recruits,” Day revealed to reported, came from “the street, from office buildings, secretarial schools, art classes and employment agencies.”7 1 In addition, Day admitted, “Jobelmann would go on cruising expeditions in Ms car on main streets . . . scouring for new ‘talent.”'7 2 “ ‘l'n Los Angeles alone,” explained Day, “there are more than a thousand girls who are just drifters. They have no place to go. These were the girls we sought. Most of them were anxious to come to us. Some of them were scared—they had. been kicked about by stem circumstances and we offered them a home.”7 3 Day did .not mention that the drifters were aspiring actresses per se, but she did tell reporters that while some of the girls had come to Los Angeles to take classes in stenography, others had come “to make a name for themselves in the city .. . and, of course, there were some who, like myself, dreamed of easy gold,”7 4 At least a few of the young women associated with the “love market” possessed links to the film industry. One method Day and Jobelman used to attract 70 Francis, Ladies on CaU, 132, 7 1 Las Angeks Examiner, 9 March 1931. n I jo s Angeks Examiner, 9 March 1931. Usual ly, “Jobelman” is spelled with one “n,” but the spelling occassional! y varies. 7 - ' Los Angeks Examiner, 8 March 1931. 7 4 Im Angeks Examiner, 8 March 1931. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 204 potential employees involved representing themselves as a easting agency, The Examiner stated that there hid been allegations “that Jobelman operated a casting office as [a] means of finding prospective victims for the wealthy patrons of the “ girl bazaar/”7 8 At least a couple of the young women working for Day and Jobelman bad some interest in film careers. On, June 12, 1931, for example, the Los Angeles Examiner reported, that “Jack Raymond, film actor,” testified that he had, met with Alice Hitto, one ofDay’s employees, and had. discussed her “chances in films.”'* In addition, a facsimile of a page from Day’s diary listed a the name of a potential employee named Ariana with the notation that “picture work interferes most of'the time-possible.”7 7 In constructing the women as young victims and slaves, the newspapers picked, up on a strain of thought popular in national magazines that conceptualized Hollywood as a place of predatory men and naive girls who were conned into compromising their virtue for a chance at financial, success. Although that may have been the case for a number of the “wonderstruck” girls who found their way to Hollywood, it appears that many of the girls who the newspapers constructed as naive actually may have been .more savvy and less innocent than they were portrayed. Both White's autobiography as well, as testimony from the trial depict the young women working for Day and Jobelman in a different light from the initial. 7 3 Los Angeks Examiner, 10 March 1931. K ix>s Angeks Examimr, 12 June 1931. 7 7 Los Angeks Examiner, ? March 193 i . R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 205 construction promulgated by the newspapers. White, for example, claimed that in . speaking to him about the girls working for her, Day took responsibility for luring one of the girls— - ■C larice~— into a trap, but said “she was in no way responsible for the professional activities of the other pair.” White maintained that “Alice and... Helen [two ofDay’s employees who testified against her, Jobelman, and the three clients at the San Diego trial] had both leapt into the business of prostitution with both feet and a hearty willingness long before meeting Olive.”7 8 White quoted Day as saying, “I feel terribly guilty for what I did to kids like Clarice.... But I really did most o f the others a favor. They couldn’t help being whores, so 1 taught them to be good whores. When. I found them they were sneaking back of billboards and behind park bushes at night with any man who would buy them a meal. I taught them to get money for it, to work in the light, and to be clean so they would not become diseased.”7 9 White substantiated Day’s allegations saying that a few years after the termination of the case, he had “chanced to meet little Alice on Hollywood Boulevard and she quite frankly admitted that she was ‘back on the turf.’”8 0 At the San. Diego trial, Jerry Giesler (a lawyer who was well known for his celebrity clients) acted as the lawyer for the co-defendants and succeeded in bringing the supposed innocence of the three girls acting as material witnesses under suspicion. Giesler hoped to question the girls’ innocence to the point where jurists would believe that the young women had contributed to their own. delinquency and 7 8 White, Me, Detective, 272. 7 9 White, Me, Detective, 272. m White. Me, Detective, 275. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 206 consequently be more hesitant to convict the defendants. This strategy was successful in both complicating the girls' sexual history and setting the five defendants free. (Olive Clark Day would not be so fortunate to retain Giesler for her attorney at her Los Angeles trial) In response to Giesleris questions, for example, Alice Nitto testified that she had worked as a taxi-dancer for a month at the Roseland Dance Hall, in Los Angeles before working for Day.8 1 In addition, Nitto was forced to admit that “she had taken part in immoral, affairs before.”8 2 A former roommate of Nitto’s, Mrs. Betty Mason (a motion picture actress), asserted that despite Nitto’s denials, she had seen Nitto intoxicated,®3 Mason also testified that she had associated with Nitto until she found out “ ‘what she was.”’8 4 The defense team, painted an equally unflattering picture of Clarice Tauber, producing evidence that “on March 2 4 ,1930, Miss Tauber was arrested in an automobile in Venice along with Aubrey Martin, 20, and later decided to prosecute the youth on a statutory charge.”8 3 The Examiner reported that “[ajithough the girl [Tauber] admitted that she was ‘picked up’ by Martin on the street and went to Venice with him willingly, the youth was adjudged guilty and given three years’ probation.”* As part of that strategy, Giesler also cast doubt on Nitto’s age, bringing forth witnesses who testified that Nitto had told them she was over twenty-one years 8 1 Los Angeks Examiner, 6 June 1931. 8 2 £ ■ < » ■ Angeks Examiner, 6 June 193 L 8 3 Im Angeks Examiner, 1 .2 June 1931. u Los Angeks Tims, 12 June 1931. 8 5 Im Angeks Examiner, 1? March 1931 8 6 Los Angeks Examiner, I? March 1931 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 207 old,8 7 Put simply, Oiesler’s cross-examination of the alleged “love market’s victims” cast the young women in an entirely new light While newspapers had sympathy for the young girls working for Day and willingly suspended doubt regarding the evidence of their less than sexually pure backgrounds, the newspapers bad much less compassion for Day . In 1922, Day, then known as Dorothy Clark, had appeared in the newspapers in connection with allegations that a popular actor, Herbert Rawlinson, had “attacked” her, allegedly in October 1920,” Day’s mother, Ethel Clark, had filed the suit, claiming that “her daughter had been wronged by this man [Rawlinson] when she was only 15 years of age.”8 9 In the initial story on the suit, the Times carried pictures of Dorothy Clark as a child dancing in a film. Rawlinson told the Times that he had met the Clarks on location at Universal Studios where the girl was “taking dancing parts as an extra.” Rawlinson claimed his interest in the mother and daughter came only out of his pity for their poverty, and while he “had been contributing to the support” of the Clarks “for some time,” he denied that he had ever been sexually involved, with Dorothy * Although Dorothy Clark (Olive Clark Day) fit the profile of the sexual innocent that concerned reformers, with Dorothy’s mother maintaining that her daughter had fallen prey to a sexual predator in Hollywood, the story did not gamer the Clarks public sympathy. The district attorney, for example, was less than, impressed with the 8 7 Los Angeks Examiner, 12 June 1931, * * Las Angeks Times, 6 March 1931, ® Los Angeks Times, 29 March 1922, * Las Angeks Times, 29 March 1922, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 208 Clarks’ story, and lie ended, up dismissing the ease, saying it would not appeal to the judgment of any reasonable person.,9 1 Although newspapers could, have portrayed Day’s path to prostitution, as similar to those of the girts working for her, noting her early experience with Rawlinson, k Hollywood, newspapers chose to focus on Day’s culpability rather than innocence. Day explained to reporters that she had drifted into her present business after leading a “sordid life” which began “when she should have been in high school.”9 2 She claimed that she didn’t deserve pity but that “in my heart I know that I’ve always been pushed into this sort of life.”9 3 Newspapers also quoted Day as saying that the “unfortunate circumstances in her own. life, over which she had no control” had led into the prostitution business. Day cited the suicide of her mother as providing part of the impetus for her movement into the “love market” business, saying that she had become involved in the business after her mother’s insurance money had run. out.9 4 Jobelman—who also had a reputation for writing bad checks—appears to have provided the other motivation since she renewed her acquaintanceship with him shortly after her mother’s suicide, and they decided together to “make appoiii.tni.ents for girls with, men.’* Newspapers did not report that Day had worked as a prostitute before assuming her role as call-girl madam, but Leslie White claimed, that Day had told investigators that she had. been, a prostitute in 9 1 .Los Angeks Times, 28 September 1922. 9 2 Los Angeks Examiner, 7 March 1931. 9 3 Los Angeks Emmimr, 7 March 1931. 9 4 I m Angeks Examiner, 8 March 1931. * Los Angeks Examiner, 7 March 1931. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 209 Los Angeles, Reno, as well as San. Francisco,* In addition.,, although Day told reporters she bad been in. the “love market” business for only three years, White averred that her involvement had lasted for five years.9 7 While all o f this information could have led newspapers to conclude the Day was as much a victim, of Hollywood, as the girls working for her, the newspapers instead glossed over the details of Day* s unfortunate life to focus on. those of the girls she had allegedly lured into prostitution, Throughout the coverage of the arrest and trial of Day, newspapers made no connection between Day and the “school girls” who worked for as victims of the immorality of Hollywood,9 ® Instead, newspapers cast Day as the villain, and in. the end she alone faced jail time. Hollywood Novels: Telling a Different Story One of the major sources about Hollywood—and the men and women it—can. be found in the Hollywood novels, which are coming to be recognized as a distinct literary genre," In. her 1963 dissertation, which remains one of the major sources on the Hollywood novel, Carolyn See defines it broadly as a novel “which is set in the film capital, and has at least one major character or several minor ones working in show business; or as any novel of the American, film industry anywhere on location, as long as the action of the book focuses on movie-making and. the lives m White, Me, Detective, 251. ” White, Me, Detective, 247, * Los Angeles Examiner, 7 June 1935, ® David fine, Imagining Los Angeles: A City in Fiction (Albuquerque, N.M.: University of New Mexico Press, 2000): 153-176, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 210 of movie people."1 * (In this chapter, I will refer to those books that actually take place, at some point, in Hollywood,) Using a similar definition of the Hollywood novel, Anthony Slide has put together a bibliography of Hollywood novels that lists over three hundred novels in the period of 1920 to 1950, The best-known Hollywood novel authors are those associated with the molt school of the 1.930s and 1940s—James Cain., Nathanael West, and others who came to Hollywood as screenwriters but grew disgusted with the movie industry which they came to view as the capitol of “anti-art ”! 0 1 Disillusioned by the factory conditions at the studios and unhappy in the region, they fnnneled their frustration into “tawdry and tragic” novels directed at showing Hollywood as a nightmare rather than a dream, similar to the films in which the “noir” (black) designation originated.1 0 2 Although better known, the noir novels are not representative of the genre as a whole. Anthony Slide, for example, characterizes the bulk of Hollywood novels as the work of lesser-known or forgotten novelists writing in. the style of current popular novelists.1 0 3 Male authors dominate the Hollywood novel bibliography, but women wrote in. the genre as well—approximately 30% of the novels written between 1.920 to 1950 had female authors. While a number of Hollywood novel authors worked in. the film industry in some capacity—as m Carolyn See, “The Hollywood Novel: An Historical and Critical. Study,” (PhD. diss., University of California: Los Angeles, 1963), 5 1 0 1 Walter Wells, Tycoons and Locusts; A Regional Look at Hollywood Fiction of the 1930s (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1973), 17-8. m David Fine, “Introduction,” in Los Angeks in Fiction: A Collection of Essays, Revised Edition, ed, David fine (Albuquerque: University ofNew Mexico Press, 1995), 2; See, “Hollywood Novel,” 37-8. 1 0 3 Anthony Slide, The Hollywood Novel: A Critical Guide to Over 1200 Works with Film-Related Themes or Characters, 1912 through 1994 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc., 1995), 2. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 211 screenwriters but also as actresses or actors, secretaries, or even stunt people—there were also authors who wrote about Hollywood who had never been there,1 0 4 Some of the first suggestions that women in . Hollywood exercised more power than they were given credit for can be found in the Hollywood novels. As in other tales of Hollywood, prostitution abounded in novels about Hollywood. Yet the prostitution found in . the .novels presents a radical departure from the stories told by reformers and other writers, In sharp contrast to the stories of reformers, the novels depict their female characters as street, savvy rather than naive, and as having a good deal of agency. In contrast, the mate characters are depicted as weak, and lacking tire ability to cope with the Hollywood system, Al.tliou.gh reformers tried to paint Hollywood as a place of sexually predatory men waiting to prey on innocent young women, the authors of Hollywood novels present a different image of Hollywood. Hollywood novelists like Octavius Roy Cohen, for example, challenged the reformers’ concern for the young women migrating to the city by suggesting that no sexual predators awaited them. In his 1931. novel, Star o f the Earth, Cohen notes the difficulty of obtaining film work, but expresses scorn for the rumors created by reformers; “Thus far not one of the girls had been offered a contract, and not one had been the victim of an. improper advance on the part of any star, publicity man, or studio employee. They were returning in 1 0 4 Slide, various pages. Slide’s bibliography includes information on the novels by author. Sometimes he gives a little background information on the author as well as the novel, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 212 the morning considerably dazed- and most definitely wondering whether the stories they had read of Hollywood’s dangers might not have been slightly exaggerated.”1 0 * While reformers expressed concern for the innocence and naivete of women in Hollywood, the women in the Hollywood novels, including the prostitutes, resemble the women described by historians such as Kathy Peiss and Joanne Meyerowitz: working women navigating new geographic and sexual territory with a good deal of success. In the 193S novel, Promised Land, for example, Ellen tells another character how she became a prostitute: “very naturally her thoughts had turned to Madame Betty.... If she was going to give herself to some baboon, why not do it for cash instead of promises?”5 ” 6 This attitude is present in The Day o f the Locust as well as Faye weighs the decision of working for Mrs. Jenning to pay for her father’s funeral: She sat thinking for a while, then went to the dressing table and began to fix. her tear-stained face. She wore a hard smile as she worked. Suddenly she tamed, lipstick in air, and spoke to Mary. ‘Can you get me into Mrs. Jenning’s?9 ‘What for?9 Tod demanded. T T 1 get the money.9 Both girls ignored him. ‘Sure/ said Mary, ‘you ought to done that long ago. It’s a soft touch. Faye laughed. T was saving it.’ The change that had come over both of them startled Tod. They had suddenly become very tough. Tor a punkola like that Earle? Get smart, girlie, and lay off' the cheapies. Let him a ride a horse, he’s a cowboy, ain’t he?’ They laughed shrilly and went into the bathroom with their arms around each other.1 0 7 1 0 5 Octavius Roy Cohen, Star o f Earth (New York: D. Appleton, 1532), 10-11 m Belfrage, Promised Land, 272. m Nathanael West, The Day o f the Locust (1939; reprint, New York.; Signet Classic, 1983), 116, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 213 Adding to the idea that women in the Hollywood wove! skillfully negotiated sexual terrain is the fact that even the characters, like .Ellen, who became prostitutes did so only in high class operations where they received enough compensation so that they could almost live like film actresses even, if they could, not be them. Further evidence of women’s sexual agency in the Hollywood novels can be seen in that the women characters slip in and out of prostitution as well as make money through the related practice of “treating” »“[t]rading sexual favors of varying degrees for male attention, gifts, and a good time.”1 ® They slip into prostitution when, they have bills to pay and they slip back out to get married or to take up a new profession.. Instead of falling prey to sexual predators, the women of the Hollywood novels use their sexuality to get what they want or need. Consider this passage from the 1930 novel, Queer People, as an. example: “lane and Peggy and Bobby constituted a trio the Hie of which had never endangered Hollywood before. All were young. All were blonde. All were predatory. A man with money was not safe within the same block. Among the three, the sum total of knowledge included every conceivable system for extracting money from males while giving nothing in return.”1 0 9 In another novel, 98.6°, a character named Wanda gets paid to go to parties. She seemed to have made a career of going to parties for pay, doubtless as part of the entertainment for the real, guests. 'Don’ t the men get fresh with you at these parties?' "Some of them do. Especially after a few drinks. But 1 can. handle them.' 'Why do you. go to such parties?’ To hint this was something like being a call girl and it offended him. 1 0 1 Peiss, Cheap Amusements, 110, m Graham, Queer People, 56*7, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 214 ‘ Oh, it's fun! And strictly business. I don't have to sleep with them. That' s not included in the price.’1 1 0 Finally, the Holly wood novels are not moralistic about prostitution. Instead, the tone is at least ambivalent, and in some cases, appreciative. The business sense of Mrs. Jennings, the madam from the 1939 novel. The Day o f the Locust, is actually applauded: “Instead of becoming an extra or a bit player like many old stars, she [Mrs. Jennings] had shown excellent business sense and had opened a call house.”1 " The Hollywood novels are also significant for their depiction of men, rather than women, as the potential victims of sexual predators or the immorality of Hollywood. In fact, ray most interesting findings from these novels is the extent to which men in them are either incapable of dealing with the Hollywood system or are practicing gigolos. The Hollywood novels, especially those of the noir genre, indicate that it is the men rather than the women who are more naive and at least equally susceptible to the possibility of exchanging their “virtue” for money, albeit in different manners. The 1923 novel Merton o f the Movies, for example, features an ignorant, star-struck character named Merton Gill who survives starvation in Hollywood through the efforts of a stunt girl named Sarah “Flips” Montague who gets Merton, the leading role in a comedy film. Merton’s success in comedy depends on his belief that he is actually performing in a serious drama. Sarah and the Film crew dupe him into success in the movies, and it is Sarah who reveals the charade at 1 (0 .Leon Z. Surmelian, 98,60 (New York: E. P, Dutton & Co., Inc., 1950), 242 m West, Day o f the Locust, 42. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 215 the end of the novel1 1 2 Horace McCoy’s 1938 novel, I Should Have Stayed Home, for example, also features a naive male character—Ralph Carston—who has come to Hollywood from Georgia hoping to become a movie star and instead falls victim, to a sexual predator. Ralph’s roommate, Mona, provides him with a place to stay and tries to prevent Ralph from, becoming the next in Mrs. Smithers’ long line of gigolos: “I don’t want to hear any more about Mrs. Smithers. After she lays you once or twice she’ll drop you so fast your head’ll ache for a week.”* 1 3 Ralph eventually loses bis virginity to Mis. Smithers, however, hoping that having sex with tier will result in Ms break into the movies. Unfortunately, Mona’s warnings about Mrs. Smithers end up being prophetic. Ralph never gets a part in a movie, and Mrs. Smithers soon finds another young man more to her liking.5 1 4 The most extreme example of the 'unequal distribution, of sexual power can be found in the 1935 novel, Hollywood Cemetery, In. this novel, a Hollywood producer, Jack Mortimer, has gone to Ireland to find a fresh face for a new film set in Ireland. He finds a young woman by the name of Angela Devlin who appears to fit Ms specifications. A calculating woman, Angela responds positively to Mortimer’s sexual advances while in. the process of obtaining a motion picture contract, but on the ship to America, Angela refuses to have sex with Mortimer. It is clearly Angela, 1 1 2 Harry Leon Wilson, Merton of the Morns (Garden City; Doubleday, Page & Company, 1923). ili Horace McCoy, / Should Have Stayed Home (New York; Alfred A .. Knopf, 1938), 48. 1 1 4 Horace McCoy’s first novel, They Shoot Horses, D on't They?, also features an. innocent young man who is object of a wealthy woman’s sexual interest, Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses, Don ' 1 They? (New York; Simon and Schuster, 1935), 187, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 216 an aspiring actress, not Mortimer, the highly successful Hollywood producer, who maintains control in this scene: 'Yon try to behave like that to mef she hissed, 'and I'll tear your heart out You dirty, old, bald. . . ’ For three minutes he bore it, trembling from head to foot, Ms lips shaping inarticulate words and then he slid to his knees and held up Ms clasped hands begging for mercy. Then she spat on him and subsided. With her bosom heaving and her arms folded across her breasts, which had become bare in the tussle, owing to her nightdress being torn, she sat on the bed and glared at him.1 ” In addition to challenging gender stereotypes by coupling strong female characters with weak male foils, the Hollywood novels also stretched, the concept of prostitution, to include the ways in which men as well as women offered themselves for sale, at least metaphorically, to and on behalf of the motion picture industry. As early as the 1922 novel, Souls for Sole, the main character, Mein, is “confronted, with the fact that all actors must offer themselves for sale-not the pretty women only, but the old men, too, and the character women.""* This sentiment reappears in the 1938 novel, Promised Land, as one of the characters reflects that Hollywood “by a twist of fate had become headquarters for a new industiy, the canning of physical beauty for export to a beauty-starved world. From everywhere lovely girls and handsome men had come flocking to offer their wares, their golden, curls and breasts and legs and profiles, for canning." 1 1 7 In her book, Sex Seen: The Emergence o f Modern Sexuality in America, Sharon. Ullman argues that, whereas early film concentrated on “selling” the bodies of females to a male audience, “j'wjitli the advent of male screen idols us Mam O’Flaherty, Hollywood Cemetery (London: Victor Gollatiez Ltd., 1935), 63, 1 1 5 Rupert Hughes, Souls fo r Sate (1922; reprint. New York; Garland Publishing, Inc., 1978), 193. 5 1 7 Belfrage, Promised Land, 237 R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 217 such as Rudolf Valentino and Douglas Fairbanks, tine sexual economy of cinema expanded to include both, female heterosexual desire and male homosexual desire.”1 * ® Thus the implication of males in metaphorical prostitution in. Hollywood novels can be seen as corresponding loosely to their increasing commodification in film. In addition, the idea that artists/writers who became screenwriters had, in some way, prostituted themselves by “going Hollywood” can be found prominently in novels of the noir genre, in particular. Typical of the noir rhetoric, according to Mike Davis, is the sense that “[sjnared in the nets of Hollywood, ‘seduced’ talents are ‘wasted’, ‘prostituted’, trivialized’, or ‘destroyed’”1 1 9 This notion of writers feeling like prostitutes is evidenced in such novels as the 1935 novel, Hollywood Cemetery. Screenwriter Sam Gunn remarks to a newly arrived Hollywood writer, “ ‘I'm a prostitute, I know, but that does not force me to love my keeper. Excuse me, M r. Carey, for boring you with this rubbish. All Hollywood conversation, is like that It must appear insane to an outsider. I ’ ve been seven years here. It’ s like dope, this place. One visit is amusing, provided it’ s cut short and one doesn't come again.... There Is only one thing to do in Hollywood. To get as much money out o f it as possible. ”’!M This sense that artists coming to Hollywood sacrificed the “virtue” of their craft for material compensation is also evident in the 1.939 novel, The Day of the Locust, as painter Tod Hackett remarks in tine ope.ii.iog pages that he had taken us 'Oilman, Sex Seen, 104, 1 1 9 Davis, City o f Quarts, IS. 1 2 9 O’Flaberty, Hollywood Cemetery, 134. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 218 the job in. Hollywood “despite the arguments of his friends who were certain that he was selling out and would never paint again,”1 2 1 1 2 1 West, Day o f the Locust, 23, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 21.9 Part HI: Prostitution in Los Angeles in the 1930s» Ah Overview The decade of the 1930s saw many changes occur in Los Angeles, Like the rest of the nation, Los Angeles felt the effects of the Great Depression, The boom in . motion pictures, oil, and construction that had helped make the 1920s a time of unprecedented growth in the city ended..' Even, though the movie industry achieved, an incredible feat in , that it, unlike other major industries, sustained no decline in production demand, for example, it faced major upheavals as film companies filed for bankruptcies or faced consolidation, with a Wall Street takeover." Migration to the city subsided with the population rising only modestly in the decade from 1,238,048 to 1,504,277, although. African Americans continued to arrive in the city in large numbers (see table 11).3 Unemployment in. the city, compounded by innumerable land-swindles and business frauds, inspired a variety of proposed political solutions with an array of political, leaders. Upton Sinclair’s (unsuccessful) gubernatorial bid in 1934 with the EPIC campaign (End Poverty in California) proved to be one of the more famous of several grassroots efforts at alleviating poverty in the state and in the city of Los Angeles.4 Other efforts at combating poverty in the city included the deportation, and repatriation of Mexicans and Mexican. Americans which, resulted in the loss of one third of Los An.gel.es5 Mexican 1 fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis* 273. 3 May, Screening Out, 238-9. 3 McWilliams, Southern California, 14. 4 McWilliams, Southern California, 293,298. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 220 residents in the 1 930s,3 The Los Angeles Police Department arrested unemployed men in the city, jailing them, for vagrancy; the Police Department also patrolled the city’s borders in order to keep the tide of migrants from Arkansas and Oklahoma out of the city.6 Informal segregation in the city deepened in the 1930s as racially restrictive housing covenants became common, and Japanese, blacks, and Mexicans found themselves circumscribed by white neighborhoods that barred their entry,7 Table 11 Racial/Ethnic Composition of the City of Los Angeles, 1930-1940 — — Jg2Q Jigs _______________________ % of T o ta l. N % of Total White 1,073,584 86.7 1,406,430 93,5 Negro 38,894 3.1 63,774 4.2 Chinese 3,009 0.2 4,736 0.3 Japanese 21,081 1.7 23,321 1.6 Indian 616 0,0 862 0.1 Mexicans8 97,116 7,8 65,000 43 Other Races 3,748 0.3 5,154 0.3 Total 1,238,048 100 1,504,277 to o Source: U.S. Census, Fifteenth Census, 266,280; U. S. Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census o f the United States. 1940. Volume II. Population. (Washington, 1942), 630. 4 “Mexicans” are listed as a separate category only for 1930. Hie 1940 estimate is based on George Sanchez's contention that Los Angeles lost about one third of its Mexican population in the 1930s as a result of repatriation. Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 12,213. The advent of the Great Depression had the effect of diverting attention away from women and issues of sexuality to the problem of the unemployed male. S usan Ware’s study of women during the Great. Depression makes clear, however, that sexual expressiveness continued to be the norm for women during the 1930s. Ware notes that sexual expressiveness had become so much a part of American culture by 5 Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 12, 213. 6 McWilliams, Southern California, 292. 7 Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 274, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 22! the 1930s, that behavior that “had seemed shocking in 1923 was not even cause for comment ten years later,5 5 * Other historians support this conclusion., noting that the sexual mores of the 1920s had become so widespread that the sexual expressiveness of young women alone in the city— once die subject of great concern—‘‘ ro longer provoked alarm or even comment”9 Following the climate of sexual expressiveness advanced in the 1920s, the economic hardships created by the Depression caused the line between prostitution and “acceptable” sexual expression to blur even .farther. Even as the sexual activities of women aroused little public attention because most Americans had become absorbed in the more pressing issue of skyrocketing male unemployment, the incidence of occasional prostitution increased. The Great Depression hit African. American communities particularly hard, far example, leading one Chicago police officer to comment that black women sometimes resorted to prostitution in order to survive economically during especially hard times.1 0 Another writer also commented that the Great Depression constituted one of several, factors contributing to the relative ease with which young women moved into exchanging sex for money.1 1 Although occasional, prostitution was not unknown before the Great Depression, working-class women carefully distinguished prostitution, (sex. exchanged for money) from such practices as treating, where sex might be exchanged for gifts but * Susan Ware, Holding Their Own: American Women in the 1930s (Boston: Twayne Publishers. 1982), 62, 9 Meyerowitz, Women Adrift, 141; Lois Banner, Women in Modem America: A B rief History (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1974), 195, 1 0 D’Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters, 296, u Courtney RyJey Cooper, Designs in Scarlet (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1939), 300. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 222 never for cash. Women who would have sex for a pair of shoes, for example, saw themselves as distinct from prostitutes who received money for sex. During the Great Depression, however, financial distress caused many women to abandon treating as the outer limits of legitimate sexual expression. In 1933, for example, Bascom Johnson and Paul Kimie published “Prostitution In . the United States,” a study of prostitution based on data compiled from fifty-eight cities across the country. According to the study, the Great Depression had caused prostitutes to face a great deal more competition from a variety of sources. These sources included a group of women the study referred to as “depression girls”—a term Johnson and Kimie attributed to the “prostitution underworld’1 as a classification for an “unusual” group of women who became prostitutes “because of personal financial distress,”1 2 These “depression girls” included several kinds of women: “charity girls,” young, sexually promiscuous girls without .resources who tried to make a living by prostitution; “kept women,” who turned to prostitution when their “providers” had withdrawn their financial support; and older women, “in many Instances ex-prostitutes,” who rejoined the prostitution business when, they could not support themselves through, legal means. Although Johnson and Kinsie admitted that they had difficulty substantiating the extent, to which the depression forced women into prostitution, they also stated that their 5 2 Bascom Johnson and Paul M. Kinsie, “Prostitution in the United States,” Journal of Social Hygiene 19.9 (December 1933): 484, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 223 ‘ “ observers” encountered many women working as prostitutes whose “distress stories rang true,” 1 3 Even as more women practiced occasional prostitution, professional prostitutes found that the Great Depression decreased the profitability of selling sex. Mendel LeSiieur, writing in 1932, claimed that the body, like every' other commodity, was difficult to sell and some girls reported that they were lucky to get fifty cents.1 4 Johnson and Kinsie also commented that the financial situation had contributed to a number of developments within, prostitution meant to compensate for falling prices and a diminishing clientele. Their study, for example, pronounced a rise in the “volume and flagrancy” of prostitution in American, cities generally in the course of five years. Although Johnson and Kinsie connected the rise in prostitution, to a nu.ni.ber of factors, including the diversion of resources from the enforcement of prostitution laws to relief efforts, they claimed the financial crisis had made such “flagrant” solicitation necessary because prostitutes, faced with charging clients reduced fees, had to make up for attenuated profits by taking in more customers. Johnson and Kinsie also asserted that the Great Depression had caused prostitution to spread from, slums and run-down sections o f the city into even, “better neighborhoods” because property owners felt they could not afford to turn away any prospective tenant. The tendency of prostitutes to drift from one city to the next i? Johnson and Kinsie, “Prostitution in the United. Slates," 484. 