Storyville: The New Orleans Red Light District

Prostitution Precinct

The name Storeyville had nothing to do with the telling of tales, although the area generated more than its fair share of saucy yarns.

A thirty-eight-block area of the city was set aside for the establishment of brothels and the like through the well-intentioned, but misguided, efforts of the Alderman Sidney Story.

New Orleans Ordinance 13032

At the close of the 19th century, New Orleans was a lively place, and, like most port cities, it had a thriving sex trade. City politicians decided to move all the prostitutes into a single area to protect “pure women and innocent girls from contamination.”

Alderman Story also believed the move would increase property tax revenue in an area that previously had been a mostly Black and low-income neighbourhood. There was also the claim that regulating the trade would protect the prostitutes from violence and persecution.

Sally Asher (myneworleans.com) tells us that “Story’s purposes, however benevolent, had the exact opposite effect due to greedy landlords, violent underworld figures, and spectacularly corrupt police and city officials.”

“Jackal Landlordism” was the phrase used to describe the activities of property owners who increased rents by a factor of ten or more as the lucrative sex trade moved in.

Prominent among these greedy people was a man called Ike Herman, known as the Miser King of the Tenderloin. He was an immigrant from Russia who owned more than 24 properties.

The Storyville Trade

Some of the brothels were housed in mansions where the tariff for services could go as high as $10 ($365 in today's money). For the less well-heeled there were shacks, known as cribs, in which a quickie could be had for fifty cents.

Helpfully, there was a publication called The Blue Book (0.25 cents) that listed the characteristics of the working women. The clients could pick and choose among Black, white, Spanish, French, Jewish, octoroon (one-eighth Black), and many other types. Some brothels were entirely white, others entirely Black. However, Black men were banned from all of them.

Within the pages could be found women operating under pseudonyms such as “Cold Bloodied Carrie” and “Big Bull Cora.” Each giving a hint of what experience the client might expect to have.

Distasteful words such as “whore” were not to be found in The Blue Book; the women were described as “entertainers,” which, of course, they were.

In the more up-market establishments they performed as singers and dancers in addition to their bedroom activities.

Madams would promote the availability of virgins within their bordellos, no doubt demanding a very high price for such a girl. It is likely there was as much truth in advertising then as there is today—that is to say very little.

Lulu White and Mahogany Hall

There were several notable madams in Storyville but Lulu White's name stands out.

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Mahogany Hall was a four-story house on Basin Street. It was owned by Lulu White, a mixed-race woman who passed for white. It cost $40,000 to build, about $1.5 million in today's value.

Businessmen with very deep pockets were clients of Lulu's when she was a “working girl” and it's likely they bankrolled the construction of Mahogany Hall.

The furnishings were opulent with Tiffany stained glass, potted ferns, and elegant chandeliers. The property had 15 bedrooms, each with its own bathroom, and employed 40 women at any given time.

Most of the rooms were themed and one was panelled entirely in mirrors to satisfy the tastes of a particular kind of gentleman. For those looking for something foreign and exotic there were the Arabian Nights and Congo rooms.

White “was known in the area as the 'Queen of Storyville' and was considered one of the wealthiest businesswomen of her time. She was also well-known for her stylish outfits, her flamboyant lifestyle, and her generous charitable donations. She was also known for her beautiful women and luxurious parties” (Black Women in History).

Also called “The Diamond Queen of the Demi-Monde,” White was born in Selma, Alabama in 1868, but she took care to muddy up the rest of her background.

For clients not occupied by the main business of the house, there were five lounges in which to relax, drink, and listen to music. It was here that pianist Jelly Roll Morton got his start.

He would later write, “It is evidently known, beyond contradiction, that New Orleans is the cradle of jazz, and I myself happened to be the creator in the year 1902 ... ” A claim that is open to challenges.

Another jazz great, Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, grew up in Storyville. Here he takes the lead in a rendition of Mahogany Hall Stomp, a piece written by Lulu's nephew, Spencer Williams.

Closing Storyville

The original idea for Storyville was that it was tucked away from the city centre, but then, a new railway line was built. “In 1908, the train terminal at Canal and Basin Streets, one block from Storyville, was completed. To reach the station, trains travelled past the Basin Street bordellos, where the (often naked) prostitutes waved to the passengers from balconies” (Encyclopedia of Louisiana).

Upstanding citizens (probably some of them customers) howled in indignation and a campaign to shut down Storyville began.

Lulu White and other madams fought back but World War I intervened. Storyville was less than five miles from a navy training base and Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels decreed that young men going off to fight must focus on their mission and not be distracted by what were known as “lewd women.”

The commander of the American Expeditionary Force, General John Pershing, spelled out the orders:

“Sexual continence is the plain duty of members of the AEF, both for the vigorous conduct of the war, and for the clean health of the American people after the war.”

So, at midnight on November 12, 1917, Storyville was shuttered and the district went into decline.

Of course, the closing of Storyville did not stop prostitution. Actions such as this never have.

Bonus Factoids

• New Orleans police were poorly paid so they supplemented their incomes by operating a protection racket in which they demanded fees from prostitutes. In 1893 a trial was held for several cops who had arrested 21 hookers who refused to pay bribes. At the trial, a hundred gaudily dressed women, displaying ample cleavage, arrived to testify in support of their sisters. A handful of madams sat in the front row of the gallery sipping champagne. The police commissioners sided with the prostitutes and the police officers were fired.
• There are conflicting stories about what happened to Lulu White after the clean-up of Storyville cost her her livelihood. There is evidence she ran a saloon that got her into trouble during Prohibition that led to a prison sentence. It's also said she appealed to President Woodrow Wilson for a pardon and received one, on the grounds of ill health.
• Prostitution is only legal in the United States in licensed brothels in Nevada.
• Ernest Bellocq was a photographer who took pictures of many of Storyville's women. His images inspired books, poetry, and the 1978 movie Pretty Baby, that starred 12-year-old Brook Shields.

Sources

• “Last Days Of Storyville.” Sally Asher, New Orleans Magazine, October 2017.
• “Storyville.” ekoptev, Atlas Obscura, February 7, 2013.
• “The Women of Storyville.” wostoryville.wordpress.com, undated.
• “Lulu White: The Black Owner of New Orleans’s Most Notorious Brothel, Mahogany Hall.” Guy Polat, Black Women In History, USA, December 13, 2022.
• “Storyville, (1897-1917).” Emily Landau, Encyclopedia of Louisiana, January 27, 2014.
• “No Sex, Please, We're American.” Fred D. Baldwin, The History Channel Club, June 26, 2009.

This content is accurate and true to the best of the author’s knowledge and is not meant to substitute for formal and individualized advice from a qualified professional.

© 2023 Rupert Taylor