1 4 Ware, Holding Their Ownf 32, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 224 looking for favorable spots for their illegal activities was another characteristic of prostitution the study tied to the Great Depression.'* Conflicting narratives of prostitution in Los Angeles in the 1930s provide a fuzzy picture of the incidence of prostitution in the city. Did Los Angeles have an unusually high degree of prostitution compared to other cities during the 1930s? Johnson and Kinsie thought not. Their study o f prostitution, which included Los Angeles as one of fifty-eight cities, concluded that Los Angeles was one of ten. cities where prostitution had actually declined because of “more or less constant or increased law enforcement activity.”1 4 In contrast, the study contended, San Francisco had seen an increase of prostitution, and. one description, of that city in . 1933 evokes a. sense of a disorderly town of approximately 135 brothels—along with gambling and bookie joints—serving a population of disproportionately single working-class men.1 7 Los Angeles officials concurred with Johnson and Kinsie’s conclusions. One LAPD Chief referred to the city as the “white spot” of the United States with regard to vice conditions.'* Another official writing at the end of the decade surmised that Los Angeles “has its bad spots, but they are comparatively few.”1 9 Yet, the Los Angeles Police Department’s arrest statistics show a steadily increasing number of 1 3 Johnson and Kinsie, “Prostitution in the United States,” 479-483. 1 6 Johnson and Kinsie, “Prostitution in the Uni ted States,” 471. 1 7 Johnson and Kinsie, “Prostitution in the United States,” 474; Starr, Endangered Dreams, 84. Chief Steckel made this claim on more than, one occasion. See, for example, LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal, year 1930-1,6; Los Angeles Times, 22 November 1932. w George Parrish, “Role of the Los Angeles City Health. Department in National Defense” (1.941), 7, in Box I, Folder 5, Los Angeles Department of Health Archives, CSUN Special. Collections. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 225 arrests for prostitution through the first years of the Depression. Arrest figures peak at 2,240 during the fiscal year 1933-4 and decline dramatically, before-rising again through the rest of the decade (see chart 2 and table 12). A vociferous and increasingly powerful segment of the Los Angeles population also claimed that vice was rampant in. the city. Some citizens formed reform groups which claimed that the number of brothels in the city had reached j ust over six hundred.2 0 The complaints of such citizens punctuated the local newspapers tliroughout the 1930s, laun.chi.ing several investigations of vice conditions in the city. By 1938, one reform organization— CI VIC [Citizens1 Independent Vice Investigating Committee] had grown powerful enough, to play a leading .role in the recall of the city's mayor for his alleged involvement in. the protection, of vice in the city. Despite these conflicting accounts of the incidence of prostitution in Los Angeles, it is possible to determine that a number of developments that Johnson and Kinsie found for prostitution in American cities in general during the Great Depression also shaped prostitution in Los Angeles. Johnson and Kinsie, for example, credited the city of Los Angeles with the kind of law enforcement that caused prostitution to decline. The year their study was published, however, the Los Angeles Police Department obtained a new police chief, in . the figure of James Davis, whose policy of law enforcement gave “moral” offenses including ® CIVIC Pamphlet, a d (circa 1937) Polder 1-8, Box is Miller Collection, C SUN Special. Collections. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 226 25001 Chart 2 Arrests of Women on Offering in the 1930s 2000 ' Sm J j 1500 1 8 1000 soo •.«r... ...~ ... ............. 1930- 1931-1 1932- 1933- | 1934* j 1933- 1 1936- 1937- July 1939 1940 1 2 i 3 4 j 5 j 6 | 7 8 Dec Steckel Davis I >avidsoti Hofmann Dec 1929-August August 1933-Novcmber 1938 Nov Jus 1939-Jun 1933 1938- 1941 Year, Chief of Police Table 12 Women Arrested for Violating City “Offering” Ordinance in the 1930s0 1930-1 1931-2 1582-3 1933-4 1934-5 1935-6 1936-7 1937-8 1938b 1939 I940 Total 1006 1637 2019 2240 1916 768 835 1481 900 1340 1300 Source: Los Angeles Police Department, Annual Report, fiscal years 1930-1931 th rou gh 1937*1938 a n d calendar years through 1940, “ No changes occurred in lie city ordinances in the 1930s. W omen wrested for offering were arrested for violating Section I of City Ordinance No. 49354, approved by the City Council in 1924. bThe figures listed in tins colum n a re for only six months (July-December) in 1938, The Los Angeles Police Departm ent converted from fiscal yews to calendar yews beginning in 1939. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 227 prostitution a low priority in favor of concentrating on. “harcT crimes,2 1 Los Angeles Police Department statistics substantiate Davis5 policy in that they indicate a sharp drop in arrests for prostitution after Davis’ first year as chief (see chart 2).® Also, in 1933, Los Angeles elected a new mayor, Frank Shaw, whose adntinistratio.ii. facilitated such alliances as Johnson and Kinsie described by “'underworld leeches” who attached themselves to prostitutes and worked in conjunction with, public officials. The most infamous of such alliances in Los Angeles—the one involving the evolving but still powerful Syndicate of the 1.920s—will provide a point of inquiry in the following chapter. The relative strength of the Syndicate along with the degree of corruption in the Shaw administration and Los Angeles Police Department under James Davis is again difficult to determine due to conflicting accounts and a lack of concrete evidence.2 3 Reformers, for example, may have overestimated or overstated the degree of corruption in the city administration as well as the involvement of the Syndicate in city’s prostitution and other illicit businesses. On. the other hand, members of the city administration would have been reluctant to admi t that reformers’ charges were potentially accurate. I work from the premise that the Shaw administration was corrupt, and I . base this premise partly on the research of one of 2 1 Sitton, “Urban Politics,” J10, 2 2 See the LAPD, Annual Reports, fiscal year 1933-4 through 1938. The highest number of arrests for “offering” occur in the fiscal year 1,933-4 with 2,240 arrests. This figure includes only women as no men were arrested for this charge. Arrests for vagrancy-lewd, included in the category of sex offenses drop off dramatically after 1932-3. * The Los Angeles Police Department’s files, for example, though stored at the Los Angeles City Archives are not open for public research, and the Syndicate obviously kept its business dealings as confidential as possible. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 228 Shaw’s more sympathetic historians who concludes that Shaw had connections to the city’s underworld leaders through his brother Joe who held the position of the mayor’s secretary.” The records of reform groups such as CIVIC as well as letters written to the city council by Los Angeles citizens and other reform groups also contain evidence of the city administration’s crookedness. While reform, groups may have bent ‘ the tacts” to pursue their own agenda, their investigations of vice in the city also have substantial merit in that several of the locations they identify as houses of prostitution appear in various reform groups’ communications with the city council. In addition, several addresses serve as the location for future arrests, and as 1 will discuss in chapter 7, one madam who worked tor the Syndicate also verified several of the reformers5 charges regarding locations of prostitution and the involvement of the Syndicate and the city’s political administration. Although the Los Angeles Police Department insisted in many cases that reformers had supplied them, with inaccurate information, the officers who claimed to have investigated the reformers’ lists of addresses ended up leaving the force (along with Chief Davis) when the recall campaign forced Shaw out of the mayor’s office in 1938. While prostitution in , Los Angeles during the Great Depression continued to be dominated by “underworld leeches” in collusion with, corrupt city officials, 2 4 Sitton writes his dissertation as a deliberate rejection, o f what he sees as the prevailing “reform viewpoint” which perceives Shaw’s administration as a wholly corrupt administration. In. attempting to correct this distorted interpretation of Shaw, Sitton still discloses that Joe Shaw bargained with underworld leaders “to insure campaign contributions for political candidates allied with the Shaw organization, and to keep some measure of control on the activities of the underworld.” Sitton, “Urban Politics,” 60. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 229 prostitution in. the city also took on several of the other characteristics Johnson and Kinsie identified as common in the evolution of prostitution in other American, cities. Such characteristics included prostitution's more “flagrant” nature, its spread, from “the forgotten neighborhoods, the slums and run-down sections of a city” to the “better neighborhoods” and its migratory quality. In their article, Johnson and Kinsie associate prostitution’s more flagrant nature with the tendency of prostitutes to openly solicit customers from, windows anti doorways except on the Pacific Coast, where this kind of solicitation, had been banned by local authorities. On the Pacific Coast, they argued, “operators” disguised their brothels as small hotels or small rooming houses. These buildings, however, could usually be distinguished from other houses on the street by their “lighting effects and conspicuously displayed, house numerals.”2 5 As the investigations of reform organizations along with individual citizens’ letters to the city council reveal, a number of brothels in Los Angeles were disguised hotels or apartment houses. (This trend of brothels to operate out of apartment houses and hotels, however, could already be found in the 1.920s in. Los Angeles.) Communications from reform-minded citizens and organizations to the Los Angeles City Council, which contain a myriad of addresses of purported vice operations, also indicate that prostitution in the 1930s continued to spread throughout the city* infiltrating even, the “better neighborhoods ” a Johnson and Kinsie, “Prostitution, in the United States/’ 481. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 230 At the same time, as chapter 6 will argue, prostitution became more entrenched in Los Angeles’ equivalent o f the “forgotten neighborhoods,” namely the city’s increasingly segregated ethnic communities—a development of which Johnson and Kinsie make no mention. Los Angeles’s predominately Mack neighborhood, the Central Avenue community, for example, appears to have witnessed, a substantial increase in the incidence of prostitution in the neighborhood, particularly in the area of what I see as the most flagrant sort of prostitution, namely streetwalkmg. Streetwalkers in Central Avenue were, according to one resident, so numerous that they made it difficult for respectable citizens to “pass on the streets to church and school.”2 6 Arrest statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department showing a sharp increase in the arrests of African-American women in the first half of the 1930s on prostitution, charges appear to substantiate these observations. In contrast, arrests of Mexican, Mexican-American, and Native American women, classified under the racial category of “red” by the Los Angeles Police Department, remained fairly consistent throughout the decade. “Red” women tended to account for less than ten. percent of prostitution arrests. Arrests of women classified as “yellow” and “brown”—Chinese, Chinese-American, Japanese, Japanese-American women, and women of Filipino descent—for prostitution charges were almost non-existent. Chapter 6 will examine the incidence o f prostitution in, the city’s ethnic communities more closely. 2 < Telegram dated September 2 4 ,1,937, Folder 1-30, Box; 1, Miller Collection, CSUN. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 231 Chapter 7, based on. the trial of Charles Montgomery and Ann Forrester, contains evidence of prostitution’s migratory quality. As the trial transcript reveals, individuals such as Montgomery participated, in a prostitution, network that connected Los Angeles with several cities throughout California, including San. Bernardino, Oxnard, San. Diego, and. Pisino Beach. Another observation of Johnson and Rinsie’s concerned the competition professional prostitutes received from occasional prostitutes during the Great Depression. The erosion of the strictly observed line between the “casual barter and the commercial sale of sex” which defined worldn.g-cl.ass women’s “entire system of sexual morality” began in the 1920s but accelerated in the 1930s.2 7 In. Los Angeles, for example, Olive Clark Day, who ran a prostitution, ring from at least 1928-1931 that specialized in offering supposedly “innocent” young women to male clients, told investigators that the bulk of her employees were young girls who “couldn’t help being whores” and until coming to work for her, “were sneaking back of bi 1.1-boards and behind park bushes at night with any man who would buy them a meal.”2 8 In her dissertation, on. treating and prostitution in Hew York City, Alice Clement includes an example of a woman telling a vice investigator in. 1.930 that she had moved from, treating to prostitution.3 9 Chapter 7 will address the economic role of the Depression in more detail though an examination o f the testimony of several, young prostitutes working in Los Angeles and surrounding areas in the late 1930s. 2 7 Clement, “Trick or Treat,” 71, a White, Me, Detective, 272. 2 9 Clement. “Trick or Treat,” 343. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 232 Characteristics of prostitution that Johnson and Kinsie tied to the Great Depression may be more properly understood as an. evolution of movements that had begun in previous decades. Changes in sexual mores, evident first in the working- class community at the turn of the century but soon trickling upward into the middle and upper stratum of society, along with developments within the business of prostitution, helped influence the shape o f prostitution in 1930s Los Angeles (and elsewhere) as much as the economic distress caused by the Great Depression. Of final interest in this regard is Johnson and Kinsie’s inclusion of a section called ‘Taxi Dance Halls” in their study of prostitution. Johnson and Kinsie identified dance halls as places where “lewd, indecent and sex-stimulating dancing are the main attraction.”3 0 The study refrained from, making a direct connection between the dance halls and prostitution, but claimed that the dance 'halls5 effect on. patrons and employees could not “help but be demoralizing and degrading.”3 ’ The incorporation of the dance halls as part of a study on prostitution reflects a growing awareness o f a new commercialized sexual culture that offered women’s bodies for sale at a number of different levels.3 2 In Los Angeles, dance halls and movies provided such arenas already in the 1920s. In the 1930s, Los Angeles newspapers reported on the increasing frequency of police making arrests at “indecent shows”—another .means by which men could pay for access to women’s bodies. Johnson and Kinsie, “Prostitution in the United States,” 485. 3 1 Johnson and Kinsie, "Prostitution in the United States,” 486. 3 2 Ullanaa, Sex Seen, 104; Clement, “Trick or Treat,” 233. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 233 Although this dissertation is concerned primarily with, the ways in . which men helped to facilitate making female prostitutes available to clients, it is important at least to note the ways in which, men participated in the commercialized sexual culture o f the 1920s and 1.930s as prostitutes. Prostitution, for example, has been applied metaphorically to refer to men working in the film industry. Historians discuss the emergence of the star system of the 1920s as an effort to turn actors and actresses into marketable commodities.3 3 Sharon U liman makes this point more explicitly, saying that early film, constituted “a form of ‘selling’ bodies.” The emergence of male screen, idols such as Rudolph Valentino and .Douglas Fairbanks, she claims, saw actors join actresses as “stand-in, prostitutes.”3 4 The metaphor of prostitute applied to male screenwriters can be seen in abundance in Hollywood novels, as chapter 4 has demonstrated. I n . addition, Hortense Powdermaker claimed that even screenwriters with a more positive view on their position within the film industry compared themselves to what they viewed as a variation of a prostitute, the “kept woman,” pointing out that they were “merely paid more highly for 'selling out' as writers” by the film industry as opposed to the newspaper business.3 5 There is also evidence, however, of actual male prostitution in Los Angeles. Lee Francis, a Hollywood madam in primarily the 1920s and early 1.930s, spoke of keeping a list of men. who would have sex with other men. Whereas George Chauneey’s study of New York City has shown that male prostitution “was 3 3 Studler, Stardom and Masculinity, 2, 3 4 Ullman, 104-5. 3 5 Powdermaker, Dream Factory, 148*9. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 234 increasingly common” by the 1910s and 1920s in that city, information on. male prostitution in Los Angeles, imfortunatdy, remains slim.3 * More common are references to men performing at “indecent shows.” In 1933, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that policemen had arrested a “female impersonator, highly powdered, lip-sticked and rouged" and booked him on a “morals charge.”3 7 Perhaps the best account of this kind of arrest can be found in the Los Angeles Equalizer, September 1937. According to the story, in arresting various entertainers at a handful of clubs, two Los Angeles police officers “struck at the very heart of Sex Perversion which was the entertainment of The Public by these Parries [sic], ‘with women dressed as men and men. dressed as women before groups of liquor-crazed youths.’”3 * Jim Heimatm’s Sim o f the City: The Real Los Angeles Noir, mainly a collection of photographs from, Los Angeles newspaper archives, contains photographs of a drag ball taking place at a popular nightclub in the Central Avenue district from 1949, but there is no indication of how much earlier these kind of events were taking place.3 9 3 S George Chauncy has 'turned up evidence of male prostitution in the fust half of the twentieth century in cities such as Newport, Rhode Island and New York City, George Chauncy, “Christian Brotherhood or Sexual Perversion? Sexual Boundaries in the World War One Era,” Journal o f Social History 19 (Winter 198S): 189-211; George Chauncy., Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Makings o f the Gay Male World, 1890-1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994), 67, 3 7 Los Angeles Times, 20 March 1933, For another arrest of a female impersonator see Los Angeles Times, 19 September 1932. For other possible allusions to shows involving men s& e Los Angeles Times, 19 May \926;Im A ngeks Times, 6 December 1930; Los Angeles Times, 10 December 1930. 3 8 Reprint of the Los Angeles Equalizer. September 1.937 in Box 1, Folder 1-4, Miller Collection, CStlN. The list of places where police had made arrested consisted of. Cliff Dwellers, 3591 Beverly Blvd; The Peg, 8230 Santa Monica Blvd; Red Onion, 3126 Beverly Blvd.; B. & B. Call, 4475 Santa Monica Blvd; Freddie Hirsh, 3572 Beverly Blvd; Hunt Club, 931 W, 8* St, • ’9 Heimaim, Real Los Angeles Noir, 154. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 235 In short, by the 1930s, prostitution, in Los Angeles comprised only a part of an evolving sexual culture that encompassed a variety of sexual sales and barters and included men as well as women. While Los Angeles may have had. its peculiarities in the industry of prostitution itself, regional practices were likely only slight variations of what was happening on a national scale, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 236 Chapter 5 Prostitution In Los Angeles in the 1930s: The Syndicate and Reformers Introduction Because the advent of modern sexuality is thought to have occurred at the turn of the twentieth century and to have flourished during the 1920s, the impact of the Great Depression on the development and evolution of sexual mores remains a little-discussed subject. Several historians have commented on the Great Depression’s effect on gender roles, however, and concluded that the Great Depression resulted in a decline in feminism as well as in a renewed conviction that a woman’s proper place lay in the home.1 In addition, the Great Depression’s tremendous devastation on the majority of Americans helped shift attention away from, the actions and particular problems of women as the nation concentrated on. the problems of humanity, not women.. Joanne Meyerowitz, for example, notes that this diversion of attention, along with the phenomenon, of middle class women adopting a “more sexually expressive style,” resulted in a lack of comment on the sexual, behavior of the population of “women adrift”—-the urban-based population of independent single women.2 Sociologists of the 1930s indicate that prostitution rose during the Great Depression, and this is also the position of historians John D’Emilio and Estelle Freedman who contend that the increased tendency to resort to 1 Banner, Women in Modern America, 191; Nancy WoSoch, Women and the American Experience, 3rd Ed. (Boston: McGrawHill, 2000), 450-1, 2 Meyerowitz, Women Adrift, 141. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 237 prostitution to make ends meet was especially prevalent In the black urban populations.3 The rise of prostitution suggests that the new sexual expressiveness, including practices such, as ‘treating,” coupled with the American diversion of attention away from women to other concerns, contributed, to a conducive environment for the practice of prostitution. One writer of the 1930s, a reporter who had acted, as a federal informer on the subject of prostitution in America, claimed that an “increasing looseness of morals” was “peaked by the adversities of the depression,” making it easier for a young woman to slip into prostitution,4 This writer also commented on the rise of men's participation, in the business of prostitution, s uggesting that with the end of Prohibition, many men who sold alcohol illegally redirected their money-making efforts at selling sex.5 This chapter considers the role of men in the business of prostitution as well as the decreasing concern for the sexual mores of young women. Reformers (and their supporters) constitute one element of the group of men under scrutiny in this chapter. Members of the city administration and police department constitute another. Abo under consideration for its involvement in. prostitution is the Syndicate—Los Angeles’ local criminal organization. An examination of these elements reveals that prostitution remained dominated by men, particularly men in the Syndicate, well into the 1930s, despite major upheavals within the power 3 Johnson and Kinsie, “Prostitution in the United States,” 467; D’Emilio and Freedmea, Intimate Matters, 296, 4 Cooper, Designs in Scarlet, 300. 5 Cooper, Designs in Scarlet, 339. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 238 structure of the Syndicate, a restructuring of the Syndicate’s business system, an expansion of its business interests, competition, from outside sources, aid reform- engineered shifts in city politics. The Syndicate’s hierarchy included a number of women—some of whom worked at middle to higher level positions akin to managers or supervisors, while the majority worked at the lower level positions as prostitutes. As this chapter argues, prostitution remained dominated by men into the 1930s but still yielded some benefits to women who were willing to work in subordinate positions. The evidence of a decreasing concern for the sexual mores of young women can be seen in examining the dialogue of the city administration and moral reformers over the issue of prostitution. In both cases, prostitution had importance only as a means to an end—in the case of the city administration, the protection of the Syndicate’s prostitution operation meant larger income and campaign contributions; in the case of the reformers, the eradication of prostitution meant a city more to their moral taste and possibly a means to more political control of the city itself, The moral implications of rising prostitution in the city also mattered little to reformers. Like the earlier generation of Progressive reform,as, the reformers of the 1930s offered no solutions to the social and economic problems that caused prostitution in. the first place. They simply wanted police to arrest prostitutes and close brothels. What separates the reformers of the 1930s from 1920s reformers such as Shuler, and even earlier reformers of the Progressive Era, is the tack of concern expressed for the prostitutes themselves. The perception o f young innocent girls who have been R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 239 somehow seduced or coerced into prostitution is rare in both, the documents of the reform, organizations as well as individual citizens. Instead, the prostitutes are now evidence of blight in the city and an. obstacle to a cl.ea.ner and more desirable city. This change in reformers’ perception is indicative of the ascendancy of the new sexual mores associated with modem sexuality. The image of a sexually expressive woman had permeated the consciousness of urban reformers to the point that it was no longer inconcei vable that prostitution could be one of the avenues of sexual expression that women themselves chose. Los Angeles Politics in the 1930s, An Overview Since the Progressive Era, Los Angeles’ political scene had been dominated by forces of corruption and reform. Reformers railed against the immorality they saw in the city, and they blamed the existence of vices such as prostitution on a city administration either too lax in enforcing laws or complied in the protection of vice in the city, for the most part, reformers had only a limited impact on city politics in the 1920s and 1930s. The mayors who bore the brunt of reformers’ complaints—George Cryer in the 1.920s and Frank. Shaw in the 1930s—held their office despite frequent accusations from reformers that they ran a disreputable city administration. Yet the reformers were not entirely wanting in. power. In large pari; because of the backing of Robert Shuler, the most vociferous reformer o f the 1920s, for example, John Porter managed to defeat George Cryer in the bid for the mayor’s office. Porter, mayor of Los Angeles from. 19294933, however, soon suffered R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 240 sim.il.ar attacks cm his ability to clean up the city. The murder of underworld boss Charles Crawford occurred during Porter's term as mayor, and the murder seemed to convince the Los Angeles public that Porter could not keep his campaign promise to keep Los Angeles free of vice.6 Porter's successor, Prank Shaw (who had, like Porter and almost every mayor before him, also campaigned on a reform platform) similarly endured the opprobrium of reformers who increasingly accused, him. not simply of in.epti.twde when, it came to law enforcement, but of some degree of involvement in. what they viewed as a wide-reaching scheme of vice protection in the city. In the 1.930s, an organization called CIVIC [Citizens Independent Vice Investigation Committee], formed and headed by Clifford Clinton, had become the leading agent of reform in the city. By 1938, Frank Shaw was forced to surrender the mayor’s office as a result of a successful recall, campaign launched by CIVIC. The success of the CIVIC’s campaign, had depended largely on the shadow cast on the administration by the bombing of one o f CfVIC’s primary investigators, Hairy Raymond, by members of the Los Angeles Police Department’s “spy squad” who had been watching Raymond months before the bombing occurred. Fletcher Bowron, Shaw’s .replacement as mayor, instituted sweeping personnel changes in the Los Angeles Police Department and remained in office for more than a decade, despite occasional charges that he, too, was still not doing enough to .keep the city free from. vice. 6 Even Robert Shuler admitted that the election, of Porter had mot put: an end to racketeering in the city. Shuler, Strmge Death, 4. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 241 Prostitution a id the Syndicate in 1930s Los Angeless The Men. Despite shifts within the Syndicate and competition from mobsters belonging to the national crime organization known as the Mafia, the Syndicate remained firmly in control of much of the prostitution in Los Angeles, Two major shifts in the Syndicate’s leadership occurred with the incarceration of Albert Marco in 1928 and the death, of Charles Crawford in 193!, Replacing Crawford as the head of the Syndicate was Guy McAfee, a former police officer, who had run several gambling establishments in conjunction with the Syndicate in the 1920s.’ Within months of Crawford’s murder, for example, newspapers reported on the testimony of a dismissed policeman at a police board trial who claimed that Los Angeles was “‘running wide open and Guy McAfee is .running the Porter administration.’”8 Another Examiner story two months later stated that McAfee was “reputed to be the current boss of the gambling and other iilicit-producing resorts of Los Angeles.”9 Newspapers claimed that Albert Marco’s successor as the director of the Syndicate’s prostitution interests was Augusto “Sasso” Chito, Marco’s “lieutenant” in the 1920s.1 0 In addition to these internal disruptions, the Syndicate also faced competition from, the Mafia. The Syndicate may have partnered with a handful of Mafia men. as early as 1931, but real competition came in the form, of the arrival of 7 Henstdi, Sum him mid Wealth, 47; Woods, Police in Las Angeles, 47; Shuler, Strange Death, 7-8, 8 Los Angeles Examiner, 26 June 1931. 9 Los Angeles Examiner, 15 August 1931. Gerald Woods contends that, following Crawford’s death, “Guy McAfee emerged as the putative ‘boss’ of the underworld.” Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 151. See also Henstdi, Sum him and Wealth, 54. 10 Ims Angeks Examiner, 4 March 1931; Los Angeles Examiner, 5 October 1931. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 242 Benny Siegel to Los Angeles in the mid-1930s." These changes, however, did not interfere with the Syndicate’s control of illicit industries in the city. Former newspaperman Matt Weiiistocfc recalled, for example, that the Syndicate’s business industries were estimated to bring in fifty million dollars annually with the rumor being that the Syndicate collected “a dime for each towel used in the bordellos,”1 * Throughout foe 1930s the Syndicate maintained direct as well as indirect control of a large degree of the city’s illicit industries, including prostitution. McAfee, for example, more than his predecessor Charles Crawford, was linked by reformers directly to prostitution in the city. Lowell Pond, a Los Angeles resident running for Sheriff in 1934, for example claimed that one woman, Dorothy McKay, paid $75,000 to Guy McAfee “for protection and the prostitution concession in the City and County of Los Angeles.”1 3 Pond further contended that operators of brothels, along with operators of gambling establishments, paid “one dollar for each and every patron visiting the house” into a slush fond maintained by the Syndicate. Pond offered what he alleged were photographs of brothels as well as interviews he conducted with prostitutes and gamblers as evidence of his statements.1 4 Another memo in the Los Angeles Examiner Collection quotes Pond as having “heard of a 1 1 Pox claimed that Siegel arrived in 1935, Fox, Blood and Power, 155. Mickey Cohen, who worked for the Mafia, thought Beany had come in. 1936 or 1937, Cohen, In My Own Words, 41. 1 2 Wdnsteck,AfyL A., 56, 5 3 Memo—“Dorothy McKay Story, Voters’ Forum, by E, M. Flowers, July 19,1934,” Lowell Pond envelope, Hearst Collection, USC Regional History Center. 1 4 Memo—“Dorothy McKay Story,” Lowell Pond envelope, Hearst Collection, USC Regional History Center. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 243 prostitution, ring, employing 3000 girls in Los Angeles, which is controlled by the McAfee crowd.”1 5 As the person credited (by newspapers at least:) with control of the Syndicate’s prostitution interests, August© “Sasso” Chito should be even easier to connect with prostitution in I,,os Angeles. There are some indications of Chito’s involvement in prostitution, but such references are few. In February 1931, for example, the Examiner reported that police had arrested Chito at his downtown, apartment, but the newspaper did not comment on the charges except to say that Chito had denied lie was “in, the habit of entertaining lavishly for high city officials.”1 6 This “entertaining” could have involved prostitutes, liquor, gambling, or nothing of the sort. A few months later, Chito again, appeared in newspapers—this time as the victim of a shooting that had occurred in his home tit the beach town of Venice. The shooting elicited Mayor Porter to pronounce Sasso “a successor to Albert Marco and... a powerful figure in the so-called underworld,” but no specific references to Sasso’s involvement in prostitution were forthcoming.1 7 One indication of Chito’s involvement in prostitution can be drawn from the Examiner's assertion that police believed the shooting was done by a man at the bidding of “some disgruntled woman of North, Main street.”1 8 By the 1930s, Main Street had 'become notorious for streetwalkers and, cheap brothels, thus the reference can be inferred, to mean that the disgruntled woman was a 1 5 “Memo to Mr. Woolard,” Lowell Pond envelope, Hearst Collection, USC Regional History Center. 1 6 Los Angeks Examiner, 5 February 1931. n I m Angeles Examinert 5 October 1931. 1 8 Im Angeles Examiner, 9 October 1931.. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 244 prostitute, probably in the employ o f Sasso,w In 1932, when Sasso became the subject of a federal investigation for failing to pay income tees, the newspapers became more explicit in tying Sasso to prostitution in the city, claiming he had ascended ‘the Los Angeles red light throne when Marco was sent to San Quentin,”2 0 The 1934 grand, jury found evidence that Sasso acted as the coordinator of prostitution for the Syndicate, personalty paying off the city administration’s collecting agent, City Commissioner Fred Frank.2 1 Sasso, however, remained somewhat unhindered in his prostitution enterprise. Newspapers took no special note of Sasso from. 1932 until 1941when police arrested Sasso for his involvement with a house of prostitution, located just outside Los Angeles city limits.2 2 Prostitution and the Syndicate in 1930s Los Angeles: The Women Although Syndicate men like Guy McAfee and Augusto Sasso continued to dominate the city’s prostitution industry through the 1930s, it becomes apparent from newspaper stories, reformers’ records, and court transcripts that these men relied on a growing number of women to oversee their prostitution interests. While the majority of these women occupied a type of middle management status within the Syndicate, at least one or two women obtained a higher position. Lee Francis—-the self-proclaimed “queen of the Hollywood half-world” —may have been 1 9 Woon, incredible Land, 11; "Los Angeles . , . 'America's Wickedest City"' from Look Magazine., 26 September 1936 in Box 1, Folder 1*31, Miller Collection, CSUN, 7 0 Los Angeles Examiner, 7 May 1932. 2 1 Woods, Police in I m Angeles, 172. 2 2 Los Angeles Examiner, 27 August 1941. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 245 one such woman. She remained in business through the 1930s, moving her headquarters in 1936 to a mansion in Beverly Hills.® According to her autobiography, however, she had already begun to consider a change in occupation after the murder of Charles Crawford in 1931. With Crawford's death, Francis appears to have lost her position., of favor within the Syndicate because she claims to have begun making pay-offs to three or four different parties.2 4 At some point in the late 1.930s, Francis gave up her title as Hollywood’s most infamous madam, passing along her client list to a former employee. After a failed attempt at opening a nightclub in Hollywood, Francis began to dabble in prostitution again. In 1940, police arrested her for her role in arranging for two men (undercover officers) to have sex with two of her employees. Although Francis dented that she had instructed the two women “to behave improperly or to ask for money,” declaring she had only told the women to “dine and dance” with the men, a judge found her guilty, and sentenced her to thirty days in jail and a fine of $250.2 5 Lacking Lee Francis” reputation but rivaling and perhaps superceding Francis’ influence and status within the Syndicate, June Taylor’s connections to the organization stretched back to the 1920s and continued uninterrupted and undiminished through at least the end of the 1930s. Newspapers, for example, credited Sasso with taking over Marco’s position in . the Syndicate, but Robert Shuler mused that Sasso had not been, a “decided success,” and that Marco’s houses were 2 ,4 Francis, Ladies m Call, 103,141. 2 4 Frauds, Ladies on Call, 187,190. 2 3 I m Angeles Examiner, 24 January 1940; Los Angelas Examiner, 27 March 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 4 6 consequently being “maintained by June Taylor.”2 6 Shuler insisted, that Taylor's power in the Syndicate was long standing, and that she had held a more important position than Sasso in the Syndicate already back in the 1920s under the leadership of Crawford and Marco.2 7 What Taylor's position in . the Syndicate consisted of in the 1920s, however, remains murky. Newspapers mention her in 1931 as one of foe people who visited Albert Marco in jail, and they refer to her as Marco’s “sweetheart.”2 * The name “J. Taylor,” however, also appears as part of a long list of women defended by Marco’s attorney in 1929. According to the newspaper article, Taylor had been arrested for vagrancy.2 9 A “June Taylor” can also be found in the Los Angeles Times “Baths and Massages” advertising section in February, 1.925,3 0 This advertising section later came under attack by police officers for allegedly containing up to seventy-five percent of false advertisements in which massage parlors were “poorly disguised houses of ill fame.”3 1 Although it is impossible to prove that June Taylor, “Marco’s sweetheart,” is the same woman arrested in 1929 for vagrancy or advertising massages in 1925, an. LAPD officer testified in court that he had arrested June Taylor prior to 1940.3 2 2 6 Shuler, Strange Death, 8. 2 1 Shuler, Strange .Death, 9. 3 8 Los Angeles Examiner, 29 May 1931. 2 9 Los Angeles Examiner, 22 May 193.2, The story concerned a current municipal court judge’s past relationship to Marco. Thomas P. White, the judge under scrutiny, had handled “the important cases” of the Marco while his brother-in-law and law associate, Vincent Hickson, had appeared in court on behalf of the women working for Marco, including J. Taylor. 3 0 See, for example, Lus Angeles Times, 23 February 1925. The advertisement read: “JUNE TAYLOR. Manicure—Massage. 803 1-3 S, OLIVE. HRS. 9-10.” 3 1 Los Angeles Times, 14 February 1932, 3 2 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 2004. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 247 Like many other women who retained positions of power within the business of prostitution (usually as madams), Taylor probably started at a low level in the industry before moving up in the hierarchy. It would hardly be surprising if Taylor had worked as a prostitute, moving up to the level of Marco’s girlfriend in the late 1920s, before becoming even more powerful within the Syndicate in the 1930s. Whichever route Taylor took, it is clear that by the 1930s, Taylor worked at one of the top levels in the Syndicate. Although June Taylor avoided newspaper publicity, several other sources alluded that Taylor held a high position in the Syndicate. In addition to Robert Shuler, who claimed that June Taylor ran Marco’s old establishments, another reformer, Rheba Crawford, wrote the City Council in 1935 of a “personal investigation” she had conducted which .had revealed that Albert Marco had relocated to Mexico but continued to operate houses of prostitution in Los Angeles. According to Crawford, Marco owned the brothels, and “bis sweetheart June Taylor” managed, them.3 3 (Taylor’s relationship with. Marco may well have continued. The Los Angeles Examiner reported the following month that Los Angeles police had spotted Marco “in his former haunts ... with, his sweetheart, June Taylor.”3 4 The paper also noted that police had begun investigating a report that, Marco had taken, up residence in Ensenada but continued to operate vice resorts in Los Angeles “by - '3 Rheba Crawford to Chief of Police, James E. Davis, 12 August 1935, Council Fife 2737 (1935), LACA. 3 4 Los Angeles Examiner, 7 September .1935, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 248 remote control.””) Crawford’s letter to the City Council also conveyed her belief that Taylor managed Marco’s brothels with the aid. of four additional women, who acted as supervisors over different groups of addresses. According to Crawford, these women—“Miss Joyce Roberts,” “Miss Maxine,” “Miss Webber.” and “Miss McKay”—each supervised four to five different addresses. Crawford listed. 960 South Broadway as one of the addresses “Miss McKay” was allegedly supervising, and two years later the address reappears in the notes of CIVIC with the name “Mrs, McCay” beside it M The best evidence of June Taylor’s position within the Syndicate comes from, the testimony of Ann Forrester, arrested in . 1940 for running a house of prostitution. In her testimony, Forrester portrayed herself as a “maid” working in Syndicate- operated houses of prostitution from 1934 to 1940. Her duties, however, included, paying the bills (including the rent) of several, addresses, arranging rendezvous between clients and employees, answering phones, delivering money to Syndicate members and police officers—all indicative that Forrester functioned in a supervisory role rather than simply as a maid. Although Forrester admitted that she worked, for McAfee arid the Syndicate, she also connected June Taylor to the Syndicate. Fo.rrest.er, for example, said that she had known June Taylor since .1934 when she had first begun working for toe Syndicate at a small .hotel on Wilshire Boulevard. When asked by her lawyer wlat Taylor’s connection with the address s I,m Angeks Emmimr, 7 September 1935. 3 6 Handwritten notes os the back of a letter from Mayor Shaw to a Mrs. U. S. George, dated 12 July 1937 til Box 1, folder 1-2, Miller Collection, CS'UN. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 249 was, Forrester replied that Taylor “was overseeing the place.”” Forrester also testified that she had, on numerous occasions, delivered .money collected, from the brothels to Mae Taylor, and that she had seen June Taylor, in . turn, give the money to police officers and agents of the .District Attorney’s office;5 ® Forrester claimed to have seen Taylor often in. the company of McAfee, and asserted that Taylor had 'taken over the collection of money from the brothels when McAfee began, to relocate some o f his business operations to Las Vegas around 1.937,3 9 Although, subpoenaed to testify as a witness in Forrester’s case, June Taylor did not show up for the trial.4 0 Women such as June Taylor and Lee Francis were rare within the Syndicate. More common were women such as Arm Forrester who occupied a kind of middle management position. In charge of a handful of the Syndicate’s brothels, women such, as Forrester paid the bills associated with brothels, collected the brothels’ income, turned this income over to higher-ups at the Syndicate, and managed the sexual contracts of the girls sent over by the Syndicate from its headquarters at Hotel. Olive, located at 750 Olive Street in downtown Los Angeles.4 1 Forrester testified that the Syndicate employed a number of women such as herself who functioned in similar capacities. Forrester, for example, claimed that she was only one of three women (Mary Ricks and Doe Lloyd were the other two) who worked in . eight-hour 3 7 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1695. 3 8 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1896. 3 9 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1739. Forrester gave Taylor’s address in Los Angeles as 5000 La Canada Road. 4 0 I m Angeles Examiner, 12 July 1940. 4 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1703. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 250 shifts at a particular location, on behalf of the Syndicate.4 2 In addition, Forrester named Edna Valentine and Rose McGonigal as other women working for the Syndicate at a managerial level4 3 Reformers, including Rheba Crawford and Lowell Pond, also believed that the Syndicate employed a number of women working as supervisors. Pond, for example, even claimed that one such woman, employed another fifteen women, who acted as scouts, going to the “various high schools of the city and county to contact young girls to induce them to enter houses of prostitution.”4 4 Rose McGonigal, cited by Forrester in 1940 as a co-worker in the Syndicate, also ended up facing arrest on prostitution charges, and newspaper coverage of the arrest and trial further helps to elucidate the duties of women who worked, for the Syndicate at a middling level According to the initial newspaper stories covering the arrest (which took, place in. 1.941), McGonigal was a co-owner of the Stockyards Hotel—which “operated openly5 ' ’ as a brothel “for many years” and later continued “in business successfully albeit on. a ‘sneak basis’”4 5 —with August© Sasso. Newspapers described McGonigal as the “proprietress” of the hotel, and the women, who worked at the Stockyards Hotel described McGonigal as carrying out duties similar to Forrester. One young woman who bad worked at the hotel for four years beginning in 1937, for example, claimed that McGonigal had assigned her a room at the hotel, collected and divided her earnings, and then, turned over the money to 4 2 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1753,1770. 4 3 Reporter’s Transcript. California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1725,1757. 4 4 “Memo to Mr. Woolard,” Lowell Pond envelope, Hearst Collection, USC Regional History Center. 4 5 Los Angeks Examiner, 27 August 1941. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 251 Sasso who was a frequent visitor to the .hotel* Although McGonigal may have been in. charge of the hotel, she also appears to have colluded with, other people whose job it was to find employees for the hotel Police asserted Blanche Kazatski was one of these people who worked in conjunction with Joe Di Marzo to supply prostitutes to the Stockyards Hotel. Newspapers reported that Kazatski “worked under the orders of August© (Chito) Sasso and Mrs. Rose (Miumie) McGonigle.’*7 One of the girls who had worked at the Stockyards Hotel—fifteen*year»old Bonnie Lee Johnson— -claimed to have worked for Kazatski for six days. At the end of the six days, the girl stated, Kazatski. introduced her to Di Marzo who “volunteered to put her to work as a prostitute” until she found other employment. Apparently she agreed, because she then began working at the Stockyards Hotel through DI Marzo’s connection.4 ® Given the increasing number of women who participated in the world of prostitution (in Los Angeles and elsewhere) on a temporary and independent basts, why also is there evidence of a large number of women, participating in . the business of prostitution on a more fixed and dependent manner, such as those working for the Syndicate'? The biggest benefit the Syndicate yielded its employees appears to have been financial Women working for the Syndicate seem to have made a great deal, of money. Ann. Forrester, for example, testified, that June Taylor owned a house in * Los Angeles Examiner, 1 .1 March 1.942. 4 7 Los Angeles Examiner, 30 August 1941. 4 8 Lm Angeles Examiner, 3 September 1941, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 252 Beverly Hills before moving to another address at 5000 La Canada load.4 9 In her autobiography, Lee Francis boasts regularly about how profitable her business was, but she does not mention how much money she averaged. By the time she retired, however, she had saved about $43,000 to sink into her nightclub ventured0 Although Ann. Forrester tried to downplay how much money she made working for the Syndicate ($35*40 weekly), she admitted to owning a house and ten acres of land in Chattsworth, an exclusive area of Los Angeles near the Pacific Ocean which the prosecuting attorney implied was worth $3G,000.5 1 McGonigal also made enough money working for the Syndicate to own a house by Lake Arrowhead, a popular resort area less than two hundred, miles east of Los Angeles.5 2 Even the women, who worked as prostitutes for the Syndicate appear to have made a great deal of money. Francis claimed that her average girls made at least $200 a night.5 3 Women who worked for the Syndicate under Ann. Forrester testified that even, after Forrester had taken the Syndicate’s cut of their earnings (50%), they averaged between $! 8-32/day.5 4 A woman working at the Stockyard’s Hotel under Rose McGonigal, claimed to make $20 a day once the Syndicate’s cut (50%) and room and board expenses (10%) were subtracted.5 5 These wages, when compared to what other prostitutes were making, seem exceptional. One prostitute who did not 4 9 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1739. 5 0 Francis, Ladies on Call, 1 .91. 5 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1824, 1807,1892. 5 2 Los Angeks Examiner, 1 1 .December 1933. 5 3 Francis, .Ladies cm (Ml, 176. 5 4 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 20. 5 5 Los Angeles Examiner, 1 1 March 1942. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 253 work for the Syndicate, for example, said that she made one dollar for every trick (or sexual act performed), and that she saw seven or eight clients a day. Out of her $7-8 daily earnings, she still had to pay half to the woman managing the rooms at the hotel/brothel where she worked.5 6 One woman who later worked for the Syndicate testified that one of her pimps/male associates expressed enthusiasm at her prospect of employment with the Syndicate because of the enhanced financial opportunity it represented: “He said that [Forrester’s establishment] was a good place for me, and if 1 got in with her [Forrester] I could go a long ways; 1 would get into real money.5 5 ” Of course, there were drawbacks in working for the Syndicate as well, particularly for women working at the middle management level. After 1938, the new city administration under the leadership o f Fletcher Bowron began to vigorously crack down on vice in the city. Although the Syndicate continued to exert influence within Los Angeles, its power was compromised by the movement of its leaders to Las Vegas and the resulting diversion of attention. Thus leaders high up in the Syndicate remained protected from persecution, but other business associates became vulnerable. In the cases of Ann Forrester, Rose McGonigal, and Lee Faucis, for example, all three found themselves serving jail time because of their affiliation with prostitution through the Syndicate while men, higher up in the 5 6 Reporter's Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 360,383. This woman had worked in San Bernardino and Piamo Beach, but I doubt prostitutes in Los Angeles made much mote than that. The girls working at a massage partor in, 1931 allegedly charged $3 for a , trick. California v. Barbara and Harriet Brooks, Case Numbers 21849 and 21836, March 31,1931 in “California Municipal Court (Los Angeles) Records, 1915-1931 or Collection 228, Box 1 in UCLA Special Collections. 3 7 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 657. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 254 organization and young women lower down in the hierarchy managed to avoid arrest and incarceration. Prostitution and the Syndicate in 193% Los Angeles: Trends in Location The Syndicate showed a propensity to situate its prostitution, enterprises in locations both intended to sendee a large, diverse clientele as well as to allow evasion of unsympathetic authoriti.es. Of the many lists of addresses which reformers or concerned citizens sent to the Los Angeles City Council, few lists delineate which addresses functioned under the j urisdiction of the Syndicate. Rheba Crawford’s tetter to the City Council in 1936, which listed nineteen addresses that were allegedly under Syndicate control, is an exception. (Reformers and other citizen’s lists of addresses of houses of prostitution sent to the City Council contain many of the same addresses that are in Crawford’s letter. The addresses, however, are not identified particularly as Syndicate operated addresses.) An examination of the locations of the addresses listed in Crawford’s communication with the City Council reveals that they are all in the downtown areas of Los Angeles, situated on the fringe of the city’s central business district and adjacent to the adjoining communities of Chinatown, Little Tokyo, and Central. Avenue (see map ?).5 ® The brothels thus bad access both to middle class men eommnting to the city for work as well as working class men of a variety of ethnic and racial backgrounds who lived in close conjunction to the brothels. In her letter, Crawford even notes that “Miss 5 8 Rheba Crawford to the Chief of Police, Council File 273? (1935), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Map 7 Syndicate Addresses in Relation to Soooratown, Chinatown, tittle Tokyo, and Central Avenne Neighborhoods S ource: Modification of m ap found at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/inapadiistoricaf/los js«gef«i^cmtral„i917.jpg R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 256 McKay,” who Crawford names as one of the Syndicate’s “supervisors” working under June Taylor, was “Colored.”® Further evidence of the diversity of the areas in which the brothels were located comes from, the police investigations of such addresses. Responding to the charges o f Crawford arid others, police tended to claim that, upon examination, the addresses had yielded no evidence of prostitution.. Instead at 2043 1/2 E 7* Street (see map 7) -one of the alleged Syndicate brothels, officers had found that the address had been vacant for the past six months until a Japanese family had moved into the building. At 803 Hemlock Street, (see map 7), an. address feat Miss McKay allegedly supervised, police likewise discovered that this address had been vacant for six mouths until a “colored family moved, into the place.”6 0 While the veracity of such reports regarding the tack of prostitution, found is severely tainted by the ignominious reputations of the investigating officers, fee statements regarding the ethnicity/race of the inhabitants appears to be in keeping with neighborhoods in. which the addresses were located.6 1 While several of the Syndicate’s brothels may have catered to clients of color, many o f them also appear to have been of a more restricted nature. Ann Forrester, for example, indicated at her trial that the brothels with which she was affiliated drew a predominately white clientele, and one of the girls working as a 5 9 Rheba Crawford to the Chief of Police, Council File 2737 (1935), LAC A .. 6 0 Report o f Lieutenant S .. Sweetnam (investigator) to Captain M. Thornburg, 19 February 1936, Council File 307 (1.936), LACA. 6 1 On the corrupt reputation of the entire vice squad under Chief Davis and Mayor Shaw, see Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 193. Atm Forrester testified as well that Officer McMullen, whose name appears on several of the police reports in the City Council files, was one of the vice squad officers to whom she personally delivered “protection” money. Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 2053. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 257 prostitute under Forrester's supervision claimed the Syndicate did not even hire “colored people5 ' ’ as maids/2 Because the practice of hiring black women as maids at houses of brothels was a common practice as early as the nineteenth century and continued well into the twentieth century (Lee Francis employed African American maids in her Bollywood brothels), the exclusion of black women as maids at some of the Syndicate’s brothels signals that at least a portion of the Syndicate’s operations were meant to be all-white establishments. As changes occurred in the city’s administration, the Syndicate was forced to change the locations of several of its brothels and adapt new business practices. When reformers succeeded in .replacing Shaw with Fletcher Bowron after a recall, campaign in. 1938, Bowron subsequently announced his first priority as mayor was to close down the operations of McAfee.6 3 To some degree, the Syndicate must have taken this threat seriously because Ann Forrester testified that Bowron’s election resulted in dramatic alterations in the way she handled the prostitution, business for the Syndicate. Forrester told the court, for example, that until 1.938 the Syndicate controlled thirty-one hotels in the city. She herself was involved with seven of them. The May Hotel, 444 South Spring Street, served as the base of her operations, but she also admitted to working at seven other downtown, hotels including the Darlington, Roma, Claremont, and Champa Hotels—ail of which, incidentally, appeared as suspected houses of prostitution in reformers’ communications with the 6 2 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1607. 6 3 Los Angeles Examiner, 18 September 1938. See also Matt Weinstock’s account of Bowron’s effect on, the Syndicate in Weisstock, My L A,, 58. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. ,258 City Council as early as 1936 (see map 8)6 4 According to Forrester, the hotels remained open, for only three months after the election ofBowroti as the city’s mayor. The Syndicate then, began to use apartment houses in place of the hotels (see map 8 for various locations). Forrester claimed, that she remained at the May Hotel in order to arrange clients’ rendezvous with the Syndicate’s prostitutes at the various apartment houses via teleplione,® Until J938, clients could simply walk into the May Hotel without calling ahead—one citizen who wrote to the City Council complaining about the vice conditions in the city actually enclosed a business card for the Hotel May which advertised its location along with the slogan, “We Never Close.” The citizen claimed to he “acquainted with two fine youths” who were handed the cards by “girls on. the street who are sent out on certain days to bring trade into the house.”6 6 In addition to moving prostitutes from hotels to apartment houses, the Syndicate also increasingly relocated its illicit business operations from city to county territory before eventually moving out of California altogether. In 1931, for example, the Los Angeles Examiner reported that police had raided 326 1/2 South Spring Street—the upstairs portion of a building located in downtown Los Angeles—rumored to be the office of Syndicate leader Guy McAfee,® Police made 6 4 Reporter’s Transcript California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1706,1707. The addresses of the hotels are, in order, 619 1/2 W 6th S t, 510 U2 Main St., 3.14 S Hill St., and 133 1/2 E 9* St, For the appearances of these addresses in communications to the City Council, see Council Files 2737 (1935), 3599 {1,936), 307 (1936), LACA, These addresses can also fee found in CIVIC investigations. See Box 1, Folders 1-2 and 1-43 in the Miller Cel,lection, CStM w Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1735. m “A Citizen” to the City Council, Council File 307 (1936), LACA. 6 1 Lm Angeks Examiner, 31 October 193 L R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. m Syndicate Addresses in the 1920s sSa Hotels Where Svndicate Prostitutes Worked in the 1930s m Apartment Houses where Syndicate Prostitutes Worked m ® $ 3 3 Dante Hotel £9 jnrTgSgfg 326 1/2 S Spnng d i 444 S Spring 750 S Olive tm m m CENTRAL BUSINESS DISTRICT w £ < m OOPC a Map 8 Syndicate “Vice Establishments* in . Proximity to Downtown Los Angeles in the 1930s, According to Ann Forrester Source: Modification of map found at http://wvwdib,utexas.6dWmaps/Wstericaiyiosj8ngelcsi , eentraM9I7.jpg R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 260 no arrests at this address,, and . 1 have not found further evidence to support this rumor. It appears that McAfee’s more permanent base of operations for the!930s lay at another nearby location. At least one reformer, along with Ann Forrester, claimed that McAfee’s downtown central office could be found at the Olive Hotel, 750 South Olive Street.® The reformer believed McAfee resided, at the hotel, occupying “Apartment G.”6 9 Forrester, however, indicated the hotel served a broader purpose. According to her testimony, the Syndicate hired all of its prostitutes at this location before assigning them to different supervisors.7 0 In addition, the Olive Hotel also served as the location where June Taylor would pick up the money yielded by the different brothels.7 1 This shift in operations from Marco’s base in the 1920s at the Dante Hotel (also Pearl Morton’s headquarters a the turn of the twentieth century, located at 327 New High Street), to 326 1/2 South Spring Street in 1931, and then to 750 Olive Street by 1936 loosely follows the shift occurring in Los Angeles’ business district. According to Robert Fogelson, the center of Los Angeles’ downtown area moved steadily south and west. While in 1895 the intersection of Spring and Third streets functioned as the center of Los Angeles’ downtown, by 1920 the city’s center was at Sixth and Hill,7 ' 2 By 1933, one writer located the city’s main financial, shopping, and theater districts as falling into the * * Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery m i Forrester, 1703. 6 9 Edward Molles to the City Council, 6 September 1932, Council, File 4208 (1932), LACA, 7 0 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1706. 7 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1713. n Fogelson, Fragmented Metropolis, 148, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2 6 ! eight blocks bounded by Hill and Main Streets on the east and west Second and Ninth streets on the north and south (see map 8).7 3 The headquarters of the Syndicate remained in. close proximity. The propinquity of not only the Syndicate’s headquarters but also a number its hotels (including the notorious May Hotel at 444 South Spring Steel) to the city’s central business district is interesting in . that Los Angeles’ sexual geography differs slightly from, the geographical pattern of prostitution established by Neil Shumsky and Lanry Springer for San. Francisco. In. their study of San Francisco, Shumsky and Springer noted that as laws (including the Redlight Abatement Law of 1.913) were passed ending the toleration of the city’s red-light district, prostitutes were forced to relocate. As in . Los Angeles, prostitutes in San Francisco also scattered throughout the city. Shumsky and Springer, however, go on to note that in addition to this more general, finding, they also discovered two patterns of re~settl.em.ent. Prostitutes in San Francisco either moved back to an expanded zone of prostitution roughly situated in the old red light district of the city or they tended to be “pushed in front of the expanding Cfentral] Bfusiness] District] and formed a new zone of prostitution along [its] forward edge.”7 4 In Los Angeles, prostitutes also scattered throughout the city after the closing of the red-light district, but they did not necessarily tend, to re establish themselves in the old red-light district Rather, the movement of prostitution in Los Angeles appears to have been bound more intimately and 7 3 Mayo, I m Angeles, 234, 7 4 Neil Laity Shumsky and Larry M. Springer, “San Francisco’s Zone o f Prostitution, 1.880-1934,” Journal qf Historical Geography 1 (1981): 85-6. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 262 integrally both to the shifting of the Central Business District and to the expansion of the city itself, The Syndicate’s operations, for example.* were concentrated almost within the Central Business District but they also stretched throughout the expanding residential areas of the city as well.7 3 In addition to their downtown locations, the Syndicate also had a presence in Hollywood The Syndicate’s gambling enterprises, for example, included a few well-known addresses in Hollywood, and thus they also maintained offices closer to Hollywood in a bowling alley on Sunset Boulevard, Although Forrester testified that she had delivered money to McAfee at this address, there appeared no further connection to the prostitution business. Instead, the money Forrester took over to Hollywood was used to make change for the gambling establishments.7 6 In 1938, the headquarters of the Syndicate’s prosti tution business shifted. Although there may have already been Syndicate-controlled brothels located in county territory, the base of operations had continued to be the Olive Hotel. After Bowron’s election as mayor, however, even the headquarters moved into county territory. The new location of the Syndicate’s prostitution headquarters, according to Forrester, was the Stockyards Hotel (ran by Rose McGonigle) at 3327 East 45t h Street.7 7 When the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office arrested McGonigle and August© Sasso the following year, investigators noted that the Stockyards Hotel was 7 5 Chapter 6 will discuss further the movement of prostitution into some of the city's residential areas, w Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1713,1901. 1 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1757; Forrester told the court that the Hotel was located in county territory on 45* Street. The newspapers gave the exact address, Los Angeles Examiner, 12 My 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 263 a well-known “citadel, of vice.” Furthermore, investigators voiced the opinion that success of the hotel relied on an elaborate system of payoffs to certain city and county officials.” The Syndicate leader, Guy McAfee, went so far as to leave town entirely tiler Bowron’s election, moving to Las Vegas.w McAfee apparently left June Taylor and August© Sasso in Los Angeles. Taylor continued to collect money from supervisors such as Forrester who now arranged sexual encounters for Syndicate prostitutes working out of apartment houses. Sasso collected money from the Syndicate's county operations, and ended up getting arrested in 1941 at his apartment in . downtown Los Angeles at 611 Bunker Hill for Ms involvement in the Stockyards Hotel* The Reformers’ Battle Against Prostitution in 1930s Los Angeles Against assertions by a handful of individuals that Los Angeles contained comparatively little vice, a growing body o f citizens maintained that vice had contaminated the entire city because of its relati.ons.liip to the city administration. Charges of corruption in the city administration issued from, reformers periodically throughout the 1930s, and calls for reform resulted in an. outcry of Los Angeles residents for the eradication of vice from the city. Hie Los Angeles City Council received a number of communications from both individuals and reform groups who sent lists of addresses where vice—gambling and prostitution—could be found. In 7 8 Los Angeles Examiner, 27 August 1941; Los Angeks Examiner, 30 August 1941, 7 9 Los Angeks Examiner, 1 June 1939; Repeater’s Transcript. California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1738, 1870. m Los Angeks Examiner, 19 March 1942. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 264 addition to these fetters to the City Council, groups like CIVIC, which headed a successful recall campaign of Mayor Shaw in. 1938, also conducted their own investigations of vice conditions in the city. They also, with the assistance of letters (often anonymous) from citizens who acted as volunteer informants, detailing locations of brothels along with other vice resorts. While it is possible that some of the information included in . such, letters may not always be correct, taken together the letters— either to the City Council or to CIVlO-contain certain continuities that provide some indication that prostitution in the city had continued to spread, into residential neighborhoods (particularly non-white neighborhoods) even, as prostitution .remained prominent in. Los Angeles' downtown area in the 1930s. Furthermore, there is evidence that prostitutes con.tin.ued to utilize sophisticated business practices, turning to the use of phones and business cards for aid in attracting clients and arranging sexual rendezvous. Streetwalking continued in Los Angeles in the 1930s, and the temerity of such prostitutes coupled, with the brazen, fashion in. which some of the brothels operated stirred the disgust of many citizens with what they viewed as an inappropriate amount of law enforcement in the city. Citizens repeatedly express frustration with inadequate policing and what they view as false ignorance on the part of the city administration, regarding the amount of vice in. the city. In many eases, citizens report that prostitutes have told them about paying for police protection, and thus the “solution” to the “problem” of prostitution proposed by these citizens differs vastly from previous reformers who sought moral uplift or social welfare programs for prostitutes. Reformers in the 1930s appear R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 265 simply to believe that prostitution can be eradicated, from their neighborhoods by removing corrupt people from, the city administration. What the .leaders o f reform lacked, however, was a concern for the plight of the prostitute herself or the conditions that made prostitution so profitable for so many people. Consequently, the victory reformers believed they had gained over vice with the replacement of Mayor Shaw with Mayor Bowron (and the resulting sweeping personnel changes within the city administration) proved to be short-lived. By 1936, what had become almost routine complaints of vice conditions in the city prompted the Los Angeles City Council to launch its own investigation, into charges of graft and vice protection. In its endeavor to study vice conditions in the city, the City Council encouraged Los Angeles citizens and reform organizations to send letters cataloguing where they believed vice-— particularly gambling and prostitution—was taking place in the city.8 1 In response, several citizens and organizations sent letters detailing places of vice all over the city, hoping that the revelation would, result in. the revocation of vice protection. On more than, one occasion, letters from organizations (such as the Women’s Law Observance Association and the Citizen’s Betterment League) included lists o f addresses where prostitution or gambling supposedly was taking place. The addresses purported to be brothels appear on the lists of more than one reform organization, which indicates either that these were well-known brothels (as the reform organizations suggested) or that reform organizations simply were sharing their information with each other. n Los Angeks Timm115 January 1.936. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. The evidence suggests the former rather than the latter as many of these addresses also appeared in the testimony of Ann Forrester who verified that they were all well- known. locations of brothels. All seven of the hotels with which Forrester claimed an affiliation,, for example, appear in the lists reformers sent to the City Council in 1936. All of these hotels could be found in downtown. Los Angeles, but the lists include several other locations as well. Reformers asserted that a number of hotels functioning as brothels could be fount! in San Pedro, a community several miles south o f downtown Los Angeles with, a large Japanese population.*2 The addresses of Hollywood brothels included the Triangle Apartments at 4514 1/2 Hollywood. Boulevard, a “grey cottage” at Lillian Way and Santa Monica Boulevard, and the Green Hotel on Santa Monica Boulevard, just east of Wilton Avenue, to name a few.8 3 One citizen, complained of a brothel, located at 2010 1/2 South San Pedro Street, which catered to “almost all Japanese.5 ’ * 4 Residents in the predominantly black neighborhood of Central Aven ue also complained of prostitutes, as did the presumably white residents in West Hollywood and Sawtelle, an area many miles to the west of downtown Los Angeles.*3 Letters posted to the City Council, and CIVIC also indicate the prostitutes were adopting new business practices that would help them entice customers and. G Rlieba Crawford to the Chief of Police, Council File 2737 (1935), LACA; Women's Law Observance Association to City Council, 28 October 1935, Council File 3599 (1935), LACA. ® Notes of Reverend Miller, .00 date but probably around 1937, Box, 1, Folder 1.-37, Miller Collection, CSUN; Council Files 2737 (1935), 3599(193©), 307 (1936), LACA, 8 4 Anonymous tetter to CIVIC, 1 .2 July 1937, Box 1, Folder 1-29, Miller Collection, CSUN. 8 5 Telegram front an anonymous citizen. 24 September 1937, Box 1, Folder 1-30, Millar Collection, CSUN; “Memo to Mr. Woolard,” Lowell Pond envelope, H orst Coltec.ti.oa, USC Regional History Center, R, A. Bringham to James Davis, 9 June 1936, Council File 2045 (1936), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 267 manage sexual appointments. The telephone, for exam,pie, appears to have become standard in most brothels by the 1930s, In her autobiography. Lee Francis mentions occasionally spending her evening simply answering the phone in order to receive updates from various employees working at different locations throughout town.** Other brothels throughout the city also contained telephones. Telephone numbers accompany the addresses on two different lists of bouses of prostitution collected, by reformers. Once again, the telephone number that appears on, the .reformers’ list by Ann Forrester’s address is the same one she testified to having—MI 0587.*7 On one list, thirty-three out of forty-nine addresses had telephone number recorded.® On the other list, twenty-one out of twenty-six addresses also had telephone numbers beside them.*9 In addition to telephones, prostitutes also used business cards to attract customers to their place of operation. Prostitutes affiliated with the May Hotel ('Ann Forrester’s headquarters) used business cards, and they were joined, by others throughout the city. One person writing to the City Council, for example, enclosed a business card for the “Shellac Company” of 1826 1/2 East First Street, and claimed the cards were handed “to every man” by “two prostitutes soliciting” at noon near a warehouse. The letter went on to say that “employees said it was of frequent occurrence. I concur that it is about time some one should be called on the carpet.”9 4 ’ 8 6 Francis, Ladies on Call, 170. 8 7 “List of Protected Houses of Prostitution Operation in Los Angeles, January 15,1936," Council File 307 (1936), LACA; Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1.790. 8 8 “List of Protected Houses of Prostitution Operation in Los Angeles, January IS, 1936,” Council Fite 307 (19.16), LACA. ® list in Box 1, Folder 1-28, Miller Collection, CSUN. 9 0 Letter to City Council, 24 January 1936, Council File 307 (1,936), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 268 Another citizen wrote CIVIC of a brothel located at 1418 Pico Street, which also 'used business cards advertising their twenty-four schedule,9 ’ One letter sent to CIVIC suggests that at least some prostitutes were engaging in a variety of sexual practices in order to appeal to a . wider clientele. The letter declared that a protected “whore house” masquerading as a massage parlor was operating at 333 West Second Street in downtown Los Angeles. Describing the activities at the address, the letter’s author contended (I have left the punctuation and capitalization in its original form): “The girls used to carry rubbers in their apron pockets and in places even cops can’t see they have whips for discipline treatments The girls wash all the linen, and. if a good smell is taken-it doesn’t smell like they were used for massages—besides Kleenex is used for jerking off male patients.”9 2 More vexing to the authors of such letters as well as reformers was what they viewed as the flagrant character of prostitution, in the city. One letter addressed to the City Council, by the People’s Lobby of California stated, for example: “We are somewhat vague as to WHY, certain law enfocment [sic] agencies of this city, do not rid it of the terrible vice situation exsisting [sic] through out the entire city. Gambling Clubs, Houses of prostitution., Slot Machines, Punch Boards, and Marble Machines are running wide open all over the city,”® 5 The number of prostitutes working in West Hollywood also appears to have been common knowledge. One 9 1 “One who knows” to Dr. Wendell t , Miller, 20 July 1937, Box 1, Folder 1-30, Miller Collection, CSUN. * Unsigned letter to Reverend Miller (punctuation as in the original), 23 M y 1937, Box 1, Folder 1- 30, M iU© r Collection, CSUN. 9 3 People’s Lobby of California to City Council, c. June 1936, Council Fite 2039 (1936), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 269 source, lor example, claimed “It is a common thing for the [West Hollywood] district to be referred to by non-residents as the section of Los Angeles inhabited by whores awl gamblers,”9 4 Reformers and other citizens connected the police department’s failure to crack down on what reformers viewed as notorious addresses and areas of prostitution to corruption in the department as well as in the overarching city administration. One citizen, for example, who claimed to have investigated a handful of infamous addresses, reported that he had told women there that he was going to report them, to police. The women uniformly responded “that no one could close her place that she paid protection and the police were her friends.”9 5 A West Hollywood reformer said that “he and his fellow crusaders had reported houses of prostitution to both the district attorney’s and the sheriffs office but... could only get action against these houses after the lapse of two or three months [sic] time; then the operators merely moved to another location, in the neighborhood and again resumed their... business unmolested by the vice squad of other public officials.”* CIVIC, of course, tied police protection of prostitution, into a larger system of corruption present in the city administration, and they eventually succeeded in launching a recall campaign, of Mayor Shaw. At the behest of the City Council, police officers from, the LAPD’s vice squad submitted reports of their investigations of the addresses of prostitution, and 9 4 “Memo to M r, Woolard,” Lowe.!! Pond envelope, Hesrst Collection, USC Regional History Center. 9 5 One who knows,” Miller Collection, CSUN. 9 6 Memo~“Dorothy McKay Story,” Lowell Pond envelope, I-fearst Collection, USC Regional, History Center, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 270 gambling sent in by reformers and other citizens. With a few exceptions, police officers claimed they could find no evidence of prostitution. The officers clamed that they either tried to operate unsuccessfully (that is, to give marked money to prostitutes in exchange for the offer of a sexual act) or that the places were dark and/or locked.9 7 In the few instances that police made arrests, they tended to arrest streetwalkers rather than, women working out of the addresses under scrutiny. Sgt McMullen’s February 7, 1936 report, for example, contains the arrests of Ruby Sullivan at Sixth and Lucas Streets and Mrs. Grace Allen at Seventh and, Westlake.” According to McMullen’s report for February 8, 1936, he arrested three more streetwalkers, this time in the northern, portion of downtown Los Angeles. At the intersection of Beverly and Vermont, McMullen arrested Stella Williams and Pauline Jones, and at the intersection, of Temple and Grand, he arrested. Corinio Fortunate.® It requires more of a leap of faith than I can. muster to believe itt the truthfulness of such reports since police reported that the May Hotel, which Ann Forrester admitted had been a notorious house of prostitution since at least 1934, had been “searched; no girls” or there was “no evidence of prostitution” or functioned as a “Hotel for men. only; no women registered there” or a “Rooming house.”1 0 0 Forrester, of course, also named McMullen as one of the officers on the vice sq uad to whom she had 9 1 See the various reports from McMullen and Selby, Council File 307 {1936). LACA. ® * Council, file 307 (1936), LACA. Although, these attests took place west of Los Angeles’ Central Business District, they were in the approximately the same neighborhood where Augusto Sasso had an establishment in the 1920s. 9 9 Council File 307 (1936), LACA. m See the various reports in Council File 307 (1936), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 271 personally delivered protection money. He left the Los Angeles Police Department when Fletcher Bowron became mayor in 1938.™ Streetwalkers may have attracted attention from police, but reformers do not seem particularly concerned with this manifestation of prostitution, even though streetwaiking represented the least clandestine form of prostitution, The streetwalkers working downtown Los Angeles4 Main Street,, for example, lacked, so much discretion that they came to the attention of nationally syndicated Look Magazine which proclaimed in 1936 that “Petty, Squalid Vice has flourished so many years in frowsy clip joints along Main street that cleaning it out will be a long task. Floaters find the 5-cent, all-night movie houses... cheaper than flophouses. Streetwalkers use them as places of assignation.”1 0 2 Although streetwalkers in genera! did not usually hold the public’s attention, there were enough of them arrested in West Hollywood in 1933 to make a brief appearance in local. newspapers.1 '0 In addition, one citizen complained that streetwalkers were so common in the Central Avenue community that they had become a public nuisance, preventing “men or wives and children” from passing them in . peace on the streets.1 0 4 Although reform organization such, as CIVIC were aware of such streetwalkers, none o f the reports sent to the City Council make any mention of streetwalkers, possibly because the addresses of brothels provided better evidence of police protection. 1 0 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 2053; Woods, Police in h w Angeles, 193. 1 0 2 “Los Angeles. .. ‘America’s Wickedest City,”’ Miller Collection, CSUN. m Los Angeks Times, 21 May 1933 1 6 4 Anonymous telegram, 24 September 1937, Box 1, folder 1-30, Miller Collection, CSUN. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 272 The reformers of the 1930s expressed little concern for the plight of prostitutes themselves or the social problems leading to prostitution.. Instead, reformers saw prostitution in their city as evidence of a corrupt city administration which, if purified, would result in a city more or less free of prostitution and other attendant vices. This view is evident with regard to West Hollywood reformer Lowell Pond, who was described as something other than “a crusader” who didn’t care where racketeers, prostitutes, and gamblers “landfed] just so his own neighborhood can be made a little cleaner.”3 '0 3 The Citizens’ Betterment League stated their concern about prostitution plainly in. one letter to the City Council, claiming they were “attempting to arouse Public Opinion over the tie-up between the Underworld and Law Enforcement Agencies” and that they were seeking aid in “the extermination of this ever-growing vice menace in our city .”1 0 6 The motives of the leader of CIVIC, Clifford Clinton, were also questioned. A writer for the American Mercury mused that all of Clinton’s work simply stemmed, from, his desire for public office, preferably an office at the state level or higher.1 ” Whatever the motives of Los Angeles reformers in the 1930s, the evidence is clear that in. connecting the existence of vice in the city only to a corrupt city administration, reformers failed to see prostitution in . the context of larger social phenomena and therefore failed in their quest to free the city from vice by removing corrupt city officials from office. A successful recall campaign spearheaded by 1 0 5 ‘'Memo to Mr. Woolard,” JLoweli Pond envelope, Beam Collection, USC Regional History Center. 1 0 6 Citizens’ Betterment League to City Council, 7 October .1936, Council, File 3498 (1936) LACA. 1 9 7 Rena M. Vale, “”A New Boss Takes Los Angeles,” The American Mercury (March 1941): 307, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 273 Clifford Clinton and the reform organization, CI VIC, in 1938 resulted in a new mayor of Los Angeles, Fletcher Bowron, Upon election, Bowron instituted a number of changes, most significant for reformers was the resignation of twenty-six police officers. Bowron, however, also ousted over a hundred commissioners as well as the entire police board, in effort to eradicate corruption in the city ’s law enforcement agencies. These kinds of sweeping personnel changes helped bring about a shift in underworld operations as Guy McAfee, the leader of the Syndicate, moved to Las Vegas to pursue and concentrate on his gambling interests.1 0 9 McAfee’s departure, however, did not end vice in Los Angeles. In her autobiography, newspaper reporter Florabel Muir noted that Bowron’s purge “didn't stop gambling and bookmaking [and one could add, prostitution] in Los Angeles. It only eliminated the leaders.”1 1 0 Instead, other criminals contended with each other for McAfee’s position within the criminal underworld, of Los Angeles. One of these individuals included Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel who, according to Florabel Muir, “moved in and occupied the boss spot.” after the departure of McAfee and others.1 1 1 There is also a great deal of evidence to suggest that the old vice syndicate continued to operate in Los Angeles. As chapter seven discusses in more detail, the trial of Ann Forrester revealed, that the Syndicate continued to operate at least until 1940, adapting different business ,0® Richardson, Life o f Me, 227; Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 191 -3, 1 0 9 W olf and Mader, Fallen Angels, 153; Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 193; Sitton, “Urban Politics,” 223; Los Angeks Examiner, 1 June 1939, 1 1 0 Florabel Muir, Headline Happy, {New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1950), 167. u: Muir, Headline Happy, 167. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 274 practices in order to evade the reformed Los Angeles Police Department, Also, as the conclusion of the dissertation shows, even, with the purging of corrupt officers in the Los Angeles Police Department, prostitution continued to receive protection and remained entrenched in the city landscape well into the 1940s and possibly beyond R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 275 Chapter € Expanding the Interzones: Prostitution, Mace, a id Ethnicity in 1930s Los Angeles Introduction This chapter on prostitution in Los Angeles’ interzones during the 1930s has two main objectives. As in chapter three, my earlier discussion of prostitution in Los Angeles’ interzones during the 1920s, one objective for this chapter is an expansion of Kevin Mumford’s argument regarding the creation and perpetuation o f mterzones. Mumford’s discussion of the creation of interzones in Chicago and New York has two main weaknesses. First, Mumford does not acknowledge the role played by residents of minority neighborhoods in the creation of iirterzon.es. In the Central Avenue community (Los Angeles’ most well-known black neighborhood), the construction of an environment in which prostitution flourished cannot be contributed solely to (racist) reformers or city officials who did not care about the incidence of prostitution in . non-white neighborhoods. Disregarding evidence of the participation of members of the city’s ethnic/racial communities in the promulgation of prostitution in their neighborhoods has the effect of ignoring the complexity of the processes contributing to the production, of the interracial counterculture that Mumford sees as being so instrumental in the shaping of modem sexual mores. The second main weakness of Mumford’s discussion of the interzones of Chicago and New York is his portrayal of the interzones in black/white terms. The shortcoming of viewing the inter/ones as black/wliite is clearly seen, in the mteraones R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 276 of Los Angeles. Although not to the same extent as Los Angeles' African American community, other ethnic groups,, including Asian and Mexican Americans, also formed the sexoalized interracial counterculture that defined the boundaries of modem sexual mores. Just as white/black sexual liaisons remained outside the boundaries of what was sexually acceptable in the 1930s, so did other kinds of interracial sexual liaisons. By focusing only on the social opprobrium for black/white sexual exchanges, Mumford gives the impression that sexual exchanges between whites and members of other ethnic communities were not a sexual taboo in the way that black/white sex was. I disagree. The decades comprising the 1920s and 1930s were a racially conservative period which saw the rebirth of the KKK and. the privileging of whiteness over color. Thus, it is important to include other non-white communities in a discussion of the construction of a sexual counter-culture which, would paradoxically reinforce and erode sexual mores that imposed racial constrictions on the sexual expressiveness associated with modem sexuality. In addition to expanding on Kevin Mumford* s argument regarding the formation of interzones, this second objective of this chapter consists of examining the relationship between prostitution in Los Angeles’ interzones and the continuing evolution of the mores associated with modem sexuality during the Great Depression. In this respect, this chapter contains an additional portion of an, argument made in the previous chapter, namely that because attention was diverted away from, the concern with the growing sexual autonomy of women, the sphere of what was considered sexually permissible continued to expand. The tension between R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 27? Victorian and modem standards for sexuality lessened as reformers mid other more traditionally-minded citizens began to recognize the sexual agency o f women and the increasing sexual expressiveness embedded in American culture. No longer was prostitution an. activity women were lured into; now it was a profession that some women chose. While prostitution remained outside the boundaries of socially acceptable sexual behavior, it no longer represented the unthinkable taboo. Yet while the line between sexual practices like treating and occasional prostitution became even more blurry during the Great Depression, interracial sex continued to represent a clearly transgressive form of sexuality. Indicative of this change is the decline in the general use of the phrase “white slavery” to denote young women participating in prostitution to be replaced by its more particular use to denote young women participating in prostitution of an interracial nature. Although interracial sex between white prostitutes and customers of color was not a new phenomenon in the 1930s, the condemnation of such action became severe in this decade. Newspaper stories and court transcripts reveal a great reluctance on the part of the white prostitutes involved with non-white customers either to admit they had sexual contact with men of color or to claim the sexual contact was of their own accord or agency. Instead, newspapers dubbed such prostitutes victims of white slavery . The invocation of “white slavery” in cases of interracial prostitution in a decade when newspapers had otherwise drastically cut down on the use of the phrase suggests that while newspapers (which reflect their society’s mores) had gradually accepted that prostitutes engaging in in.tra-rac.ial sex R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 278 exercised a certain amount of agency in their career decision, they were still not ready to view interracial sex in the same terms. Interracial sex was somehow still more transgressive than prostitution. Prostitution in Central Avenue The Central Avenue community that had developed in the 1920s continued to grow during the Depression. Black-owned businesses proliferated, and the jazz scene at the various clubs contributed to a thriving community. According to one study, by 1940 the Central Avenue neighborhood had its northern boundary at the juncture of Sunset and North Broadway; an irregular western boundary running mainly along Figueroa Street but also including Maple Avenue and Los Angeles Street at several points; its southern boundary at Slauson Avenue; and the majority of its eastern boundary running along Alameda Street but also extending as far east as Boyle Avenue. The study concluded that the Central Avenue community served as “the hub of Negro activities and living” and functioned as the source from which African American settlement spread to the neighborhoods of Temple Street, Boyle Heights, Holmes Avenue, West Jefferson, and Watts.1 Even as the community continued to grow, however, so also did prostitution within the neighborhood. 1 Dorothy Slade Williams, “Ecology of Negro Communities in Los Angeles County; 1940-1959,” (Ph.D. diss. University of Southern California, 1961), 72, These boundaries are generous and encompass other African American neighborhoods identified by J . Max Bond and James Ervin as the Temple Street community and Area 5 respectively. Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 128; Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 13. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 279 As in other communities across Los Angeles, citizens and reformers linked prostitution in the Central Avenue neighborhood with a corrupt city administration and crooked cops working in league with criminals involved in prostitution and gambling within the neighborhood. I n . 1930, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that over fifty affidavits divulging vice and graft conditions in the district were to be placed before a grand jury as part of “the District Attorney’s investigation into asserted alliances between police officers and the underworld.”2 After the murder o f Charles Crawford a year later. Mayor Porter became the subject of intense criticism for Ms alleged laxity in vice enforcement throughout 'the city, including the Central Avenue area. The Examiner noted that Hugh Macbeth, a black Sawyer, had reproached the city administration and the police department for its law enforcement practices, claiming they were “ ‘getting the little fellows and letting the big ones go,5 in the negro district.”3 In 1933, the black community of Central Avenue helped elect George Shaw as the city’s mayor, and both contemporaries and historians alike have speculated that part of Shaw’s support in the Central Avenue district could be traced to the manipulations of powerful vice operators. Thomas Sitton, however, has claimed that black support of Shaw can be traced to various favors Shaw rendered for the community, such as appointments of African Americans to city commissions and other city departments, more city parks in black neighborhoods, and financial and political backing of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored 2 Los Angeks Times, II March 1930. 3 Los Angeles Examiner, 26 June 1931. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 280 People in . its 1937 anti-lynching campaign.4 Other historians, such as Gerald Woods, have indicated a less innocent explanation of Mack support of Shaw, noting that “rumors of vote buying” in the Central Avenue district “accompanied every election,M S In addition, in his 1936 dissertation, Max Bond lamented the state of “Negro leadership,” saying it “had become infamous for its shortsightedness and its greed. The ease with which the Negro vote can be manipulated has been demonstrated, repeatedly.”f i The African American community may have cast the majority of its votes for Shaw in the 1933 election, but it is unclear what Shaw promised the community in regard to the eradication of vice in the Central Avenue neighborhood. Response to the problem of prostitution in the Central. Avenue area on the part of city officials appears to be erratic. For his dissertation. Bond conducted a 1934 interview with, a Central Avenue resident who told him: ‘“Prostitution is one big problem, that the families in this neighborhood face. However, that problem seems about solved. Recently, law enforcement agencies have been called into the community.’”7 The Times reported in 1935 that “{suppression of vice conditions in the Central-avenue district is more effective than at any time in the last two years.”8 According to the article, Eleanor Mareky, a Los Angeles reformer ltom the Eagle Rock district who had. “represented a num ber of petitioners recently protesting against conditions in. the 4 Sitton, “Urban Politics,” 79, 5 Woods, Police in Los Angeles, 177. 4 Bond, “•'Negro in Los Angeles.” 277. 7 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 146. * Lm Angeks Timas, 6 May 1935. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 28 J [Central Avenue] district,.. informed the [police] commission that after an investigation she felt that the police department should be commended.”9 Not incidentally, the numbers of black women, arrested on prostitution charges reacted their peak' for the decade in the fiscal years 1933-1934 and 1934-1935 (see table 13).w Despite periods of vice enforcement, reformers continued to believe that city officials were complicit in prostitution’s existence in the Central Avenue neighborhood. Reformers who wrote to the city council complaining of prostitution throughout the city also included addresses of brothels in existence in the Central Avenue community. One letter, for example, identified five brothels operated by a black female “supervisor” under the auspices of the Sy ndicate. In her 1935 communication to the Los Angeles City Council, Rheba Crawford noted that of the houses of prostitution run by Albert Marco, one house had a “supervisor”—Miss McKay—who was “colored.”1 1 According to Crawford, Miss McKay supervised four addresses: 805 East First Street, 227 East Seventh Street, 803 Hemlock Street, and. 960 South Broadway Street.1 2 Letters to the City Council during its 1936 investigation of vice conditions in the city mention several of Miss McKay’s purported establishments. A M four of Miss McKay’s locations, for example, appeared on a list sent to the City Council containing several addresses of “protected 9 Los Angeks Times, 6 May 1935, 1 0 LAPD, Annual Report> fiscal year 1933-4, LAPD, Annual Report, fiscal year 1934-5. 1 1 Rheba Crawford to Chief of Police, lames E. Davis, 12 August 1935, Council File 2737 0935), LACA, u Rheba Crawford to Chief of Police, lames E, Davis, 12 August 1935, Council File 2737 (1935), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Reproduced w ith permission o f th e copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 13 Number and Percentage of Women Arrested for “Offering” in the 1930s, by Race and Ethnicity* 1930-1 1931-2 1932-3 1933-4 1934-5 1935-6 1936-7 1937-8 1938** 1939 1940 M % 1 % M % N % N % M % M % M % M % M % N % Total 1006 100 163? 100 2019 100 2240 100 1916 100 768 M0 835 100 1481 100 900 100 1340 g 1300 im White 628 62 1001 61 1258 62 1170 52 866 45 568 74 572 69 891 60 488 54 751 56 m m Black 260 26 531 32 648 32 981 44 889 46 77 10 197 24 530 36 361 40 480 36 383 29 Red 116 12 103 6 110 5 84 4 159 8 122 16 64 8 59 4 51 6 109 8 87 7 Yellow 2 0 0 0 2 0 4 0 2 0 i 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Brawn 0 0 2 0 S 0 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 I 0 Soiffce: Los Angeles Police Department, Annual Report, fiscal yea's 19304931 through 1937-1938 mid calendar years 1939-1940. Mote; The Los Angeles Police Department devised the “ethnic categories’5 o f White, B lack Red, Yellow, anti Brown. The color “red” desigaated Native Araerkaas, Mexicans, aid Mexican Americans; the co te “yellow” designated Asian sad Asian Americans (primarily people of Chines© and Japanese descent); and the color brown designated people of Filipino descent. *No changes occurred in the city ordinances in the 1930s, Women arrested for offering were arrested violating Section! of City Ori&mtwe No. 49354, approved by the City Council is 1924. h The figures listed in das column are for only six months (Juty-Decetriber) in 1938. The Los Angeles Police Department eoaveried from fiscal years to calendar yeas beginning in 1939. ta OB t-o 283 houses of prostitution in . operation in Los Angeles,” The list designated 805 East- First Street as the “Alma Thomas Rooms,” 227 East Seventh Street as the “Mabel Green Rooms,” 803 Hemlock Street as “Mrs, C, 1 Walker [Rooms?];5 and 961) South Broadway Street as the “Lyle Hotel.” (see map 9).1 3 In response, Sergeant McMullen as well as Officers Selby and Rawson visited the First, Seventh, and Broadway locations on numerous occasions, but as in the case of the other syndicate controlled operations, they claimed to find no evidence of prostitution at the locations. The police officers reported finding “no girls” or that the places were locked.1 4 Although police officers overwhelmingly reported finding nothing at the addresses reformers sent in to the City Council as houses o f prostitution, investigations of Miss McKay’s operations at the Hemlock Street address resulted in a handful of arrests. Lieutenant Sweetnam, who worked for the Newton Street division of the Los Angeles Police Department which covered the Central Avenue district, headed the series of investigations of the address. As with many of the police officers working in . vice during the 1920s and 1930s, Sweetnam was also corrupt. One historian has gone so far as to label Sweetnam “the reputed boss of Central Avenue vice.”1 5 Sweetnam’s reports on vice conditions at various addresses thus contain a great deal of questionable data, particularly with regard to lack of prostitution found. Like other reports of vice officers, for example, Sweetnam found h A. M. W. to City Council, 24 January 1936, Council. File 307 (1,936), LACA. 1 4 See the numerous reports submitted to Captain Thornburg during the month, of February 1936 in Council File 307 (1936), LACA. 1 5 Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 193, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 284 m^pm m m Indicates Addresses Associated I with Brothels 1 m Indicates Areas Connected with Streetwalkers 602 S San Pedro 3 960 S Broadway f f l 814 1/2 S Central 800 1/2 E 12th 1412 Griffith 803 Hemlock E I 1.316 1/2 E Olympic SaSSB K aE 20101/2 5 San Pedro E Washington mi m Central 2828 S San Ped» 2519 S Cental 2830 S Central 300 J S Cental r e l 3208 1/2 S Central 1 1 mmm C S fiiO Central § o Map 9 Prostitution in the Central Avenue Community, 1930s Source: Modification of map found at iittp://ww’ wJib.«texas.edu/fitaps/liistorical/los_aBgeIes_ceitral_19l?,jpg R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 285 few cases of prostitution. At the Hemlock Street address, however,, police claimed to have arrested two women for prostitution., in addition, police repeatedly asserted that the address functioned as a “rooming house.’' The wording of the report implied that the arrests did not necessarily mean that the address was completely disreputable. Sweetnam’s report, for example, maintained that although there had been “a number of arrests made from time to time for the past two or three years'” at the address, it had been “occupied by negroes as a rooming house” for the last six months.1 ® A year later reformers again listed 803 Hemlock as a house of prostitution in their communications with the city, and once again police made an. arrest. In the report, Lieutenant Sweetnam said that Ms officers had arrested Ralph Stafford and Miss Bebe Madison on charges of resorting and offering.1 7 Yet neither community protests about the nature of the address nor S weetnam’s own. arrests appeared to convince him that 803 Hemlock warranted a more sullied designation than “rooming house.” Dated three days after Sweetnam’s arrests at the location, the report claimed that although officers had made “a number o f arrests” for prostitution in the past, the black, rooming house now functioning at the address was free from, prostitution.1 8 While Sweetnam may have intentionally misrepresented the address as a respectable rooming house, it was not uncommon for prostitutes (of varying ethnicities/faces) to work out of rooming houses where both prostitutes and non- prostitutes lived. Ann Forrester described how she was responsible not only for * * Lieutenant Sweetnam to Captain Thornburg, 29 June 1936, Council File 1882 (1936), LACA. 1 ' See both the letter of the Citizens Betterment League to the City Council, 1 October .1936 anti Sweetaam’s report to Captain Thombetg, 19 October 1936; Council File 3498 (1936), LACA. * * Officer Sweetnam to Captain Thomberg, 22 October 1936, Council .File 3295 (3936), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 286 collecting money from prostitutes but also from the boarders who lived in 444 South Spring Street Black prostitutes in New York commonly worked out of apartment houses where “'respectable” fatuities lived as well as early as the 1920s.w In addition to the Syndicate-controlled houses run by Miss McKay, reformers found evidence of a several other locations in the Central Avenue community where prostitution allegedly took place. A story in Official Detective Stories, detailing the work that private investigator Hairy Raymond had done for the CIVIC—which had led to the attempt on his life in February of 1938—included several paragraphs about how a presumably African, American woman had opened a brothel in, the Central Avenue district. According to the story, Madame Bessie, “currently enjoying a lucrative business in a shuttered mansion, off Central, Avenue/’ had obtained the signatures of five “businessmen” in her neighborhood on a document that stated that she wanted to operate a hotel. This document was then left at the police station, for verification. A few days later, police made the verification and Madame Bessie “gathered her girls and started in business.” Raymond revealed that the “verification” in Madame Bessie’s case consisted of a payoff of $250. The article further revealed that Clifford Clinton, CIVlC’s most prominent member, had followed up on, Raymond’s information to find that “while the girls would discuss their own lives quite frankly, they became tight-lipped and sullen when he [Clinton] inquired about how much and to whom they paid protection. They candidly admitted they were never raided.” According to the article, Raymond’s Investigation 1 9 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1824; Clement, “Trick or Treat,” 337. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 287 o f vice conditions in Central Avenue (whose “50,000 Negroes . . . had long been a gold mine to politicians”) divulged the addresses of approximately one hundred brothels, some of which were located in “fashionable apartment buildings/5 ® Kevin Mumford has placed a great deal of blame on (Progressive) reformers for their apparent lack of concent regarding vice in the African American communities in Chicago and New York, but the lists of addresses reformers sent to city council members in Los Angeles contain numerous addresses where vice (including gambling and bookmaking in addition to prostitution) was suspected of taking place in the Central Avenue community. In addition, reformers in Los Angeles generally did not make a point of identifying suspicious addresses in. terms of ethnic or racial make-up—which may reveal a generic concern with, vice rather than a concern for only white prostitutes or the white community. On the other hand, it is also possible that reformers were aware of the interracial nature of prostitution in Central Avenue, and that efforts to halt prostitution, in that area was indeed an. attempt to protect the white community and re-imeri.be race consciousness through the sexual separation of black prostitutes and white clients. In any case, some of the addresses reformers brought to the attention o f lieutenant Sweetnam in the Centra! Avenue district in 1936 consisted of: 602 South San Pedro Street, 2043 1/2 East Seventh Street, 2301 Olympic Boulevard, 2010 1/2 S San Pedro Street, 2828 South 2 0 Verne St. Cloud, “Bombing the Lid Off Los Angeles!” Official Detective Stories, 6 (25 Mav 1938), Box 1, Folder 1-14, Miller Collection, CSUN. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 2S8 San Pedro Street, 6910 S Central Avenue, 800 1/2 Blast Twelfth Street, as well as several others (see map 9)T In most cases, Sweetnam acknowledged prostitution arrests in the past but asserted that the addresses had been free o f prostitution for weeks and now operated as rooming houses tor African, American (and in one case Japanese) families.7 2 A year later, CIVIC also looked into vice conditions in the city and also produced lists o f addresses said to be locations o f prostitution. Of the establishments located on Central Avenue itself, a concentration of addresses occurred between Twenty- Second and Thirty-Second Streets, corresponding roughly with the areas o f Central Avenue where citizens had also complained of streetwalkers (see map 9).2 3 Reformers noted that one address also functioned as a cafe while three other addresses had prostitutes operating out of the second story which indicates that prostitution was not segregated from other kinds of activities. Aside from the Central Avenue establishments, several others could be found within, a few blocks of the district’s center at Twelfth and Central Avenue. Furthermore, reformers indicated an awareness of another potential problem associated with the prostitution trade, noting that they suspected two addresses of selling not only sex but also “dope,”2 4 2 1 Lieutenant Sweetnam to Captain Thornburg, 19 February 1936, Council File 307 (1936), LACA. 2 2 Lieutenant Sweetnam to Captain Thornburg, 19 February 1936, Council File 307 (1936), LACA. The Japanese residence was listed as 2045 1/2 E 7th St 2i See Box I, Folders 1-2 and 1-28, Miller Collection, CSUN. 2 4 Notes on the back of a letter from Mayor Frank Shaw to Mrs. U. S. George, 12 July 1937, Miller Collection, CSUN. The two residences CIVIC associated with drug activity were 814 1/2 S Central Avenue and 800 1/2 E 12th Street. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 289 Historians of prostitution, have noted that drug use within the profession of prostitution was not uncommon as early as the nineteenth century, so it should come as no surprise to find reformers uncovering evidence of prostitutes’ continued rise of narcotics in the twentieth century. One CIVIC report, including the testimony of a Federal Narcotics Agent who said that “most prostitutes are ‘hop heads’—take dope,” indicates that reformers were aware of the wider connections between prostitution and drug use.2 5 So far in, my research, however, the CIVIC reformers’ suspicion of drug use in connection with prostitution at two locations within the African Am.eri.can district provides the first instance of this phenomenon for the city as a whole. In addition, I suspect that the addresses that the CIVIC (as well as other) reformers provided as evidence of the city’s failure to enforce anti-vice laws represented the most obvious or best-known locations in the city , or the tip of the iceberg. I doubt, for example, the reformers had to do much undercover work to ascertain where prostitutes worked. If my suspicions are correct, then, the prostitutes must have been using narcotics in relatively large quantities for it to come to the attention of the reformers. That prostitution-related drug-use at the two addresses was conspicuous enough to come to the attention of reformers indicates some of the desperation certain members of the community must have felt facing the economic hardships imposed by the Depression, but intensified by .racial discrimination. In addition, both the reformers’ addresses and citizens’ complaints paint a picture of a culture of 2 5 CIVIC Report. #5 from Clearing House Committee “Anti-Vice Strategy” (no date), Box 1, Folder l- 9, Miller Collection, CSUN. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 290 prostitution entrenched in the larger culture of the community itself, certainly to the detriment of the larger African American, community working to fend off sexual stereotypes and prejudice in general. Racially-restrictive housing covenants only intensified problems in the Central Avenue community, forcing a concentration of African Americans in an increasingly overcrowded neighborhood. Prostitutes not only worked out of brothels in , the Central Avenue community but also took to the streets in large numbers during this decade. In 1,932, the presence of so many streetwalkers in the Central Avenue neighborhood piqued local businessmen to ask the City Council for help in eradicating what had become an, “unbearable situation.”2 6 The letter called the City Council’s attention “to a grievous situation as affects especially the Central Avenue Districts and such highways, namely, Washington Blvd., beginning at Long Beach Avenue westward to San Pedro Street. . . . Sixteenth Street beginning at Long Beach to San Pedro Griffith Avenue beginning at Pico Blvd., southward to Jefferson Blvd., and Central Ave,, beginning at Ninth, street southwest to Slauson A.ve.”2 7 The letter’s authors insisted that the prostitutes working these streets solicited customers “openly and without restraint” to the point that the property owners found that their “properties are seriously impaired and being vacated by the better element of people and by those who usually pay their rents.”2 ® University of Southern California sociology student Max Bond also concluded that prostitution, in the Central Avenue community most * * William H. Gamble, Edward T. Banks, and Walter L. Gordon -Central Ave District Property Owners, to the City Council, 1932, Council File 4694 (1932), LACA. 2 7 Central Ave District Property Owners to City Council, Council File 4694 (1.932), LACA. 2 1 Central Ave .District Property Owners to City Council, Council File 4694 (1932), LACA R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 291 often took the form of sfreetwalJdng, In addition to several mothers who complained of “women walking the streets constantly/' Bond disclosed the observations of two probation, officers who affirmed that “open prostitution is the bane of this district,’® The two officers told Bond this story as an illustration: ‘A girl from one of the best families of Los Angeles says she was standing on the comer one night waiting for a street car, when another woman approached her and muttered: “You yellow-—, what are von doing on. my comer?” The girl replied that she was wailing for a street car, but the woman did. not believe Iter. “Well, move on. anyway,” she tfi.reate.tied, displaying an open, knife, “I pay six dollars every week for this comer and I . ain’t letting no yellow — ■ * cut in on me.” ,3 P During its 193? investigation of vice conditions in , the city, CIVIC also received complaints about rampant prostitution in the Central Avenue area. One anonymous telegram reported the following conditions (original spelling and punctuation preserved): Please report to your investigating Committee that between 32nd and 33rd and from Washington to 28th St on Central Ave, The street women is so vulgar and calling and whistling at men. This district here, don't seem to get any protecting at all, men or wives and. children. Can't pass on the streets to church and school. The vice squad kept them off the street for a long time but they are back again. Now the judge should give them from 90 days 6 nao.s & 1 year in jail and this would stop them. Make all of the hustlers & pimps that don't work get out of town, Help us keep the vice down on Central Ave please.3 1 Statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Annual. Reports provide evidence that some African American women did work as streetwalkers during the 1930s. Notably at the height of the Great Depression, for example, African 2 9 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 264-5. 3 0 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 264-5. 3 1 Telegram frcua an anonymous dt«e» to CIVIC, 24 September 1937, Miller Collection, CSUN. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 292 American women constituted more than fifty percent of the total arrests for vagrancy—a charge police commonly applied to streetwalkers (see table 14). Because of reformers’ concentration on the connection between corrupt politics and the prevalence of prostitution, they express little concern for the prostitutes themselves. Max Bond, however, linked the rise of prostitution in the Central Avenue district directly to the Depression, noting that economic hard times had caused the number of homeless, single young women, to rise. Bond insinuated that such destitute women, avoided institutional aid, and that when churches could not provide adequate ftn.an.cial assistance, these women turned to prostitution.3 2 Like James Ervin who, in his master’s thesis of 1931, disclosed the interracial nature of prostitution, in Los Angeles’ African American community, Bond also connected the problem of prostitution in the Central Avenue and adjacent Holmes community to both Anglo and African. Americans. According to Bond, African" American prostitutes targeted, white men, believing them, to have a more “lucrative income.”3 3 Bond’s observation regarding the mingling of black: prostitutes and white customers reinforces Ervin’s claim that African American prostitutes would, “stand on the street comers, or walk the streets rather promiscuously, awaiting the flirtation of some white man who frequents the Negro neighborhood for immoral purposes.”3 4 The interracial nature of prostitution in Los Angeles’ main. African American community was not a unique Los Angeles scenario. Gunnar Myrdal, in his 1944 3 2 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 242. 1 1 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 26S. 1 ,4 Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 59. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Reproduced w ith permission o f th e copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table 14 Number and Percentage of Women Arrester for “Vagrancy” in the 1930s, By Race and Ethnicity* __________________ 1930-1 1931-2 1932-3 1933-4 1934-5 1935-6 1936-7 1937-8 1938b 1939 1940 N % N % N % N % N % N % N % M % fi % N % N % Total 528 100 575 100 876 100 568 100 240 100 300 1 0 0 339 1 0 0 220 100 88 100 132 1 0 0 132 100 Witte 350 66 337 59 358 41 287 51 98 41 116 39 136 40 83 38 4S 55 99 75 m 61 Black 137 26 200 35 489 56 267 47 130 54 164 55 187 55 123 56 40 45 28 2 1 53 40 Red 38 7 37 6 28 3 14 2 1 1 5 19 6 16 5 14 6 0 0 5 4 3 2 Yellow 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 § 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Brown 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Source: Los Angeles Police Departeient, Annual Report, fiscal years 1930-1931 through 1937-1938 and calendar years 1939-1940. Mote: The Los Angeles Police Department devised the “ethnic categories” of White, Black, Red Yellow, aad Brown, The color "red” designated Native Americans, Mexicans, and Mexican Americans; the color ‘V e& ow * designated Asian and Asian Americans (primarily people of Chinese and Japanese descent); and the color brown designated people of Filipino descent. ““Vagrancy” designates “Vagrancy Lewd” and “Vagrancy Dissolute.” B The figures listed ia this column are for only six months (My-Deeember) in 1938. The Los Angeles Police Department converted from fiscal yeas to calendar years beginning in 1939. to • € > to 294 study of African Americans—largely based on information on black communities in the South, Midwest, and East, also concluded, that “the vice seen in the Negro community is there, not for Negroes, but for whites... Elaborate and expensive brothels cater to whites .,. and are largely owned by whites.”3 5 According to John D’Emilio and Estelle Freeman, the rising incidence of African Americans working as prostitutes in cities such as Chicago and New York during the 1930s depended on the presence of a white clientele base. D’Emilio and freeman comment that the black streetwalker serviced white customers who had “ ‘come from the ranks of white laborers or office workers who drove through the black district or roamed central city neighborhoods filled with seedy hotels, in search of quick sexual release.”5 * For a description, of white clients in Los Angeles5 African. American neighborhoods, Bond quoted a law enforcement agent who stated that “ ‘the Negro women deal strictly with the white trash that comes into the district looking for that sort of tiling. ”’ 3 7 In his master's thesis of 1931, Ervin bemoaned the influx of disreputable white men into the Central community, declaring that the “cheap Negro prostitutes, because of their corruption, ignorance, and poverty bring the white men of low character into the Negro community and thus defame the temper and decency of the self-respecting community life.”3 8 3 3 Gunnar Myrdal, An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modem Democracy (1942; reprint, New York; Harper & low , Publishers, 1962), 332. * D’Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Matters, 297. ” Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,’5 265. 3 * Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 76. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 295 Bond suggested, that not only did white men patronize black prostitutes, they also cooperated with members of the African American, community to manage and profit from the work of black prostitutes. Although historians have generally classified streetwalkers as working more or less independently, Bond indicates that African American streetwalkers took orders from ‘their ‘bosses.”’ 3 9 While Bond fails to identify the ethnicity of these bosses in this passage, he clearly assigns culpability to an interracial partnership later in Ms dissertation, arguing that “the white politicians, co-operating with their Negro henchmen, are the leaders in this terrible traffic [of prostitution].”4 8 Such black bosses may have included men like Baron Lawson, allegedly involved in prostitution and gambling in the Central Avenue community from the 1920s through the 1930s.4 1 In, 1937 Lawson, worked as an investigator for CIVIC; but in 1941 he was arrested in an. investigation of vice pay offs, charged with handling protection for vice in Central Avenue.4 2 Bond also includes the statement of a police officer who lamented Ms inability to do anything about prostitution in the Central Avenue community because “ ‘it’s sanctioned by city politicians.’”4 3 In Bond’s opinion, the city’s white leadership also had a hand in squelching African American efforts at ridding their neighborhoods of rampant prostitution. Citing the numerous instances when African American businessmen had. brought the matter of prostitution to the attention of “the high officials of the 3 9 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 265. 4 0 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 267. 4 ! Sitton, “Urban Politics,” 170. 4 2 Vale, “New Boss,” 306. 4 1 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 265.. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 296 city” with no resulting action, Bond concluded that prostitution was especially hard to combat because it had protection “by those in authority,”4 4 Again, Bond is unclear as to who he means when be refers to ‘those in authority” since he also places fault in the hands of unnamed “Negro politicians,” maintaining that the “flagrant prostitution in the Negro community is a typical example of the failure of the Negro politician to concern himself with the welfare of the group which he represents,”4 * Gunnar Myrdal believed that a “Negro ‘underworld’” existed in most American cities, and that this “underworld.” consisted of hierarchy dominated by “big shots” who organized and controlled crime, vice, and racketeering, These “big shots,” Myrdal continued, often found “a great deal of status in the eyes of lower class Negroes and are not greatly condemned, . . by the Negro press.” In addition, many retired “big shots” wound up acquiring “a sort of second-hand and late respectability,”4 * Outside of the Central Avenue district at least a couple of African American prostitutes worked in the high-class brothels of Lee Francis, the infamous Hollywood madam. In her autobiography, Francis commented on what to her appeared to be a curious taste on the part of her patrons for women, of color. Eager to oblige all tastes and preferences, however, Francis employed Irene. Reminiscing about the popularity' of Irene, Francis describes her as “my best thigh yaU er* ... a beautiful, 4 4 Bond, “Negro in Los Angeles,” 266, 283. 4 5 Bond, “Negro in. Los Angeles,” 277. 4 6 Myrdal, American Dilemma, 330-1. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 297 statuesque, golden-brown Negress, with a truly lovely body,”4 7 According to Francis, Irene proved an apt rival to the white girls working for her, with earnings that matched and often excelled those of Francis’ “best girls,” Irene, notes Francis, “never had an idle moment.”4 8 In another passage in the autobiography, Francis also mentions Nora—“my top colored girl and more popular with all 'personalities than most o f my other girls.5 ’ 4 9 Prostitution in the Mexican American a id Japanese American Communities The African American community of the Central Avenue district: was not the only minority group to participate in vice-related activities. Arrest statistics from the Los Angeles Police Department, for example, show that women denoted as Mexican or Mexican. Americans were attributed with an average of 6.5% of the total, arrests for offering during the decade of the 1930s (see table 13 for a year by year analysis). During the height of the Depression, however, in 1935 arrests of Mexican and Mexican-American women, surpassed those of African-American women™for the first and last time—by 5%. In general, however, arrests of Mexican and Mexican- American women tended to be low, especially when contrasted with the number of arrests for black women (see both tables 12 and 13).5 0 Already in 19.24, the Los Angeles Police Department had comm.ent.ed that the number of arrests of Mexican American women for prostitution, was “small.” In . addition, although Los Angeles 4 7 Francis, Ladies on Call, 108. 4 8 Francis, Ladies on Cail, 109, ® Francis, Ladies on Cail, 155. 5 9 LAPD, Annual Iteport, fiscal year 1.929-1930 through 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 298 did. offer single women housing alternatives to the single family home in . metropolitan areas south and west of the Plaza,, the Plaza itself with its concentration of unmarried men, was “strictly off-limits to most, women living alone,”5 * While these communities did. offer unmarried Mexican 'women greater sexual freedom, marriage “continued to be part of the expected practice for both. Mexican women and men,”5 2 Although Mexicans and Mexican American women do not show up in disproportionate numbers as adults in Los Angeles Police Department statistics, their juvenile counterparts did attract undue attention. According to Jams Appier, Mexican American juvenile girls accounted for 1 .7 per cent of the total number of juvenile arrests between 1926 and. 1940, a percentage estimated to be higher than the percentage of the Mexican. American population in the city.5 3 Appier explains this high percentage both in. terms of racist policing as well, as a tendency on. the part of the Mexican American community to trust Los Angeles’ criminal justice system to solve domestic problems.5 4 The Yakuza, the Japanese community’s equivalent to the Syndicate which controlled gambling and to a lesser extent prostitution in Little Tokyo, survived into the 1930s. A letter written to the city council by “a Philippine [sic] Protestant,” for example, identified the “Little Tokio [sic] Social Club” at 317 1/2 Jackson Street as 5 1 Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 137. 5 2 Sanchez, Becoming Mexican American, 138. 5 3 Appier, Policing Women, 125. 5 4 Appier, Policing Women, 126, 127. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 299 “the only Jap [sic] club in town where gamblings [sic] are conducted. It has the reputation in. running throughout the year around.”3 3 Their influence only began to wane with the election of Fletcher Bowron in, 1938 which drove their operations, including prostitution, further underground until the internment of World War II drove them out o f business completely,® Reformers also indicated some involvement of the Japanese community in , illicit activities. To the south of the city in San Pedro—a Japanese dominated fishing community, for example, reformers complained that a number of rooming houses and. hotels functioned as brothels.” In 1935, .Rheba Crawford alerted the City Council that the Ohio and Premier Rooms as well as the U. S., Alhambra, Lincoln, Bakersfield, and Belvedere Gardens Hotels, all in San Pedro, functioned as houses of prostitution,.5 ® Crawford neglects to mention the ethnicity of either the clients or prostitutes, but I would not be surprised if at least a few of the places serviced Japanese clients. In the other community of Japanese Americans found in Little Tokyo, gambling prevailed as the vice of choice, but one citizen sent a , letter to CIVIC reformers claiming that prostitutes working at 20,10 1/2 South San Pedro Street catered to men who were “almost all Japanese.”® Prostitution thus continued to be part of the communities of Little Tokyo as well as 5 5 Letter to City Council, circa 24 January 1,936, Council File 307 (1936),. LACA., 56 Dubro and Kaplan, “California’s Yakuza,” 41. 5 7 The most segregated example o f Los A ngeles’ Japanese population could be found in the Terminal Island commuaity—part of a larger area south o f the city called San Pedro—where Japanese inhabitants accounted for sixty percent of the population. In contrast, Japanese inhabitants accounted for only thirty-six percent o f the population in the most segregated section o f Little Tokyo, Model!. Racial Accommodation, 71. 5 8 Rheba Crawford to Chief o f Police, James E. Davis, 12 August 1935, Council. File 2737 (1935), LACA. 5 9 Letter to CIVIC, 12 M y 1937, Box !, Folder 1-29, Miller Collection, CSUN. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 300 San Pedro. The number of arrests o f Asian American women for prostitution, however, remained low throughout the 1930s, indicating that the prostitutes working in these Japanese communities were probably not predominately Asian. In the 1930s, police arrested a total of only fourteen “yellow” women for prostitution, for example, compared to over nine thousand arrests of white women.*" The Phenomenon of Interracial Sex in Los Angeles Although the Los Angeles Police Department recorded only a handful of arrests of Asian women for prostitution in the 1930s, these records do not necessarily .reveal, an. absence of prostitution in the Asian communities of Los Angeles, As in the African American community o f Central Avenue, there were probably some white prostitutes catering to an Asian clientele. In the first place, tine Asian communities were located in close proximity to Los Angeles’ largest African American community as well as the city’s Skid Row. A University of Southern California sociology student made a map of Japanese shops and dwellings in 1927 which indicated that some Japanese had homes as far south as San Pedro and 24th Street, and historian John Modell notes that Japanese and. African Americans often lived adjacent to one another,6 1 It would seem that this whole section of Los Angeles, located south of the Plaza and bordering the city’s Central Business District on. its eastern, boundary, formed a variation of what Kevin. Mumford has called an “mterzone”—a vice district with, inhabitants of varying ethnicities/races—“areas of “ LAFD, Anmed Report, fiscal year 1930-1 through 1940, * ’ Uono, “Geographical Aggregation,” Chart VII, 32; Moddi, Racial Accommodation, 59. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 301 cultural sexual, and social interchange. , , deeply marginalized. , , but also, in a sense, subcultumlly invigorated.8 5 6 2 Using Chicago and New York as the sites for Ms investigation, Mumfeaxf s analysis leads him to view interzones as areas of primarily bi-racial association between black and white inhabitants which, ignored by social reformers, became places where vice flourished. In Los Angeles, however, the Asian communities clustered together and overlapped the major African. American community , and. together these minority neighborhoods abutted the deteriorating section of the central business district which had become the skid row where white prostitutes serviced white clients. Letters to the Los Angeles City Council attest to the complexity of this section of the city located roughly east of the central business district. In addition to complaints of prostitution, Los Angeles residents also objected to the presence of gambling in the city. Both the letters complaining of gambling and police reports of the investigations conducted in the Asian-African American corridor east of the city give an indication, of not only the diversity but, in some cases, the overlap of vice participants. The letter of a “Philippine) Protestant,” for example, claimed that “two Phili.ppi.nos are killed and one wounded recently due to the outcome of gambling quarrels in Chinatown.8 8 6 * Police reports discussing the investigation of gambling at 795 E 9t h Street (in the vicinity of 9th and San Pedro) also noted the presence of Filipinos at what police claimed was a dub “frequented almost entirely by Filipinos 6 2 Mumford, Jnterzmm, 20. Letter to City Council, circa 24 January 1936, Council File 307 (1936), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 302 and Orientals.”6 4 In addition, police investigating 1311 Olympic Boulevard claimed to have arrested “one Chinaman. . . aid two Negroes.”0 Police also claimed to find addresses which catered to “Chinese and other Orientals.”* Both letters to the city council and police reports suggest that the Tokyo Club was unique for catering to a racially homogenous Japanese clientele.®7 One anonymous letter writer also tied the Chinese gambling operations to a larger organization—possibly the Syndicate, noting that the weekly pay-off from. Chinese gambling was just over $10,000 and that the collector was an ex-police chief named Rusty Williams.6 8 Locations cited by complaining citizens and investigating officers also show that expansion of the Asian vice element beyond the nucleus of both Chinatown and Little Tokyo. While a number of gambling operations continued to be located near the heart of these respective communities—there were several addresses said to be located in Chinatown on Marchessault and Ferguson Alley and the Tokyo Club continued to operate near the center of Little Tokyo— many other addresses were located, either in or adjacent to the Central Avenue community (see map 10).* Thus, Los Angeles’ interzone appears to be much more diverse than, what Mumford finds for Chicago and New York. Instead of a bifurcation between black and white, respectable and disreputable, Los Angeles’ interzone yields a picture of M Report o f S. Sweetnam to Captain. Thornburg, .19 February 1936, Council File 307 (1936). LACA... 6 5 Report o f S, Sweetnam to Captain Thornburg, 19 February 1936, Council File 307 (1936), LACA, m Report o f S. Sweetnam to Captain Thornburg, 19 February 1936, Council File 307 (1936), LACA. e > / Report o f W. B. Lincoln to Captain Thornburg, 13 February 1936, Council File 307 (1936), LACA; Letter to City Council, circa 24 January 1936. Council File 307 (1936), LACA.. m Anonymous letter to City Council, circa 24 January 1936, Council File 307 (1936), LACA, * “Pfallipmo Protestant" to City Council, circa 24 January 1936, Council File 307 (1936), LACA; Anonymous letter to City Council, circa 24 January 1936, Council File 307 (1936), LACA R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 303 K M m P P A Concentration of Suspected Gambling Addresses | \ * I l l r Gambling w / T d €1 Prostitution ' i Tokyo Chib m bn 409 N. Los Angeles s m S , CENTRAL AVE COMMUNITY W55BF3T a & t t 1 Bin 9 and SanPcd.ro 795 E r 7 and Alameda t 941 S Tcrw tic 1311 Olympic 2010 1/2 S San Pedro Map 16 Asian Vice Establishments in Los Angeles, 1930s Source: Modification of map found at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/liistoricaS/Jos_iiiigeks_eentral._19i7.jpi R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 304 interactions among people of many racial and ethnic backgrounds engaging in many kinds o f vice (and non-vice) activities. The interaction between men of all kinds of racial and ethnic backgrounds and white women in a sexualized setting, tor example, has been firmly established in studies of taxi-dan.ce halls. Although sociologists such as Paw! Cressey, writing in 1932, attempted to divorce the reputation of the taxi-dan.ee halls as the dens of prostitutes from a reality that recognized the sexualized nature of the work without labeling the female dancers prostitutes, the reputation persisted.7 9 For example, Johnson and Kinsie included a section on taxi-dance halls in. their study of prostitution, in the United States, published in 1933. They noted that the dance halls had the reputation as being “recruiting grounds for procurers” and concluded that the relation between dance halls and prostitution “is intimate though perhaps indirect.”7 1 James Ervin’s description of white taxi-dancers using black musicians as contacts for paid sexual, encounters provides one explanation for the persistence of the dance halls" low reputation. There is also evidence to suggest that the dance balls were recruiting grounds for some procurers. In 1940, for example, Bristol Barrett, a white man, testified that two men. of color, Charles Montgomery (who claimed to be of black and Portuguese lineage) and Tim Tullis (classified by newspapers as “Negro), paid him fifty dollars a week to work as a “ jocker” or a “field man.” Being a “jocker,” Barrett claimed, involved going to the dance halls on .Main Street and 79 Paul G. Cressey, T he Taxi-Dmce Hail: A Sociological Study in Commercialised Recreation and City Life (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1932), 264-5. 7 1 Johnson and Kinsie, “Prostitution in the United States,” 486. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 305 getting “acquainted” with girls, Barrett would then introduce the girls to Montgomery who would arrange for them to work in houses o f prostitution.T 3 ! While taxi-dance halls attained their bad reputation partly because of their association, with prostitution, dance halls also had earned such a disreputable label because of the contact between white women and men of color, Cressey, for example,, attributes the notion, that taxi-dance halls harbored, immorality and prostitution in part, to the fact that “taxi-dancers were required to dance with all- corners.”7 3 Dance halls traditionally denied entry to African American men, but they originally permitted Asian men.7 4 Reformer Bob Shuler lamented the existence of dance halls in Los Angeles precisely because white women danced with men of color. In 1925, he wrote that the police commissioner had found that hundreds of girls had. been hired in. the dance halls to dance with “with tans and yellows and blacks and other foreign peoples as well as with a class of white men whose moral character is perhaps lower than that of the Japanese, Chinese, Filipinos and others who resort to the forty-odd dance halls investigated.”7 3 Clyde Vedder, University of Southern California sociology student, maintained in his dissertation on dance halls that the interracial element of Los Angeles’ first taxi-dance hall—the Red Mill—was 7 2 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 125-6,235. n Cressey, Taxi-Dmce Hall, 262. 7 4 By 1947 i.n Los Angeles, not even Asian mm were tolerated. According to USC sociology student Clyde Vedder, the Los Angeles (and Detroit) dance halls no longer admitted “Filipinos or Orientals.” Vedder, Analysis of the Taxi-Dance Hall, 49. 7 5 Bob Shuler’ s Magazine 4 (Oct 19.25): 177, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 306 the basis for its closure by police on the request of church groups “who did not ‘want our blondes dancing with Filipinos and. Orientals.”’7 6 The existence and popularity of taxi-dance halls where white women mixed with men of color in a sexualized setting provides a necessary backdrop to the analysis of interracial sex occurring between white prostitutes and men of color in that it broadens Mumford’s concept of the “interzones” to include a multi-racial rather than simply a bi-racial perspective. I agree with Mumford that ‘the taxi-dance hall was not the center of vice— -nor were dance hall sex relations between Asian men and white women considered the most polluted,”7 7 but the incidence of white women interacting with non-white men within a sexualized setting points to the possible involvement of white prostitutes in not only the black but also the Asian communities (as well as in, portions where the 'two communities overlapped) and provides a further indication that (at least in Los Angeles) the Asian, neighborhoods comprised a significant portion, of the city’s interzone. Further complicating Mumford’s attempt to distinguish black and white relationships as those garnering the most severe social opprobrium are Los Angeles news stories covering incidents of sexual interaction between Asian men and white women, which depict women having sex. with Asian men in a similar light to those having sex with black men. Although an established practice, inteiiacial prostitution—which tended to take the form of white women servicing clients of color—had by the 1930s replaced prostitution, as the most traiisgresstve form of sexuality in which a white woman 7 5 Vedder, Analysis o f the Taxi-Dattce Hall, 48 ftt I. v M umford, Intenonm, 54. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 307 cow ,Id be engaged, Mumford advances a portion of this theory, claiming that while sexual mores had loosened during the 1920s, there was also a conservative re- inscription of sexual boundaries with black and white sex representing the ultimate sexual transgression. Changes in society’s perception of sexuality are evident in newspaper stori.es about prostitution. White slavery, for example, emerged at the turn of the century as the most powerful image of prostitution. At that time it functioned as a way to bring publicity to the Progressive efforts to rid cities of tolerated red light districts. At the same time, however, the image helped conserve the “reputation” of the prostitute who was portrayed as the traditional Victorian girl—sexually innocent and morally superior—and bad entered a life o f prostitution through no choice of her own but instead had been, forced or coerced into prostitution by evil sexual predators. Stories of “white slavery” thus appeared often in Los Angeles newspapers in conjunction with, the persistent ( Victorian) image of young women as sexually passive and lacking the autonomy to choose prostitution as even a temporary career. In 1923, for example, the Los Angeles Times reported that a young woman named June claimed that an acquaintance had tried to put her into the “clutches of white slavers” and that police “were incl ined to put much credence” in June’s story,7 * A year later, the Times informed readers of potential plot to abduct “young Mexican and Spanish girls in Southern, California and sell them into white slavery.”” In, 1927, the Times noted, that twenty-sk-year old Ruth Philips had been a victim o f white slavery, having been detained at a man’s house with “liquor and n Los Angeles Times, 13 August 1923. B Los,Angeles lim es, 12 August 1924. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 308 drags.”® 0 In 1929, the Times maintained feat police were investigating a “possible white slave ring following the report o f 22-year-old woman who says she believes a man tried to drag her when she answered his advertisement for a housekeeper.”* 1 By the 1.930s stories involving “white slavery,” however, had, become rare, indicating a changing perception of women less sexually innocent and passive than had been previously thought, Los Angeles reformers, for example, abandoned the term as they began to resent the influx of prostitutes coming out of the red light district and seeping into their own neighborhood. Blaming the city administration for corruption or lax law enforcement, reformers did not express any concern for the prostitute herself or her re-integration with the larger community. Instead, there is a sense o f prostitutes simply as annoying nuisances reformers wish, to expel from their neighborhoods. No longer are prostitutes “white slaves,” for example. Instead, they are referred to as “whores.”® 2 Another citizen writing to CIVIC in 1937 described the prostitutes he had encountered as “women who have sunk to the lowest depths of degragration [sic]. They are more blase [sic] than the women prostitutes of Paris.”8 3 This changing perception of prostitutes is evident elsewhere as well. One investigative reporter, Courtney Riley Cooper, who published at least three books on crime in the United States, claimed that people “with, wide experience in. prostitution w Los Angeles Times, 8 September 1927. 8 1 Lm Angeks Times, 17 July 1929. n “Memo to Mr. Woolard,” Lowell Pond envelope, Hearst Collection, USC Regional History Center. 8 3 One who knows;’ Miller Collection, CSUN, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 309 insist that there is .no such thing as a true white slave.”8 4 Cooper then relayed the “typical” process by which a young woman became a prostitute. The story involved an aspiring young woman named Jeanne who left her home town to try to break into the movies in Hollywood. Failing to obtain a film career, Jeanne worked a series of jobs which included w&itressin.g and taxi-dancing. She then met a pimp who, as Cooper recounted, “asked her, without apology or equivocation, why the hell she didn’t cut out this penny-ante stuff and go in for real dough and become a whore,” According to Cooper, Jeanne spent no time straggling with her conscience but almost immediately agreed to the proposition.*3 That newspapers in. the 1930s used the term “white slavery” sparingly also reflects a growing awareness of the sexual agency many prostitutes (as well as young women) possessed. In 1929, for example, the Los Angeles Times printed a number of stories involving cases of alleged white slavery, but the newspaper also carried a story with, the caption “Girl to Behave or Go to Jail” which, told of twenty-three year old stenographer who had pled, guilty to a “morals charge.” The young woman faced a fine or jail time if she did not “attend church, otherwise behave herself, and ‘revert to her child ways.’”8 6 Newspapers, of course, could not refer to prostitutes as “whores” but throughout the 1930s there is growing evidence that sexually active young women were perceived as something other than, passive victims of sexual predators. Although, the Times reported on. the arrest of dozens of women, for 8 4 Cooper, Designs in Scarlet, 66. His other books included Ten Thousand Public Enemies and Here '$ To Crime, 8 5 Cooeper, Designs in Scarlet, 70. 8 6 Los Angeles Times, 1 April 3929, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 310 “morals” charges, most of the stories did not claim that the girls were white slaves, In fact, the Times noted that on occasion a handful of women were arrested for contributing to the delinquency of some teenaged boys,®7 On. another occasion, four women were arrested for their participation in what the Times called a “midnight orgy.”8 ® When newspapers did use the term “white slavery” in the 1930s, they used it almost solely in conjunction with stories about white women having sex with, men of color. The application of the term principally to white women, engaged in interracial sex provides further evidence for the theory that sexual mores were being re- inscribed with interracial sex (not just prostitution) as the new, most transgressive form, of sex. Whereas it had been beyond the imagination of tum-of-the-century reformers to conceive of young women choosing to prostitute themselves, in the 1930s it was now beyond the imagination of society to conceive of young, white women choosing to have sex with, men of color. Claiming that such white women were victims of white slavery served primarily to banish interracial sex well beyond the fringes of mainstream, culture by claiming it was so transgressive and frankly, unthinkable, that any normal woman was incapable of choosing to engage in it. Young women caught having sex with men of color seem to have recognized the social opprobrium against interracial sex; and if they wished to appear less offensive to the public, they adopted society’s vision of them and claimed to be white slaves. Contrary to Mutnford’s theory, however, newspapers did not apply the “white slave” 8 7 Los Angeks Times, 4 February 193 1 . u Im Angeles Times,, 19 December 1932. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 311 label only to women who had sex with black men but also to white women who had sex. with “Orientals” (men of primarily Japanese descent) and Filipinos. On January 14 ,1933 both the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, for example, carried the story of Inapi Yionen, a “good looking 20-year-old blonde girl”® from Astoria, Oregon, who claimed she bad been held against her will in a Japanese rooming house (located at 941 South Town© Avenue) in Los Angeles where she was forced to have sex with, several Japanese and Chinese men over a period of ten days. Ylonen’s story resulted in. the arrests of her alleged captors—George Wakamoto and his common law wife, Helen. Genevieve Young (white)—on charges of pandering. In addition, immigration officers launched a federal investigation that was supposed, to reveal an. international, white slave ring by which girls were held prisoner by “Oriental” captors in Los Angeles and then, shipped to Tsa Juana* No international white slave ring could be detected, however, and a judge later dropped the charges against Wakamoto and Young, concluding that “the transcript of Miss Yionen’ ’ s testimony did not show she actually had been under duress.”9 1 In the wake of Yionen5 s story, local authorities launched an investi.gati.oin, of the dance halls, where they suspected white girls were being “enlisted by white slave agents into shameful service in the Oriental, sections of outlying communities.”9 2 8 9 I m Angeles Examiner, 1 .4 January 1933. 9 0 Los A ngeksExaminer* J6 January 1.933. 9 1 I ms Angeles Examiner, 16 February 1933 n Los Angeles Examiner, 28 January 1933, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 312 1b the cowse of the investigation, however, newspapers seemed to take great delight to reporting that the “Oriental” sexual interaction with white women was a result o f coercion rather than choice on the part of white women, despite evidence that at least a few white women were sexually intimate with Asian men by choice. George Wakamoto’s common law wife, Helen, for example, was a white Californian of French parentage and appeared to live with Wakamoto out of choice rather than compulsion,! > J With regard to her alleged role in the sexual imprisonment of Yionen, Helen, also claimed that Yionen exercised “her own free will” in any sexual activities.9 4 In addition, the search for other potential white victims of sexual imprisonment did turn up two more blonde women, living in, Japanese rooming houses, but unlike Yionen, the women—Betty and Barbara Lee— -did not claim to be imprisoned. Then, after admitting they had been meeting Japanese men in the rooming house, Betty' and Barbara were arrested by police on, morals charges.9 5 Further investigation of the Japanese section of the city did not result in any other revelations of enslaved white women, although one Mexican woman in Lompoc claimed that she had been “induced to associate with Japanese” by Jim Haraka, a “46-year-old cafe man.”* The newspapers also reported on incidents of women, forced into white slavery by Filipinos. In, November 1933, the Los Angeles Times covered the arrest of ® I m Angeks Examiner, 15 January 1933. 9 4 La's Angeles Examiner, 18 January 1933. Helen Massa, the beauty parlor operator to whom Helen Young had brought Impi to for hair styling, also testified that Yionen had given no sign that she was being held against her will. Los Angeks Bcamimr, 26 January 1933. 9 5 Los Angeks Examiner, 17 January 1933, * Los Angeks Examiner, 27 January 1933. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 313 Keith Brady, Art Maron, and. Pauline LeRoy who were accused initially by a seventeen-year-old housewife of luring her to a “questionable” hotel.9 7 Although only Maron was a Filipino, the Herald-Examiner pointed out that the women, had been forced, to have sex with Filipinos: “Dorothy Oliver told Los Angeles police her shocking story of having been taken, to a Bakersfield hotel and there, under threats of death, compelled to submit to more than thirty Filipinos.”'* According to the newspaper, Le Roy employed Maron to “get girls” for her operation in Bakersfield. A police officer told reporters that he had met Maron in. Los Angeles at a dance hall, located at 318 1/2 South Main Street where Maron was hoping to enlist girls for the Bakersfield operation.® Along with LeRoy, Maron and two “Negro” maids (Anna Taylor and Mamie Wells) were found guilty of compelling “the white girls to go to hotels in Bakersfield, and Pismo Beach, where they were visited by numerous Filipinos and orientals [sic],”1 0 0 Once again, the newspapers again focused on the victims’ youth and whiteness and pointed out that dance halls were some of the favorite places for procurers to lure white girls into prostitution.1 0 5 (Upon being convicted, Mrs. LeRoy reportedly began screaming hysterically. Four months later, she committed suicide.1 0 2 9 7 Los Angeks limes, 21 November 1933. 9 8 Los Angeks Examiner, 30 November 1933. 9 9 Los Angeks Examiner, 29 November 1933. 1 0 0 Los Angeks Times, i February 1934 m Los Angeks Examiner, 10 January 1934. 1 0 2 Los Angeks Examiner, 6 February 1934, Los Angeks Examiner, 17 August 1934, The newspaper reported that LeRoy had committed suicide on June 9 by banging herself. For other stories of white women having sex with Asian men, see the Los Angeks Times, 3 August 1.934; Los Angeks Examiner, 2 February 1937. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 314 Conclusion As this chapter has shown., prostitution had become an entrenched part of Los Angeles’ racial and ethnic landscape by the 1930s, While there is overwhelming evidence to suggest that prostitution increased to a great extent particularly in Central Avenue, Los Angeles’ chief black community, the discussion about white slavery shows that prostitution also deeply affected the city’s Asian population. The next chapter will revisit the relationship of prostitution with race and ethnicity by examining a prostitution case involving men from a . variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds, white prostitutes, and a madam who claimed to work for the city’s reigning criminal syndicate. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 315 Chapter 7 The Case of Charles Montgomery ant! Ann Forrester Introduction In. April 1940, Los Angeles newspapers reported that officers from the Los Angeles Sheriffs Department had smashed “an alleged white slave ring of gigantic proportions.”1 According to articles in both the Las Angeles Times as well as the Los Angeles Examiner, Sheriffs officers had arrested two men— Charles Montgomery, 43, “Negro-Porftiguese” “supposed Los Angeles chieftain of the white slave syndicate” and. his “lieutenant,” Bristol Barrett. 21, “white Kentuckian”—following a tip from an. intended victim. The newspapers reported that Montgomery and Barrett had arranged for a rendezvous with two young women—Helen Smith, 22, and Maxine Rayle, 1 .8 —at a Main Street cafd where Montgomery had attempted to persuade the women to work as prostitutes, saying they could earn $400 a month. One o f the women—the two newspapers do not agree as to which woman took the initiative—pretended to agree to the proposition, but asked Montgomery and Barrett to drive the two of them, to an address where they said they planned on picking up some clothes. Instead of packing clothes, however, the women called the Sheriffs Department, and officers “sped to the scene” and arrested Montgomery and Barrett.2 Officers then went to Montgomery’s apartment (at 5125 1/2 Avalon Boulevard, in the African American community of Central Avenue), and found a notebook listing “ 11 . J 3 S Angeks Examiner, 23 April 1940. 2 Los Angeks Examiner, 23 April 1940; Los Angeks Times, 23 April 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 316 ‘spots’ up and down the coast where ‘girls could he placed,’”3 Officers also detained two other young women—Brenda Bums, 21, and. Donna Steward, 25-whom they believed to be involved with Montgomery and Barrett. The newspapers devoted far less space to the arrest of Ann Forrester or Forst (she used several aliases)4 , said to be a “pay-off agent for the ring” or a “key figure in booking girls.’5 5 According to the Examiner, officers had learned, that the prostitution ring maintained a “booking office” at 444 South. Spring Street, and had then imposed a “stakeout” on. the address until Ann Forrester “put in. an appearance.”6 The Times story had one sentence covering the arrest of Aon Forrester, reporting simply that a raid on a downtown hotel had brought Forrester into custody as a material witness.7 In this chapter, I use the arrests and subsequent trials of Montgomery, Barrett, and Forrester as a case study for a closer examination of the intersection, of prostitution and race, the structure and organization of syndicate-controlled prostitution, and the perspective of prostitutes on their place in the profession.. The arrest o f Charles Montgomery marks the first instance of a man of African-American descent playing a significant or notable role in a prostitution case. As such, I am interested in how newspapers portrayed him. Did they focus on his African- American heritage? Did they construct him as especially villainous? What role did, 3 Los Angeles Times, 23 April 1940. 4 At her trial, Ann Forst claimed that her true last name was Forrester, thus unless I am working with sources that use “Forst” or other derivatives, I will refer to her as “Forrester.” 5 I m Angeks Examiner, 24 April 1940; Los Angeks Times, 23 April 1940. 6 Los Angeks Examiner, 23 April 1940. 1 Los Angeks Times, .2 3 April 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 317 newspapers assign Montgomery in the operation of the prostitution, ring? How did newspapers deal with Montgomery’s sexual interaction with the young women? Trial transcripts supported newspaper reports that Montgomery and Barrett had worked closely together, providing another example of interracial interaction within a sexualized subculture. What does their testimony reveal about this subculture? Did they interact mainly in Afnoan»American neighborhoods? How did they make connections with white women? How much money did they make as pimps? Both trial testimony and newspaper coverage convey that interracial and interethnic sexual interaction occurred in neighborhoods more heterogeneous than homogeneous. Perhaps because participants were already outlaws in the sense that they were engaging in illicit activities such as prostitution and gambling (and narcotics), the diversity of people’s racial and ethnic backgrounds proved less significant in their interactions with, each other. The testimony of Montgomery and Barrett also establishes the existence of a red-light district in operation in the nearby town o f San, Bernardino. In many cases, the proprietors of the houses there were African-American women, while at least some of the prostitutes working for them were white women. This reversal in the traditional hierarchy of power certainly calls for an. amendment to the roles historians have assigned, to African American women working within the profession of prostitution in the past. While the arrest of Charles Montgomery provides an opportunity to put the relationship between race arid prostitution, under closer scrutiny, the arrest and trial of Ann Forrester allows for a deeper look at the criminal syndicate’s involvement in R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 318 prostitution in Los Angeles, By the time police arrested Forrester in 1940, Fletcher Bowron had become the mayor as part of the 1938 recall election reformers sponsored to rid the city of the supposed corrupt leadership of Frank Shaw, Reformers believed, that with the ousting of Shaw, what they saw as the widespread protection and promotion of vice in the city by the Syndicate would end. While key members of the Syndicate, including Guy McAfee, had supposedly liquidated their Los Angeles “interests” and moved to Las Vegas,8 the trial, of Ann Forrester yielded evidence that the Syndicate’s power in Los Angeles remained strong. At her trial and in a subsequent letter requesting probation, Forrester adamantly maintained that she had no connections to Montgomery, but that she was instead a victim, of her association with impo.rta.ot members of the criminal syndicate, primarily Guy McAfee. In. an effort, to downplay her own role in the organization, Forrester had no qualms answering questions about the breadth and involvement of the criminal syndicate in vice operations in Los Angeles. How many houses of prostitution did the Syndicate control? Where were they located? How did the business work on a day to day basis? Who received pay-offs? How profitable was the business? What people headed the prostitute end of the Syndicate’s vice activities? This chapter contains a view of the workings of the criminal syndicate from someone within the organization. Forrester’s testimony about the continued influence of the criminal syndicate in Los Angeles after Bowron’s election provides a departure for another line of inquiry. Specifically, what (if anything) did Bowron’s * See, for example, the Los Angeks Examiner, 1 June 1939; Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 193; Siam, “Urban Politics,” 223. ' R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 319 election change in the control and availability of illicit activities and/or products? There are also questions about Ann Forrester herself. How did she become involved with the Syndicate? If the Syndicate was paying for protection, why was she arrested? Is her arrest and subsequent imprisonment indicative of the tenuous power women, held within the business of prostitution in general? In what ways did Forrester resist the larger power structure with which she was dealing? The line between etnpowe.rm.ent and victimization, is a thin one in prostitution, especially when con.sitl.eri.tig the women (and men) working at the bottom tiers of the hierarchy. Even historians who have the benefit of multiple perspectives as well as the larger social, context straggle over how to assess the profession of prostitution in terms of the power it offers prospective employees. Most historians end up taking some kind of middle ground position, such as Ruth. Rosen, who concludes, “I regard prostitution neither as the worst form of exploitation women have ever suffered, nor as a noble or liberating occupation, but rather as a dangerous and degrading occupation that, given, the limited and unattractive alternatives, has enabled thousands of women to escape even worse danger and deprivation,”9 The last section of the chapter will focus on the young women working as prostitutes both as part of Montgomery’s system or under Ann Forrester on. behalf of the criminal syndicate. Who were these young women? Where were they from? What kinds of backgrounds did they have? What had they been doing just previous to becoming prostitutes? What was their attitude towards their work as 9 Rosen, J mM Sisterhood, xvil R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 320 prostitutes? Newspaper coverage of the arrest and trials o f Montgomery, Barrett, and Forrester tended to portray the young women working for them as innocent victims of a white slave ring. Were these girls “white slaves”? If so, to what extent? For historians of prostitution, white slavery' has presented a certain dilemma in that the term was one Progressive reformers created to describe a system of prostitution., by which young women, were lured (often as a result of being dragged, and sexually or physically coerced) into “shameful lives.” Although historians have agreed, that some cases of sexual enslavement did (and do) occur, they have also noted that turn- of-the-century reformers exaggerated the extent of forced prostitution as the methods procurers employed in order to further their anti-prostitution stance. (The Maim Act, passed in 1.910 as anti-white slave legislation, further muddied the concept by using language which conflated forced, prostitution with illicit sexual relationships in general,) As I have pointed out in the previous chapter, newspapers’ use of the term “white slavery” had declined by the 1930s. The term “white slavery” instead began appearing mostly in conjunction with stories involving white women having sex with men of color, thus signifying that interracial sex had usurped prostitution as marking the outer limits of sexual respectability. The arrests of Charles Montgomery and the testimony of many prostitutes provides an avenue to explore these new meanings of “white slavery.” To what extent, for example, did. Los Angeles newspapers simply paint a picture of white slavery to make the story more sensational? To what extent did newspapers use the term, “white slavery” to protect its society’s vision of the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 32! taboo nature of interracial sex by suggesting that no white woman could possibly choose to engage in such activity? Or did Los Angeles newspapers interpret charges of pandering (no matter what color the perpetrator) as necessarily involving a coercive procurer and a passive victim? Comparing and contrasting the ways in which the young women presented, themselves in the course of the trial with, the ways in which, newspapers portrayed them will aid in answering these questions. Their testimony in the appeals trial indicates they were not as innocent as the newspapers made them out to be. Instead, at least some of the women seem wily enough to recognize that identifying themselves as passive victims of white slavery relieved them of culpability and placed them and their illicit activities outside the reach o f the law. Unlike Montgomery, Barrett, and Forrester, the young women who claimed to be their victims did not face any charges and 'thus paid no fines or served any jail time. The Case of Charles Montgomery In a city where racial discrimination was apparent, both in its racially restrictive housing covenants and its patterns of employment, newspaper coverage of the arrest of someone of African American descent on pandering charges involving white women had a decidedly hostile tone. Initial newspaper stories described Charles Montgomery as a “Negro-Portuguese” and the “supposed chieftain” of a “white slave ring” reaching from the coast o f California to Seattle, Portland, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 322 Chicago, and Hawaii.1 0 Descriptions of Montgomery, however, became quickly more derogatory, especially when evidence of sexual interaction with lighter-skinned women., came to light. The next day, for example, both the Examiner and. the Times referred to Montgomery as a “half-breed,” with the Examiner noting that “Montgomery had until recently resided in a shack on a ranch owned, by Sara Singh, a Hindu, near the Mexican border.”" Reporting that a white woman named Joan Farrell, had admitted she had been. Montgomery's “ ‘sweetheart,’” the Los Angeles Times again referred to Montgomery as a . “halfbreed [sic]” on April 25, 1940.1 2 The depiction, of Montgomery in newspapers turned more sinister when Bristol Barrett, decided to admit to a grand jury that he had worked for Montgomery. Barrett told the grand jury that his “ job” had been to meet girls, usually at dance .halls, and then introduce them, to Montgomery. The Examiner summarized the working relationship between Montgomery' and Barrett by reporting that Barrett had used his “youthful good looks to lure young women from dance halls and cashiers’ cages into the clutches of Montgomery, who, by threats, persuasion or the application of liquor, allegedly induced girls to work for him”1 3 While the newspapers continued to refer to Montgomery as the “leader” of the prostitution ring over the course of the next several, months, newspapers suppressed many of the details of Montgomery’s testimony. At his trial, for example, Montgomery never admitted that he had forced or even, suggested that any 1 0 Los Angeles Examiner, 23 April 1940; Los Angeks Times, 23 April 1940. " lm Angeks Examiner, 24 April 1940; Im Angeks Times, 24 April 1940. 1 1 Las Angeks Times, 25 April 1940. w Los Angeks Examiner, 2 May 1.940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 323 of the women become prostitutes,, but he did acknowledge that he had suggested white girls work at San Bernardino dance halls frequented by Filipinos; that on at least one occasion, he had sex with a prostitute; that he was a gambler; and that while he never forced anyone to become a prostitute, he never stopped anyone either.1 4 Not only did newspapers omit this information in its coverage of the trial, they also paid little attention to another of Montgomery’s associates—an African American m m named Tim Tullis, Tullis pled guilty to a count of a pandering charge, and testified that he had brought at least one woman to a house of prostitution in San. Bernardino.1 5 Newspapers also foiled to mention Tullis’ alleged sexual relationships with white women. Barrett, for example, clamed that Tullis had checked into a hotel with, a white prostitute named. Bobby Stahl.1 6 In addition, one of the prostitutes testifying in the case, Doris Shores, admitted to having sex with Tullis on more than one occasion.1 7 Interracial Relations Court testimony by Montgomery, Tullis, Barrett and others indicates that patterns of segregation in evidence through much, of Los Angeles—geographically, socially, culturally—may have broken down in the world of illicit activities of which they were part. Barrett, for example, told the court that he had worked in several cafes (all located in close proximity to brothels) before meeting both Montgomery 1 4 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 140.2,1408. 1 3 Reporter’s Transc.ri.pt, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 471. l t > Reporter’s Transcript, California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1 .71. 1 7 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 356. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 324 and Tullis in a cafe called The Chili Spot at 1465 Jefferson Street where he agreed to be a field man or “locker” for them,’® The Chili Spot was only the first of several locations at which the three men. interacted. After agreeing to work for Montgomery and Tullis, Barrett then moved from Ms apartment on Wall Street to an apartment of Montgomery’s at 5125 1/2 Avalon, deep within the African American community.1 9 In addition to living with Montgomery, Barrett went with, him and Tullis to several nightspots on Central Avenue, including Blcmdie’s Night Club.® In addition to the interracial interaction among the three men, the court testimony shows intimate interracial interaction between the men and several young women. Not only did Barrett testify that Montgomery and Tullis bad sex with some of the young white women involved in the case, but Tullis also told the court that he had driven around with both white and “colored” girls. Also, many witnesses testified about going to different cafds or nightclubs that welcomed white and black clients. One witness testified about meeting Montgomery at the Red Parrot Cafe on Compton, Avenue, and described it as a place that was “frequented by colored as well as white people.”2 1 Brenda Alien Bums even, admitted that she had gone with Barrett and Tullis to a restaurant patronized mostly by African Americans.2 2 Court testimony indicates that interracial mixing occurred in San Bernardino’s red-light district where a number of the young women (Althea Elliot, 1 8 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 3 ,106. j9 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 121. * Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 126. 2 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1141. a Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 813. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 325 Brenda Allen Bums, Irene Moore, Margaret “'Tiny” Mandiola, Doris Shores) worked for a number of days. The red-light district of San Bernardino may have resembled the zones of tolerated vice that existed in a number of cities at the turn of the century. Below is a portion of the court transcript in which T int. Tullis describes the red light district of San Bernardino; Q. How many houses of prostitution are there in your opinion in San Bernardino? A. I would say fifty. Q. All open? A. I couldn’ t say they are open. now. Q. And when you walked along the street there, how can you determine, or is there any way to determine they are homes of prostitution? A. The girls will call you. Q, From where? A. From the doors and windows. Q. Do you mean just as you. walk along they will call you? A. Yes sir, Q, These houses then are open, and notorious houses of prostitution. Is that right? A. Yes. Q. Anybody could, find them that goes to San Bernardino? A. It is common knowledge that they are houses of prostitution.,3 Three women running houses of prostitution, in San Bernardino ended up being charged with pandering as a result of their involvement with Barrett, Montgomery, and Tullis. While two women-— Helen Reed and Dolly Dupree—were white, a third—Edith Johnson—was black. Despite the difference in race/ethnicity, all three women, ran, houses of prostitution within two blocks of each other, and at least, one of the girls—Margaret Mandiola—worked for both Johnson and Dupree. Although lawyers refrained from asking the young women about the ethnicity' of the men or 2 3 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 538-9. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 326 “tricks” they had serviced, the newspapers reported that Mandiola had declared that “she was employed in a rooming house frequented by Filipinos,”2 4 'Newspapers may have wanted to downplay the interracial nature of the prostitution ring for several reasons. First, by withholding information about the interaction between the white young women and the black defendants, the newspapers preserved a more innocent appearance for the women. Several witnesses testified that the young women involved in the prostitution ring were much more sexually savvy than the newspapers suggested. And, while testimony about the young women’s lack of sexual naivete could hurt the newspaper’s image of the women as sexual innocents, testimony insinuating a sexual relationship between the women and black men would shatter the image. As Kevin Mumford has documented, intermarriage between black and white individuals was banned in many states during the 1920s as the outgrowth of fears of racial pollution and black dominance.® Thus, white women engaging in sex with black men was seen as completely taboo. In the course of the trial, defense attorneys used even non-intimate interaction between the white women and non-white individuals as a basis for maligning their character. Brenda Allen Bums, for example, steadfastly maintained that she was an innocent victim of both Bristol Barrett and Charles Montgomery who had forced her into becoming a prostitute. She testified that she had met Barrett at the dance hall where she had been working and consented to go with him. and Tim Tullis to 2 4 Los Angeles Examiner, 2 May 1940. 2 5 Mumford, Inlerzoms, 164. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Blondie’s Night Club on Central Avenue, but that Barrett had. then raped her after taking her to his apart,meat on A valon Avenue. The defen.se attorney, however, attacked her claint. of innoceii.ce by asking her what she thought she was doing by hanging out with “colored” men, Brenda deftly replied that she couldn’t, teli that Montgomery and Tullis were black,a i To which, the lawyer replied, “What was the thought, that went through your mind when they took you into this colored restaurant down there filled with colored people, in a colored district.? Is that a .matter that, made you have any shame in your heart and mind at that time?”3 7 The prosecuting attorney then stepped in with an objection that the judge sustained, forestalling an. answer from Brenda. When the prosecuting attorney questioned. Charles Montgomery later in the trial, he attempted to undue some of the damage when he posed the question: “As a matter of fact, you know Mr. Tullis sometimes passes for a Mexican, don't you? That is, some people take Mm for a Mexican?”2 8 Another objection prevented Montgomery front answering. Interracial contact was also used to question the moral character of another witness, Doris Shores. Lawyers called upon Doris’ father, Arthur Shores, to testify as to why his daughter had become a prostitute. Arthur blamed Doris’ behavior on his estranged wife, Doris’ mother, who, he claimed, worked in. the dance halls and associated with Filipino men. The lawyer questioned Arthur about bow he had 2 6 The defense attorney also asked Helen Smith why she associate! with African American men, to which she also replied that she couldn’t tell they were African. Americans. Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1.041, 2 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 813. a Reporter’s Transcript, California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1454, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 328 found the living conditions of his wife and daughter when they lived at 1630 Temple Street: Q, And did you determine what the character o f the premises was at that address, whether a house of prostitution or not? A, Well, I couldn't determine, no, There was hardly anything around there, no neighbors knowed [sic] anything about it. Q. But it was a place where Filipinos and white people both, lived? A, They did® In this exchange, the interracial living conditions Arthur Shores observed at the Temple Street address provided almost as much of a basis for Shores’ condemnation of his wife’s behavior as living in a , brothel would. Also, in the way the lawyer asked the questions, the jury would have been inclined to view a house where white women lived lit close conjunction with Filipinos in a similar light as they would a brothel. Thus even though prostitution may once have composed the ultimate taboo in sexual expression, by the 1930s interracial sex appears to have outranked it. Any indication, then, that the young women involved in the prostitution ring may have willingly associated with men of color would have compromised the prevailing view of interracial sex as unthinkable. The work of Kevin Mumford suggests an additional reason why newspapers may have minimized the attention they paid to the African. American participants in their coverage of the prostitution ring. According to Mumford, beginning in the 1920s, “black/white sex was understood to be so obscene as to be outside the pale of permissible academic discourse.” Miim.fo.rd goes on. to say that sociologists, 2 9 Reporter’s Transcript California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1372. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 329 therefore, “dared not study the issue, much less publish works on the topic,” In this case, Mumford argues, the absence of discussions of black/white interaction " ‘ speaks volumes.”” I would argue that newspapers were more racially conservative than many sociologists, thus reluctance on the part o f sociologists to examine the subject of black/white sex would have been, mirrored by newspapers, Bette Yarbrough Cox’s collection of oral interviews about Central Avenue provides ample evidence for the existence of many nightclubs with both, black and white patrons well into the 1930s, for example, yet there is little discussion of such places in the newspapers. In. 1925, the Los Angeles Times reported on one such, club—the Humming Bird—only to condemn it as a place where “negroes and whites, including women, mix in unbelievable orgies .... Drunken, debauches in which white women and. negroes participated were nightly affairs.”3 1 ' As several, historians have suggested, race relations only grew worse through, the 1930s. In .Los Angeles, the tightening of the color line is evident by the newspapers’ failure to discuss black/white interaction at all in the 1930s, with the case of Charles Montgomery, Tim Tullis, and Bristol Barrett only one example. Even, the taxi-dance halls, which barred African Americans and thus enjoyed a tenuous approval despite admitting other men of color, soon saw increased restrictions. By 1947, when USC sociology student Clyde 3 0 Mumford, Memmes. 54. While I have D ot found an overwhelming number of sociologists discussing black/white interaction, at least one Chicago school sociologist, Paul Cressey, did discuss the subject, as part of a larger work on taxi-dance halls. In addition, the 1931 master's thesis of lames Ervin, USC sociology student, also contains a long section on black/white sex relationships, See Cressey, Taxi-Dcmce Hall, 20-21,44, 90; Ervin, “Participation of the Negro,” 54-74. J 1 Los Angeks Times, 24 March 1925. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 330 Vedder wrote his dissertation on taxi-danoe halls, he commented that they had been closed to Filipinos and the “Oriental trade.”® Newspapers may also have chosen to devote little attention to the black/white Interaction described by various witnesses over the course of the trial became the element of the case .represented by Montgomery, Barrett, and Tullis became lost in the sensational details provided by Ann Forrester with her connections to the criminal syndicate and implications of dirty city officials. The link between Ann Forrester and Charles Montgomery, fragile to begin with, grew increasingly thin over the course of the trial. Brenda Allen Burns furnished the connection, claiming that after she had worked for Montgomery in one of the San Bernardino brothels, he had arranged for her to meet Ann Forrester. Boms told officers that after Forrester had seen her, she assigned her to a spot on. South Union Avenue, where she had been working when, she was arrested.5 3 In the grand jury investigation that followed the arrests of Ann Forrester, Charles Montgomery, and. the others, Forrester declined to testify, but after the grand jury returned with an indictment against her, Forrester began to get more talkative, allegedly making threats “to ‘blow off the lid’ of vice graft scandals in Los Angeles if her prosecution continues.”3 4 When the trial commenced, Ann Forrester- with her connections to familiar underworld leaders such as Guy McAfee as well as potentially crooked sheriffs officer—soon took center stage, relegating Charles Montgomery and company to the sidelines. 32 Vedder, Analysis of the Taxi-Dance Hatt, 49. 3 3 Los AngeksBxamimr, 25 April 1940. 3 4 Los Angeks Examiner, 2 May 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 331 The Case o f Ann Forrester Although newspapers reported on. a potential connection between Ann Forrester and “vice graft scandals” as early as May 2,1940, newspapers began to pursue this story line in earnest as the trial approached in early July, The trial, opened July 8,1940, and only two days into the process of jury selection, the Examiner noted that Ann Forrester’s lawyer, George Stahlman, a former deputy district attorney, quizzed prospective jurors about possible connections to gambling czars Guy McAfee and Bob Gans, District Attorney Buron. Fitts, or George Contreras—the Sheriff Department’s Vice Squad Captain.3 3 The following day, Stahlman voiced his conviction that public officials had accepted bribes from Ann. Forrester. By July 12, the Examiner reported that Stahlman had subpoenaed such individuals as Guy McAfee, June Taylor, George Contreras, and a dozen or more others to appear as witnesses for the defense of Ann Forrester.3 6 In his arguments during the trial, Stahlman placed Ann Forrester in the position, of a mid-level employee of a still-powerful crime syndicate which made regular payments to law enforcement officers to keep the prostitution business “protected.” Stahlman charged that Guy McAfee and June Taylor headed the prostitution operations of the city, collecting the in.ajor.ity of its profits, and paying both city and county law enforcement officers to stay in business.3 7 Stahlman. further stated that Forrester was on trial both because she had fallen, into disfavor with the leaders of the Syndicate as 3 3 hos Angeks Examiner, 10 July 1940. 3 6 Las Angeks Examiner, 11 July 1940; Los Angeles Examiner, 12 M y 1940, 3 7 Reporter’s Transcript, California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1511-1514. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 332 well as because she refused to pay various law enforcement officers the sum of money they had requested just previous to the Grand Jury investigation.* During her testimony, Ann Forrester elaborated on many of Stahlman’s statements, giving a more complete picture of the inner workings and organization of the crime syndicate. Forrester told the courtroom that she had been involved in the prostitution business since 1934 after meeting one of McAfee’s associates, Wade BuckwaM.3 9 She described herself as working as a “maid”—performing such duties as basic cooking and cleaning—at one of their houses of prostitution, a small hotel at 1907 Wilshire Boulevard After three weeks of work, Wade Buckwald introduced her to Guy McAfee at a nightclub in . Glendale.* She testified that while working at the Wilshire location, she saw Buckwald about twice a week and McAfee once a week, when they came by to pick up money from the business;1 1 She also claimed that she had met June Taylor while working at the Wilshire location, noting that Taylor “was overseeing the place.”4 2 After six or seven months at the Wilshire address, McAfee asked Forrester to relocate to 444 South Spring Street (see map 11).4 3 Although Forrester doesn’t explicitly say that the move to 444 South Spring Street represented a promotion,4 4 the move resulted in an expansion of Forrester’s duties and connections to other houses of prostitution.. At this location, Forrester 3 8 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1517. 3 9 Reporter's Transcript, California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1688, 4 0 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1689. 4 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1691, 4 2 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1695. 4 3 Reporter’s Transcript California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1695. 4 4 Of course, Ann Forrester is still looking to avoid conviction on die charges against her, and so it would make sense that she wouldn’t want to admit to having an enlarged role in the organization, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 333 disclosed that she was one of three “maids” and after two or three weeks, she became involved with seven, other prostitution addresses, all hotels.4 9 Her weekly salary was usually between $35-140, and those earnings came out of the profits of the Syndicate both from the activities of prostitutes at the hotels as well as income received through the rental of rooms on selected floors of the hotels.*5 The Syndicate had its headquarters at the Olive Hotel on 750 Olive Street (see map ! 1), and according to Forrester, any girls working for the Syndicate were hired at this location and then, sent out to the various hotels from there,4 7 Forrester stated that the Syndicate distributed, the girls to approximately thirty-one different hotels they were running in the city, and that her list of clients included about three thousand names.4 * Forrester acknowledged that her duties as a “maid” included a weekly delivery of money (usually on Mondays) to Wade Buckwald and Guy McAfee either at their home or at an office in Hollywood, and that the weekly amount Forrester delivered totaled between four and five thousand dollars.4 9 According to Forrester, McAfee and Buckwald would sometimes send some of the money “over to the gambling places for change,—the one dollar bills they would send over to some of the dealers to make change.”3 0 After Mayor Fletcher Bowron’s election, the Syndicate had to alter some of its operations. Forrester alleged that three weeks after the election, the hotels were 4 5 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1700. 4 4 Reporter’s Transcript, California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1824. 4 7 Reporter’s Transcri.pl, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1703. 4 * Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1706, 1791. 4 9 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1.711, 5 0 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1902, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 5 Hotels Apartment Homes m m $ 4 1907 Wi shire S Figueroa union Grand 326 1/2 S Spring e m u 444 S Spring 510 1/2 S Main ' W m W Pico mpM m m 1147 S San Pedro m /;nrusini Map 11 Hotels and Apartment Houses Associated with Prostitution in Los Angeles in the 1930s, According to Ann Forrester Source: Modification of map found at tep://www.iib.utexas.edii/maps.%istoriccA1os„aageles, c«nln»lm 1.9 17.jpg R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 335 closed. The location, at 444 South Spring Street, she claimed, had ceased operations for the better part of two years.3 1 Instead, of running prostitution out of the hotels, the Syndicate sent prostitutes to apartment houses such as the ones at 711 West 3r d Street and 738 South Union Street where the Syndicate paid the apartment managers a small sum to “keep the fellows from going to the wrong apartment” (see map 11 for these and other apartment addresses).5 2 The prostitutes would receive location assignments by telephoning Forrester or one of the other maids at the hotel the night before the day they were scheduled to work.5 3 Clients also had to alter their practices. With the hotels closed, they could no longer simply stop by for some kind of sexual service. Instead, they had to phone ahead.3 4 Forrester testified that when the town was “hot,” (such as after Bowron’s election) the client would telephone her or one of the other “maids” at the hotel, give his birth date and weight and receive an, address in. return. Once the client arrived at the address, the prostitute would ask for the client’s birth date and weight, and then call the hotel to verify that the client constituted a genuine customer.3 5 Forrester also alluded to a system, by which the girls picked up clients in conjunction with taxicab drivers.5 6 Forrester intimated that Bowron’s election had resulted in. a relocation, of the vice syndicate’s headquarters 5 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1730. n Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1776. 5 3 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1735,1775,1860. 5 4 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1791. 5 5 Reporter’s Transcript, California, v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1833. 5 4 Reporter’s Transcript, California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1886. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 336 from the Olive Hotel to the Stockyards Hotel, which was located in county rather than city territory.5 7 Despite a number of objections from the prosecuting attorneys, Forrester and her lawyer, George Stablman, were also able to sketch out the different ways in which the Syndicate protected its prostitution business by making pay-offs or deals with city officials. Stahlman, for example, began asking Forrester a question about whether or not girts working for the Syndicate had to go through quarantine, but the prosecuting attorney interrupted with an objection. The two attorneys then conferred with the judge, out of earshot of the jury (but apparently not the court reporter) about the matter, Stablman said he wanted to show the court that the Syndicate had an arrangement with the q uarantine department of the Health Division, of the City and County to release their girls from the quarantine requirement.5 8 While Stahlman’s questions to his client garnered repeated objections from the prosecutors, Montgomery’s lawyer, Paul Homaday, managed to have fewer interruptions when he interrogated Forrester. Homaday , for example, managed to get in this exchange before one of the prosecuting attorneys asked that it be stricken: Q. Well, is it a fact that certain payments were made to Police Department officials for protection, of these houses of prostitution that you have been testifying about? A. Yes sir,”5 9 Forrester then answered affirmatively (over the objections of the prosecuting attorney) that she saw members of the Syndicate pay money to police officers and 5 7 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1757. s* Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1805. 5 9 Reporter’s Transcript, California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1895. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 337 agents from the District Attorney’s office/'9 Later, Forrester identified Los Angeles Police Department Officer McMullen as one person who she saw accepting money front McAfee and Buckwaid, further claiming that she had delivered money to Officer McMullen personally in the amount of $300 a week.6 1 Prosecuting attorneys objected before Aim Forrester could answer a question about getting advance notice from the police department when they were planning to make an arrest at one of the houses.® In regard to her own arrest, Ann Forrester claimed that the Sheriffs department made several crooked propositions both to her and to one of the girls working for her, Donna Stewart. According to Forrester, Captain Hunter had tried to coerce Donna into saying that she knew Montgomery , Barrett, or some of the others in addition to knowing Forrester, threatening her with imprisonment with she refused to do so.® Captain Contreras then, tried to make a deal with Forrester, allegedly telling her that “ ‘For $2500.001 guess we could work it out,’” meaning that he wouldn’t book her if she could come up with the cash. Forrester claimed that she refused the offer.*4 StaMman defended Ann Forrester on the grounds that while she had been part of an illegal business, she was innocent of the specific charges of pandering and conspiracy she faced. First of all, Stahlman argued that Forrester had no leadership 6 0 Reporter’s Transcri.pt, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1896. 8 1 Reporter's Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester. 1904,2053. ® Reporter's Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1906. 6 ? Reporter’s Transcript, California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1762. 6 4 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1764. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 338 role in the Syndicate that controlled the prostitution business in. Los Angeles, Instead, Forrester, in conjunction with two other women, helped manage the day-to- day operations at no more than seven locations. In both Ms opening statement and in Ms line of questioning, Stahlman made clear that Forrester made no business decisions regarding prostitution. The Syndicate had chosen, rented, and operated out of its collection, of hotels for up to two years before Forrester came to work for the organization.*5 The phone line had already been installed.,6 * More importantly, Forrester maintained that she did not hire the young women who worked as prostitutes, and was therefore innocent of the charge of pandering. She testified that when she arrived at 'the hotel on South, Spring Street, for example, there were “four or five girls” working there.6 7 When Stahlman asked if she knew o f any girls being hired by anybody working with her at any of her seven, locations, Ann replied, “Oh, there were always familiar girls that had been there from, time to time, dozens and dozens of them., There isn’t very much, hiring done. They always call in, the same girls over and over again. There always lots of girls trying to get jobs, and getting jobs. Year in and year out the same people worked there most of the time.”6 8 Another defense witness, Donna Stewart, substantiated. Forrester’s testimony about the lack of hiring done by the Syndicate for prostitution. Stewart testified she had worked as a prostitute for the Syndicate since January of 1939, and that she worked one shift: with Brenda Allen 6 , 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1696. m Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, .1704. 6 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1696. * * Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1774, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 339 Bums. Stewart claimed that she had the following conversation with Brenda at that time: “She [Brenda] said she had been calling up over a period of a week: or so trying to get on, and that they told her there were no vacancies. And I said I had been hying to get a girl I knew here for some time, and I didn’ t see why they didn't take a girt that I had known, and that had worked there, instead of this girl Brenda/*® In. addition, to portraying Forrester as only one of many mere employees of a much more powerful criminal syndicate, Stahlman. also attempted to show that Forrester lacked agency in her initial decision to work for the Syndicate as well as in her choice to have continued involvement in the business. In his opening defense, Stahlman linked Forrester’s initial decision, to work for the Syndicate to medical expenses she incurred on behalf of her mother. According to Stahlman, Forrester’s mother was losing her eyesight, and the Syndicate offered Forrester more money than, she had been making at an automobile club where she had been working. The added salary, Stahlman argued, helped offset the heavy ongoing medical expenses of her mother, and so Forrester continued to work for the Syndicate. Furthermore, stated Stahlman, because her mother’s medical treatments proved unsuccessful, Forrester continued to support her mother, implying that Forrester had a continuing financial reason for working for the Syndicate.7 0 Stahlman. also drew out another instance of his client’s vulnerability during his examination of Forrester, when he inquired if she had ever tried to leave the Syndicate. Forrester replied in the affirmative, saying she had bought a restaurant at 6 9 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1528, 7 0 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1511. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 340 Pico and Western about three years ago. A t e establishing that McAfee and Buckwald had visited her at the restaurant several times after she started her work there, Stahlman then asked what had happened to the restaurant, Forrester answered that after only four or five months, the restaurant “was broken up. The Neon signs and all the dishes and everything were broken.”7 * Stablem an then asked if she had previously received threats from McAfee or Buckwald, but an objection from the prosecuting attorney prevented Forrester from answering. Forrester said she had returned to work for the Syndicate soon after her restaurant was destroyed.7 2 Finally, Stahlman suggested that it was Forrester’s lack of power and influence within the Syndicate that explained Forrester’s presence in the courtroom. Stahlman argued that Forrester had fallen into “disfavor" with McAfee, Buckwald, and “certain officials of the law enforcement agencies” over the changes in the method of prostitution operations forced by Mayor Bowron’s election, among other things.7 3 In addition, Ann Forrester testified that authorities in the Federal Income Tax Division had questioned her in regard to McAfee’s income tax, and that “differences” had occurred between the two of them after he had seen her at the Federal Income Tax Division’s office.7 4 In its coverage of Stahlman’s presentation of Ms case, the Los Angeles Examiner reporter that Forrester insisted she was “being prosecuted for revenge.” 7 5 Stahlman contended that a county law enforcement 7 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1744. n Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1744*5. 7 3 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1513, 7 4 Reporter’s Transcript California v, Montgomery and Forrester, 1745-6. 7 5 Los Angeks Examiner, 6 August 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 341 official. (George Contreras) had. “projected” Forrester on to the current ease “for the dual purpose of carrying out the wishes and the threats of those who were in control of vice in. this city, and to simultaneously, . , purify their own skirts,”1 8 Stahlman then bluntly accused Sheriff Department Officer George Contreras of this misconduct when Contreras took the stand, saying, “I will ask you if it is not a fact that the reason, one of the reasons you had this girl [Forrester] locked up at that time was that you by reason of the unpleasant publicity you had obtained in the local press in relation to a Grand Jury investigation wherein charges were made that you were connected with the operation of houses of prostitution, -that you were using this arrest and projecting this lady into this case... for the purpose o f trying to clean yourself here?”7 7 To which, Contreras replied, “Mr. Stahlman, that is a ridiculous question. The answer is no.”7 8 Stahlman’s strategy of making Forrester look like a victim of the criminal syndicate did not result in a verdict of not guilty for Forrester, but Forrester used a similar approach in a letter she wrote to the judge asking for probation. In the letter, Forrester defended herself, saying she had never “suggested or solicited that anyone enter the life of shame ” Furthermore, she wrote, “I myself was an employee and therefore had to follow instruction from my employer. I can’t help but feel, that I am an unfortunate victim of circumstances.” She then reiterated that she had attempted to leave the Syndicate in order to r u n . the restaurant, and that she continued to be the w Reporter’s Transcript, California v, Montgomery and Forrester. 1514. 7 7 Reporter's Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1978. n Reporter’s Transcript, California, v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1978. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 342 “sole support of my nearly Mind mother.”7 9 Mayor Bowron supported Forrester's bid for probation, writing a letter on ter behalf that noted that Forrester had cooperated with the FBI in, an investigation of prostitution and corrupt police officers.8 0 The Women’s Christian Temperance Union, however, sent a . letter asking that the request for probation be denied since Forrester was a “convicted panderess” who might “still be plying her evil trade in this city today... topping her innocent young victims into a life of shame” if not for the intervention of the Sheriffs office.8 1 The judge denied Forrester’s request for probation. While Stahlman defended Forrester against the charge of pandering by making her look like a mere cog in the machine of the criminal syndicate, Stahlman answered the charges of conspiracy against Forrester by emphatically denying she had connections to Montgomery, Tullis, or Barrett. Against these charges, Stahlman had more success, since Forrester had denied knowing any of the other defendants and vice versa. In addition, despite alleged coaxing from Sheriff Department officials, none of the young women (with the exception of Brenda Allen B ums) associated with the three men confessed to knowing Forrester. During the course of the trial, the delineation, between Forrester and the other defendants grew clear. The world of Montgomery and Barrett consisted, of an interracial sexual culture where several men served as agents/pimps for a handful of young women, willing to (or agreeing to) s e w a . racially mixed clientele. In sharp 7 9 CR80753, Los Angeles Superior Court Archives. 8 0 Las Angeles Examiner, E November 1941. "CR80753.LASCA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 343 contest was the all-white world of Aim Forrester, At one point in the trial, Forrester was asked if she had ever worked, with a woman named. Pauline who ran a house of prostitution at 121.0 1/2 Sunset Boulevard, Forrester replied., simply, “No, she had Filipinos.'’ ® 2 Donna Stewart, one of the women, who worked as a prostitute for the Syndicate, im.pl.ied that the Syndicate had nothing to do with African Americans in the houses she worked in, even as maids: Q. Were there any colored maids working at that place? A. They never employed colored people, Q. At any of those places? A. No sir.® 3 In her letter asking for probation, Forrester remained resolute in .her claim that she and the other defendants had nothing to do with each, saying “being bom in Texas I have a natural prejudice against any association with colored, people and can assure you, Your Honor, I had nothing whatsoever to do with my co-defendants at my trial.”8 4 Forrester’s testimony not only yields information as to the ways in which the criminal syndicate operated its prostitution business in Los Angeles both before and after the election of Mayor Bowron, but also as to the veracity of reformers’ reports about prostitution, in the city. According to Forrester, Bowron’s election did have some effect on the criminal syndicate. Prominent members relocated to Las Vegas, and the operations they continued to control in Los Angeles had to be re-structured to evade stricter policing tactics. Forrester also hinted that Bowron’s election had Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, I860, 8 3 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1607. * 4 CR80753, LASCA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. •144 resulted in a shake-up in the city’s police force, with dirty cops such as McMullen transferred out of the vice squad. What remained untouched, however, Forrester indicated, was the Sheriffs department. Individuals such as George Contreras remained in power, and county territory (out ofLAPD jurisdiction) became the Syndicate’s new base of operations. In testifying about her involvement in the Los Angeles prostitution scene, Forrester also substantiated some information, reformers had used as evidence in their quest to clean, the city. Of the seven addresses with which Forrester admitted associations, for example, all but one had found their way to lists of vice resorts reformers had supplied to the city council. In addition, one list even had the correct phone number for the hotel at 444 South Spring Street,8 5 So far, I have only discussed Forrester in light of her connection, to the criminal syndicate, relying on her trial testimony. More personal information, however, is available as well. According to documents in the Los Angeles Superior Court Archives, Forrester was born in Paris, Texas, on July 28, 1906. She attained a fourth grade education and began working as a waitress when she was twelve years old. She then worked as a clerk at various drug stores until 1927. From 1928 to 1933. Forrester worked as an, “entertainer in cafes.” During this period, Forrester The addresses to which Forrester admitted having an affiliation which turn up is reformers* records included the May or Rose Hotel at 444 S Spring St., 1907 Wilshire Blvd., the Darlington Hotel at 619 1/2 W 6th St., lie Roma Hotel at 510 1/2 S Main St, the Claremont Hotel, at 334 S Hill St, the Champa Hotel at 113 1/2 E 9tb St., and 803 Venice Blvd. See Reporter’s Transcript, California v, Montgomery and .Forrester, 1688,1689,1.699,1708; Box 1, Folder 1-2$ and Folder 1-43, Miller Collection, CSUN; “List of Protected Houses of Prostitution in Operation in Los Angeles, January 15, 1.936,” Council File 307 (1936), LACA, R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 345 “also worked in the Flo Ziegfielci Follies and in general show business in various places.”® * In 1933, Forrester went to work “as a saleslady for the Automobile Owner’s Association for a year/5 at which point she met Wade Buckwald and started working for the Syndicate, At some point, Forrester married, had a son, and then divorced her husband. Forrester claimed both her mother and son as dependents. During her trial, Forrester made a brief allusion, to her former husband, saying that she sometimes used her married name as an alias. Her son, however, was never mentioned— -neither during the trial nor by the newspapers. In her letter requesting probation, Forrester wrote that prior to her association with the Syndicate, she “lad never been involved in . any trouble or committed any crime.”8 7 Her arrest record verifies this claim. Forrester accumulated a string of arrests, beginning in 1935, when she was arrested for the violating section 32 of the Penal Code, essentially helping a convicted felon evade or escape from police. .Apparently the charge did not stick. Forrester was released the day after her arrest Between 1935 and 1940, Forrester was arrested four more times—once for drunkenness, once for vagrancy, once for procuring, and once for drunk, driving—before facing the felony charges of pandering and conspiracy in 19405* Until 1.933, then, Forrester lived a relatively average life. Given her lack of education, and how early she began, work, I would guess that .Forrester did not come from a wealthy background, but this was not unusual. What would make her decide “ CR80753, LASCA. 8 7 CR807S3, LASCA. ® CR80753, LASCA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 346 to leave her legitimate job (not a small feat in the middle of the Great Depression, especially for a woman) to work for mobsters in the business o f prostitution? Unfortunately, neither the newspapers nor the court were interested, in what led Forrester to work for the Syndicate, so there is no clear answer. It appears, however, that Forrester had a particular connection to the criminal underworld. According to th& Los Angeles Examiner, Forrester had been identified as “a sister of Orville Forrester, well known, in police circles.”8 9 Gerald Woods identifies Orville Forrester as being part of an organization called the California Republicans Incorporated, which “successfully extorted money from vice operators by threatening to expose them regardless of protection bought elsewhere.”9 0 City Council records show that Orville Forrester had been involved in illegal activities since 1924. In that year, he had been arrested, in San Francisco for a violation of the “State Pimp Law.” He had. been arrested fourteen more times between 1924 and 1936 in Los Angeles, on charges ranging from, bootlegging, assault, intent to commit murder, and narcotic violations. Despite his numerous arrests, Orville only served four monthsja.il. time. In 1936, Orville was arrested with a companion, 'Mabel Rogers, on a narcotics charges. Rogers also had an arrest record In 1930, she had been arrested once in Los Angeles for “soliciting for prostitution” and twice for “vagrancy-lewd.”9 1 Perhaps Orville provided the initial contact between bis sister and Tudor Sherer, the nightclub owner who had introduced her to Wade Buckwald. If not, Ann 8 9 lm AngeksFixamimr, 25 April 1940. 9 0 Woods, Police in Los Angeks, 175. 9 1 Council file 1323 (1936), LACA. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 347 may have at least been familiar with some element of the profession of prostitution because o f her contact with, ter brother. This contact may have helped her realize that while there was a great deal of money to be made from prostitution, prostitutes themselves did not reap the greater portion of the profits. Unlike many of her contemporaries,, Forrester didn’t work her way up to the status of a madam after putting in her time as an actual prostitute (at least according to her testimony and as indicated by her arrest record). This suggests that Forrester, enjoying an unusual. (and most enviable) position within the profession, must have had some kind of inside connection to the Syndicate, or was exceptionally clever. The Case of the Prostitutes While historians tend to view prostitutes from a point of view which recognizes both the possibility for empowerment as well, as victimization, contemporaries of Ann Forrester and Charles Montgomery remained entrenched in a reformist perspective that perceived young women engaging in prostitution as hapless victims of cunning men and women. As I have mentioned earlier in this chapter as well as elsewhere in the dissertation, retaining the tum-of-the-century concept of white slavery in. this case functioned to keep interracial sex outside the purview o f “normal” sexual relationships. What is also evident, however, in this case is that the description of the prostitutes as “white slaves”—although originating front the young women’s involvement with men of color—came to envelop the prostitutes who did not necessarily service of men of color, lit addition, at least some R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 348 of the prostitutes eagerly grabbed the opportunity to portray themselves as “white slaves” in order to preserve their “imioeence” and. escape puBishment™-both in the form of a legal conviction as well as social opprobrium. In their coverage of the Forrester and Montgomery case, the newspaper portrayal o f the young women involved took its cue from the early twentieth-century white slave narratives promoted by reformers. Historian Barbara Hobson notes that “typical white slave narratives described men with hypodermic needles waiting to drug and abduct their prey in darkened movie theaters or subways.”® By the 1920s, the concept of sexually vulnerable women in . cities had begun to fade. According to Joanne Meyerowitz, women adrift—that is, working women living independently of their families in. cities—forced reformers and journalists to recognize them, as competent adults and acknowledge “that many sexually active women adrift were neither forced by poverty nor deceived by men.” Instead, continues Meyerowitz, “reformers discovered a spectrum of behavior between the chastity that they preferred, and the sexual slavery they decried. ' > m Increasing awareness of young women’s sexual agency is further apparent in the work of a 1939 journalist who, in Ms exposd of the national prostitution scene, noted that “[pjersons with wide experience in prostitution insist that there is no such, thing as a true white slave.”9 4 Instead, the journalist disclosed that many young women chose to become prostitutes: “Present-day conditions depict the almost unbelievable situation in. which 9 2 Hobson. Uneasy Virtue, 142, * * Meyerowitz, Women Adrift, 1,23-4. 9 4 Cooper, Designs in Scarlet, 66. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 349 thousands upon thousands of girls are actually eager for the chance to enter lives of prostitution.”9 5 In the case of Montgomery and Forrester, newspapers bucked the trend of recognizing the evidence o f young women’s sexual agency, and instead focused on stories of victimization and innocence. The Examiner, for example, described Helen. Smith—one of the girls who telephoned police after being propositioned by Montgomery and Barrett—as “fear-stricken.” The next day, the Examiner assured its readers that Smith and her friend Maxine Rayle had been guaranteed “protection” by officers.* The Examiner also carried a story about Sara Matthews, “a frightened, fragile Holly wood blonde” who identified Montgomery and Barrett “as the men who subjected her to almost incredible threats, torture and assault a mouth ago.” Matthews claimed that Barrett had forced her to go to a hotel room with him, and that she had “battled for [her] honor” for three hours before Barrett finally overpowered and assaulted her9 7 The Examiner carried the following sentence about another of Barrett and Montgomeiy’s victims: “Miss Mandiola, 21, who weighs but 75 pounds, declared Barrett met her in a dance hall, lured her to an apartment and then threatened and intimidated, her until she consented to enter the ‘syndicate.”’9 ® Such newspaper images contrasted sharply with the form these young women took in court testimony. These young women may have been telling the truth and had, in. fact, been abused, threatened, assaulted, and/or intimidated by Barrett and 9 5 Cooper, Designs in Scarlet, 320. n Los Angeles Examiner, 23 April 1940; Los Angeks Examiner, 24 April 1940. 9 1 Im Angeks Examiner, 25 A p r il 3940. 9 8 Los Angeks Examiner, 2 May 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 350 Montgomery, but Barrett and Montgomery (in addition to several other witnesses) gave a contradictory' and convincing account of their interactions with the women during their court testimony, Local newspapers neglected, to include any indication that another side of the story may have even existed. Bristol Barrett, acting as a state’s witness, for example, admitted that lie had brought Mandiola to a bouse of prostitution in San. Bernardino, but also claimed that Mandiola had told him she was a prostitute when they met at a dance hall.® When they called Mandiola to testify, the defense lawyers asked, her if she bad been arrested in San Diego for prostitution. Mandiola claimed that although, she had been arrested for vagrancy, it was not because she had been, working as a prostitute.1 0 0 The Examiner suppressed both Barrett’s comments as well as Mandiola’s arrest in its coverage of the court trial. As for Sara Matthews, Montgomery testified that she went to the hotel room with Barrett willingly, asking “what is it worth?” Montgomery said that he had assumed from this question that Matthews, like Mandiola, was a prostitute.1 0 1 Helen Smith, who newspapers reported, had needed protection from law officers, admitted during the trial to be divorced, with two children. When asked if she had been, drinking the night she was out with Barrett and Montgomery, Smith replied in the affirmative, saying she was 22, and it was her privilege to order a drink. Defense attorneys also asked about some of her activities while under the protection of the Sheriffs Department, implying that she visited, cocktail bars on Main Street and entertained a 9 9 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 199-200. m .Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 345.. 1 0 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1476. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 35! number of male visitors while in their eare—charges which Smith denied.'® As with Mandiola, the newspapers omitted any faint of potentially character-damaging testimony regarding Matthews and Smith in the coverage of the trial Although newspapers might have been reluctant to publish testimony besmirching the characters of young women from potentially unreliable witnesses, they also stifled and at times contradicted statements made by the young women themselves when they took responsibility for becoming a prostitute. Two young women who had connections to Ann. Forrester, for example, testified they had begun. working as prostitutes before meeting Forrester. One woman 'was twenty-year old Pauline Skevenski, and the other woman was twenty-four-yew-old Donna Stewart. Although Skevemki was part of the prosecution’s case against agents of a “white slave ring,” Skevemki never made it into the newspaper coverage of the trial at all. Stewart, part of the defense’s case, did make it into newspaper coverage of the trial, and the Examiner alluded that Stewart, was a prostitute when, it quoted Stewart as saying “women of her profession, had worked for several years trader an apparently well-controlled vice syndicate.”’0 3 In the case of Doris Shores, a young woman, who testified that she had worked in. houses of prostitution, in several, different cities in collusion with Tim Tullis, newspapers went so far as to contradict Shores’ testimony. Shores gave no indication that Tullis (or Montgomery or Barrett) had pressured her to prostitute herself. Instead, she told the courtroom, that she had married Barrett at a tourist camp 1 0 2 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1101, Los Angeks Examiner, 1 August 1,940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 352 between Yuma, Arizona, and Los Angeles, so that she could be tree from her mother’s control.1 0 4 The Examiner, however, in summarizing that day’s testimony, simply lumped Shores with Mandiola, reporting they had said “they were persuaded by Montgomery to practice illegal activities in. San Bernardino rooming houses, turning over to him most of the proceeds.” The Examiner also did .not mention that Shores had told the court that she slept with Tullis on a regular basis nor that her father testified that she had lived in a house of prostitution with her mother before moving into an apartment house that rented to both whites and Filipinos. On one occasion, the Examiner did hint that the young woman involved in the prostitution ring may not have been entirely naive upon, entry. Joan Farrell, who newspapers claimed “posed as the wife of Charles Montgomery,”to s admitted during the trial that she had worked as a prostitute prior to 1939, but otherwise remained quiet, standing on her constitution rights to protect herself Previous to the trial, however, Farrell spoke to the Examiner, which quoted her saying, “‘Any girl who goes into this racket enters it with her eyes wide open. There aren’t any white slaves. No girl is held against her will. There is no house of prostitution in the United States from which a girl can’t walk out any time she feels like i t ’”M S The Examiner labeled Farrell’s comments “a cynical discourse.”1 0 7 As someone who claimed to be an innocent victim of overpowering villains but proved, to be a powerful agent in her own. right, Brenda Allen Burns captures the 1 0 4 'Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 374. 1 0 4 Lay Angeks Examiner, 24 April 1940. m Los Angeks Fxamimr, I May 1940. 1 0 7 Los Angeks Examiner, 1 May 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 353 difficulty historians (and others) encounter when trying to discern instances of agency from victimisation. From the time the stony of the “white slave ring” broke. Burns acted as central character, claiming to have connections both to Montgomery and his associates as well as to Ann Forrester. The Examiner reported that Bums told deputy sheriffs and federal agents that Montgomery “had assigned her to a house of ill-fame in San Bernardino, where she worked for two weeks,” and then sent her to Forrester at her “headquarters at 444 South Spring Street.” Forrester then, assigned her to “a spot on. South Union avenue” where she was working when arrested.1 0 * According to the Examiner, Burns described her enslavement by Montgomery as “psychological bondage” since he and Barrett refrained from outright threats of death but “kept implying something terrible would happen” if she chose to double-cross them.1 0 9 Bums maintained that she was an. innocent victim of Barrett and Montgomery throughout the trial as well. Bums told the courtroom a story resembling the one Sara Matthews had told the Sheriff's Department, .recounting that the night she met Barrett at a taxi-dan.ce hall where she was working, they ended up at Ms apartment on Avalon Avenue. Burns claimed that she too fought with Barrett for three or four hours before he finally overpowered, and. raped her."0 Afterwards, she said, Tullis and Montgomery forced her to go to a house of prostitution in San. Bernardino.1 1 1 1 0 * Los Angeks Examiner, 25 April 1940. 1 W Los Angeks Examiner, 26 April 1940, 1 1 0 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 622. 1 ,1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 626. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 354 After a couple of weeks In San Bernardino, Burns testified, Montgomery arranged for her to work for Forrester."'1 A number of witnesses contradicted Bums’ testimony. Barrett, for example, told the court that the sex between him and Burns was consensual, and that she initiated the discussion about making more money through prostitution,'1 3 Montgomery also contended that the sex between Barrett and Burns had been consensual, and that he hat! not arranged for Bums to work for Forrester.”4 Montgomery also testified that after Bums returned to Los Angeles from San Bernardino, she bragged about how much money she had made there as the “top girl” o f the house, meaning she had been the top money-making prostitute there.1 1 5 The proprietor of the “rooming house” in San Bernardino at which Burns had worked also denied 'that Bums had been there against her will, identifying Bums “as a young woman who came to her home about three weeks ago voluntarily and asked to be ‘put up,’”1 1 * Both Barrett and another witness, Donna Stewart, alleged that Bums had alluded to working as a prostitute before coming to Los Angeles. Barrett said that Bums had told him. that on her trip from. Texas to California, she had made a great deal of money selling magazines. The defense lawyer then, asked, “Isn't it a fact she told you she had made her money in. the magazine racket by having intercourse with 1 ,2 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 648. ,u Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 232-3, 1 1 4 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1412,1435. 1 1 3 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1497. m Los Angeks Examiner, 26 April 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 355 men for money?” To which Barrett replied, “She didn't say it just that way. She said a lot girls that worked on magazine crews were prostitution girls.”m Stewart claimed that Bums had told her she had: been working down in Texas in a house of prostitution for two years, and that while working there a girl down there gave her the number o f444 South Spring Street, and. told her when, she came out here to call that number up. So later on she decided to come out here with another girl, and her boy friend; but she said that they didn't have very much money at the time, so on the way across the country they stopped and worked their way by taking calls in hotels.1 1 8 Was Brenda Allen Bums a “white slave”? According to her own testimony, she fit the profile. She had been induced by Charles Montgoi.n.er>' and Tim Tullis to work in a house of prostitution after having been raped by Bristol Barrett. It is interesting to note, however,, that in the initial stories about the arrests of Montgomery, Barrett, and Forrester, Brenda Allen Bums reportedly was detained by police allegedly for posing as the wife of Barrett.1 1 9 Two days later, Brenda Alien Bums finally told police she had been “held practically as a chattel by a white slavery ring.”1 2 0 Also, despite claiming to be weak and powerless in her testimony, Bums .manages to convey a degree of vanity, haughtiness, and pride at odds with the image in newspaper accounts and in. her testimony. When asked, for example, how Montgomery had. persuaded. Forrester to employ her, Bums relates only a selected, portion of the con.ve.rsa.tion. Of the portion, she repeats, she mentions Montgomery’s ,n Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1683. 1 1 8 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 1538. 1 1 9 I m Angeks Examiner, 23 April 1940; Los Angeles Times, 23 April 1940. m Los Angeks Times, 26 April 1940. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 356 description of her as a "lovely” and the "top girl” in San, Bernardino.1 2 1 In addition, when describing her work as a prostitute in San Bernardino, Bums singled herself out from the other prostitutes there, claiming she did not have to beckon to potential clients from the windows or doorways.1 2 2 Despite trying to appear as fragile and helpless, Brenda Allen Bums does not quite succeed. Her story, however, proved convincing enough for police officers as well as the judge, who never held her accountable for her admitted acts of prostitution,. The inaccuracy of the term "white slave” as applied to Brenda Allen Bums becomes even more evident in light of her connection to another prostitution case which appeared in newspapers in 1948. In that year, police arrested a woman named Marie Mitchell in Hollywood for attempted pandering. According to newspapers, the woman ran a brothel out of a house located at 8436 Harold Way for individuals well-known in, film, radio, sports, and business. Marie Mitchell was also (and better) known as Brenda Allen,1 2 3 Although it cannot be established for certain that this Brenda Allen, was the same Brenda Allen, (Bums) who testified against Charles Montgomery and Ann Forrester, a convincing number of sources argue that this was the case. Charles Stoker, the arresting officer in case, for example, claimed that “Brenda [Allen], at the time of Anne’s [Forrester’s] downfall in 1939, was working for the latter as one of the girls in a prostitution menage.”1 2 4 In addition, the newspapers reported that Brenda Allen had a . long arrest record in Los Angeles, 1 2 1 Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 648. m Reporter’s Transcript, California v. Montgomery and Forrester, 792, 1 2 4 Las Angeles Examiner, 13 May 1948. m Stoker, Thicker'n Thieves, 3. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 357 beginning in . 1939. The Los Angeles Examiner stated that police had been arrested in . Los Angeles a total of sixteen times for “resorting, offering, vagrancy dissolute and soliciting.” Newspapers also established that she had been arrested, in the cities of San. Bernardino, San Diego, and Bakersfield.1 2 * Pictures published of Brenda Allen in 1940 in connection with, the Forrester and Montgomery story as well in 1948 also suggest that Marie Mitchell and Brenda Allen were the same woman.1 ® Marie Mitchell/Brenda Allen, however, denied she was the woman who had testified against Charles Montgomery and Ann Forrester. A note card in, the Los Angeles Examiner files read: “The Allen woman, has complained that she resents implications that she ever testified as a state’s witness in a vice case.”1 2 7 In addition, at the sentencing of Brenda, Alien (Marie Mitchell) in 1.948, the judge in the case connected Allen’s failure to testify with. an. effort to protect her “very fine family,” particularly “relatives or other persons who hold, some position of prominence in this country.”1 ® The judge’s .mysterious comments about Brenda Allen’s connections to people of prominence might be explained by the scandal that broke the following year after her relationship with LAPD vice squad Sergeant E. V. Jackson was exposed. m Los Angeks Examiner, 9 June 1948. m Los Angeks Examiner, 23 April 1940; Los Angeks Examiner, 1 May 1940; Los Angeles Examiner, 20 July 1948; Los Angeks Examiner, 22 July 1948; Los Angeks Examiner, 8 September 1950, w See file of Brenda .Alien Bums in the Hearst Collection, USC Regional History Center. 1 2 8 Reporter’s Transcript, filed 7 December 1948, California v. Marie Mitchell, alias* Brenda Allen, District Court of Appeal, 2n d District Court, California State Archives, 285. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 358 Conclusion The trial of Charles Montgomery and Ann Forrester suggests a number of conclusions about the intersection of race and prostitution, the structure of the criminal syndicate in Los Angeles, and issues of empowerment and victimization, in the lives of prostitutes. The cooperation of Charles Montgomery, Bristol Barrett, and Tim . Tullis—men of varying racial and ethnic backgrounds—indicates that, despite racist efforts of segregation with racially restrictive housing deeds and unfair hiring practices, an interracial world existed with prostitution forming one its central arteries. The testimony of Ann Forrester shows that in spite of a major upheaval in the city’s political structure which reformers equated with the eradication of vice from the city, the Syndicate’s power—although altered™remained strong. In addition, Ann Forrester’s testimony provides insight into the inner workings of the Syndicate, particularly the role of women like herself who occupied a tenuous position o f power which yielded mixed results. For a time, Forrester reaped the benefits of her position in the Syndicate, enjoying a large income and police protection. Ultimately, Forrester’s position in the Syndicate also made her vulnerable to arrest and incarceration, while those in power above her remained untouched. Finally, newspaper portrayals of the young women involved in the case as “white slaves” as contrasted with testimony in the trial which yielded a more complicated picture of the young women as possessing agency as well as vulnerability provides insight into the ways in which 1930s American society perceived interracial sex as so “obscene” as to be a taboo subject even for R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. sociological inquiry. In addition, the young women's adoption of the term “white slavery” to explain away their involvement in prostitution attests to the cunmng and agency of these young women. By claiming passivity and a lack of agency in the decision to prostitute themselves, these women ultimately did what Ann Forrester could not—escape prosecution and incarceration R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. Conclusion 360 A new hierarchy in the structure of prostitution evolved in. the 1920s and 1930s as the business became dominated by men. The criminal syndicate of Los Angeles controlled the bulk of the city’s prostitution as it did the city’s other illicit industries including the bootlegging trade during Prohibition as well as gambling in the 1920s and 1930s. Although madams running upscale parlor houses continued to represent the top end of prostitution as contrasted to the streetwalker turning tricks in alleys or cars, even such madams existed in. a sort of middle management position within the Syndicate. Such, positions still yielded the women occupying them the financial benefits they had sought from the prostitution business. These women ultimately, however, were more vulnerable to the risks of prostitution as a result of their relationship with the Syndicate. As the Syndicate changed leadership and its system of operations, for example, women, like Lee Francis, Ann. Forrester, and others, not only faced arrest but ended up serving jail time while higher-ups in the Syndicate remained unpunished despite their larger role in prostitution in the city. Because of its control of the city's vice industries, the Syndicate exerted a profound influence on the shape of prostitution in the city in the 1920s and 1930s. The Syndicate proved the leader in many trends in prostitution, including its move out of a segregated reel light district adjacent to the city's central business district and its subsequent infiltration of residential neighborhoods throughout the city. The move into residential neighborhoods necessitated that prostitution be of a more R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 361 clandestine nature, and the Syndicate also proved innovative in this respect, operating discreetly out of many apartment houses and hotels where prostitutes shared spaces with “respectable” citizens, The Syndicate's role in, the city's prostitution industry led. reformers to equate the presence of prostitution in. Los Angeles to the Syndicate's payoff system with corrupt city officials. While reformers correctly guessed at the scope of the city officials' corruption, as well as the Syndicate’ s involvement in prostitution and managed to create huge upheavals in the Syndicate's prostitution business with, the recall campaign of Mayor Shaw in 1938, the reformers failed to eradicate prostitution from Los Angeles' landscape. Instead, the Syndicate adapted its business practices-moving its base of operations from, the city to the county, and independent prostitution entrepreneurs, unnoticed or ignored by reformers, continued their business as before. Men within, the Syndicate shaped prostitution in Los Angeles, but men. also played a central role in other developments in prostitution in the city as well. As in . Chicago and New York, prostitution in Los Angeles not only moved into white residential neighborhoods but also into Japanese, Mexican, and black communities. Particularly in the Japanese neighborhood of Little Tokyo and In the black neighborhood of Central Avenue, powerful, men from the community aided in the spread of prostitution that caused many of the neighborhood’s residents chagrin and dismay. Some men had affiliations with the Syndicate, but otfaers—suefe as the mm affiliated with the Tokyo Club or individuals like George Brown and Baron. Lawson—frad made independent deals with corrupt city officials which consisted of R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 362 payoffs to police officers in exchange for protection of prostitutes from police harassment Less powerful but more numerous were the men who acted as pimps and brought prostitutes into the neighborhood. Black musicians at taxi-dance halls, for example, found black clients for white taxi-dancers who moonlighted as prostitutes. The activities of these musicians points to another change in prostitution: its interracial character. The arrest and trial o f Charles Montgomery in 1940 exposed an elaborate system o f prostitution by which black and white men worked together to find young women of varying racial, and ethnic backgrounds willing to prostitute themselves under the supervision of both white and black women with a variety of men including whites, blacks, and Filipinos. While Montgomery's operation represented an extremely intricate instance of interracial cooperation and exchange, interracial/interethnic prostitution had by the 1930s become common. Despite the frequency of interracial/interethnic sex occurring between prostitutes and their clients, however, such relationships seemed unthinkable to the larger society. Newspapers, for example, eagerly labeled young white women having sex with men. of color as “white slaves” in order to preserve the misconception that sex between white women and men of color was still so outside the boundaries of respectability that no young woman would willingly choose to engage in such a relationship. While prostitution, in 19.20s and 1.930s Los Angeles became dominated by men and more interracial and interethnic in . character, young white women working as prostitutes in the city were crucial, elements in. the social discourse regarding changing conceptions of women’s sexual, agency. On the one hand, Victorian. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 363 'perceptions of women as sexually passive and morally superior persisted. Within this perspective, young women, who worked as prostitutes were deemed “white slaves” which suggested that they had not entered the profession of their own free will but through the compulsion of sinister men or women, Those who adhered to this view o f prostitution managed to preserve prevailing nineteenth century notions of women despite evidence to the contrary. Writers, reformers, and others of this mindset, for example expressed tremendous anxiety about the large numbers of young women flocking to Hollywood who they believed to be sexual innocents vulnerable to sexual predators seeking to turn them into prostitutes when their film aspirations failed to result in lucrative careers. At the same time, however, there was a growing awareness of women’s sexual autonomy as sociologists, journalists, and others came into contact with supposedly sexually innocent, vulnerable women, only to find them self-sufficient and sexually savvy. Authors of Hollywood novels tended to portray women, in this light, and by the 1930s Los Angeles newspapers had also appeared more willing to recognize the sexual, autonomy of women, except in cases of prostitution involving interracial or interethnic sex. The discourse over female sexual autonomy becomes even more complicated when considered from, the point of view of the prostitutes who were at the center of the debate. The readiness of the larger society to perceive prostitutes as white slaves resulted in a phenomenon, by which prostitutes could claim to be sexual victims both in. order to achieve a measure of respectability as well, as escape prosecution for their crim.es. Paradoxically, these women exercised agency by adopting the role of the R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 364 victim. This strategy worked well for prostitutes who worked for madams or pimps since prostitutes could easily cast their employers as sexual predators. The success of such tactics in the face of contradictory testimony from, madams, investigators, as well as other prostitutes suggests a longing on the part of the larger society to hold onto a kind of innocence about the changes occurring in the culture. Sixteen-year- old girls did choose to become prostitutes, and prostitutes willingly had sex with men of color. This reality seemed impossible to Los Angeles society in the 1920s and 1930s, and the young women involved in such activities used the shortcomings of their society’s imagination to shield themselves and simultaneously carve out a safer space in which to operate, Meanwhile, the prostitutes subject to the worst working conditions and most harm—women of color working at the lowest end of the prostitution hierarchy—elicited little concern from the larger society. In this dissertation I have discussed what I see as the prominent trends for prostitution in Los Angeles in the 1920s and 1930s. Did prostitution follow similar patterns in other cities for this time period? Did these trends continue in the 1940s and beyond? How did prostitution change in Los Angeles or elsewhere in America in subsequent decades? Although more comprehensive research is necessary to answer such questions, my preliminary research on Los Angeles indicates that at least this city (and presumably other cities as well) would provide plenty o f venues R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 365 for further exploration, with regard to the development of prostitution in the twentieth century— ~a much neglected topic in the history of gender and sexuality.’ 1 There are exceptions, of course, notably Beth Bailey and David Farber, The First Strange Place: The Alchemy o f Race and Sex in World War II Hawaii (New York; The Free Press, 1992). Chapter 3 provides a fascinating perspective on prostitute’s efforts to operate during WWI1. R eproduced with perm ission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. References 366 Archival Material California State Archives. Reporter’s Transcript, filed 8 October 1928. California v. Albori. District Court of Appeal, 2 District Court. — . Reporter’s Transcript, filed 36 December 1946. California v. Montgomery and Forrester, District Court of Appeal, 2,k ! District Court. — Reporter’s Transcript, filed 7 December 1948. California v. Marie Mitchell, alias Brenda Allen. District Court of Appeal, 2n d District Court. California State University Northridge, Special Collections. Los Angeles Department of Health Collection. — ----- . Urban Archives Center. The Reverend Wendell L. Miller Collection, 1926- 1988. Urban. Archives Center. Young Women’s Christian Association of Los Angeles Collection. Los Angeles City Archives. City Council Files and City Ordinances. . Reports of Police Judges. Los Angeles Police Department Annual Reports. _ Social Service Commission Annual Reports. Los Angeles Police Department Historical Association. Los Angeles Police Department Annual Reports. Los Angeles Superior Court Archives. 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Monroy, Douglas. Thrown Among Strangers: The Making o f Mexican Culture in Frontier California, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990. Muir, Florabel. Headline Happy. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1950. Mumford, Kevin. Interzones: Black/White Sex Districts in New York and Chicago, 1880-1930. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997. Myrdai, Gunnar. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. 194,2, Reprint. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1962. Nadeau, Reiiit. Los Angeles: From Mission to Modem City. New York: Longmans, Green anti Co. 1960. Newmark, Hams. Sixty Years in Southern California, J853-19!3; Containing the Reminiscences o f Harris Newmark. 4th ed.» ed. Maurice H. Newmark and. Marco R. Newmark. Los Angeles: 'Dawson's Book Shop, 1984. Nodera, Isamu. “A Survey of the Vocational Activities of the Japanese in . the City of Los Angeles.’5 Master’s thesis, University of Southern California, 1936. OTTaherty, Liam. Hollywood Cemetery. 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Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 376 Simmons, Christina, ‘Modem Sexuality and. the Myth of Victorian. .Repression.” In Gender and American History Since 1890, edited by Barbara Melosli, 17*42, London: .Roiitledge, 1993. Sitton, Thomas Joseph. “Urban Politics and Reform in New Deal Los Angeles; The Recall, of Mayor Frank L. Shaw.” Ph.D. diss,, University of California Riverside, 1983. —, “John Randolph Haynes and the Left Wing of California Progressivism.” In California Progressivism Revisited, edited by William Deverell and Tom. Sitton, 15-33. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994. Slide, Anthony. The Hollywood Novel: A Critical Guide to Over 1200 'Works with Film-Related Themes or Characters, 1912 through 1994, Jefferson, North Carolina; McFarland & Company, Inc., 1995, Solinger, Rickie, The Abortionist: A Woman Against the Law. New York: The Free Press, 1994. Spenser, James. 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Further reproduction prohibited without perm ission. 378 Whitehall, Richard. “When the Mobsters Came West; Organized Crime in Los Angeles Since 1930.” In 2(9* Century Los Angeles: Power Promotion, and Social Conflict, edited by Norman M. Klein, and Martin J . Sciuesl. Claremont, €A: Regina Books, 1990. Williams, Dorothy Slade. “Ecology of Negro Communities in, Los Angeles County: 1940-1959.” Ph.D. diss. University o f Soutiiem California, 1961. Wilson, Harry Leon... Merton o f the Movies. Garden, City; Doubleday, Page & Company, 1923. Wolf, Marvin J., and Katherine Mader. Fatten Angels: Chronicles of LA. Crime and Mystery. New York: Facts On File Publications, 1.986. Woloch, Nancy. Women and the American Experience. 3d ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2000. Woods, Gerald. The Police in Los Angeles: Reform and Professionalization. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993. Woolston, Howard B. 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Asset Metadata

Creator Kooistra, AnneMarie (author)

Core Title Angels for sale: The history of prostitution in Los Angeles, 1880--1940

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

School Graduate School

Degree Doctor of Philosophy

Degree Program History

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag history, United States,OAI-PMH Harvest,sociology, criminology and penology

Language English

Advisor Banner, Lois W. (committee chair), Gustafson, Tim (committee member), Ross, Steven (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-487368

Unique identifier UC11340055

Identifier 3133298.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-487368 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 3133298.pdf

Dmrecord 487368

Document Type Dissertation

Rights Kooistra, AnneMarie

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA