Good Times with Bad Girls

Like the Old South, the Wild West, and the general idea of “hippies,” Storyville, the fabled red-light district of New Orleans, has endured in legend far longer than it did on Earth. The fancy girls danced, among other things, in the notorious red-light district for only twenty years before being shut down in 1917—the United States was entering World War I and needed its navy to be free of distraction. Most of the structures of Storyville were demolished to make way for the Iberville Projects, themselves now gone, and only a few buildings and relics survive of the neighborhood that truly lived up to the old phrase, “the glamor of sin.” Among the most beguiling traces left of Storyville are the “blue books,” winking, swaggering guides to the “better establishments” of that neighborhood, which in many cases contained extensive lists of individual local prostitutes. 

Drawing on those held in The Historic New Orleans Collection and some in other hands, Senior Librarian and Rare Books Curator Pamela Arceneaux has written the first modern study of these naughty little texts: Guidebooks to Sin: The Blue Books of Storyville, New Orleans. 

The turn-of-the-last-century slang is by turns delightful and, ironically, impenetrable: “Now if you are in the A.B.C. class you want to get a move on yourself and ‘23’, and to do it proper is to read what this little booklet has to say and if you don’t get to be a 2 to 1 shot it aint the authors fault.” Instinctively, we know what this must mean; grammatically, it’s essentially hieroglyphics.

These blue books are strange little artifacts. They were not intended as lasting records of the culture of Storyville by any means, which is evident partly because they are, bluntly, not very well done from a production standpoint. Lulu White, one of the most fascinating, glamorous, and well-known of the Storyville madams, is referred to as “Lula” in a guide she herself probably commissioned, and another guide includes a typo in the address of one brothel, in spite of the paid ad for the same property elsewhere in the guide, with presumably correct address. 

They are also almost charmingly vague; with the exception of one relatively tame, often nicknamed act that is therefore easy to allude to in coded language, actual sexual acts are not mentioned.  (If a blue book describes a sexual activity or woman particularly lewdly, it is almost definitely a souvenir replica from the crasser 1960s.) The turn-of-the-last-century slang is by turns delightful and, ironically, impenetrable: “Now if you are in the A.B.C. class you want to get a move on yourself and ‘23’, and to do it proper is to read what this little booklet has to say and if you don’t get to be a 2 to 1 shot it aint the authors fault.” Instinctively, we know what this must mean; grammatically, it’s essentially hieroglyphics.

Instead of frank descriptions of you-know-what and you-can-guess-what-else, the writers use a sly, winking tone more reminiscent of middle school than of the artless debaucher: “I can’t say this, but you can sure imagine it!” This winking, nudging tone, along with the overall topic, was still sufficient to make it illegal to send a blue book though the mail—the Comstock laws still forbade mailing obscene material. Disappointingly, but practically, no prices are mentioned; a wise madam wasn’t going to pin herself to a price when negotiation might pay off, under the undoubtedly correct assumption that a man faced with a pretty, available girl will have less sales resistance than one flipping through a mildly salacious brochure in a hotel room. 

The value of these blue books to a casual reader or student of history is obvious: they’re a fascinating glimpse into a brassy, bawdy world. For historians, they record not only a particular reality, but a vision of reality: what did these potential clients, upper-class white men, want from vice? Mixed-race women were advertised, with the abovementioned Lulu White specializing in “octoroon” women in an establishment called “Mahogany Hall.” Jewish women, rumored to be especially insatiable, were marked with a “J”. Madams’ names were always set apart from those of the mere “girls”; even in a supposedly freewheeling context, race and class mattered.

Storyville clients had disposable income, and what they didn’t spend on lust, they might spend on Veuve Cliquot or, the next morning, ozone water.

Some of the fancier books contain photographs, both of the women themselves and of the interiors of the various houses. Storyville madams didn’t just sell sex, they sold a particular kind of sex—aspirational sex, high-roller sex. The surroundings, lavish, luxurious, and feminine, were part of the appeal. Underscoring this point, the blue books are full of ads; not just for the expected brothels, venereal disease treatments, liquors, and hangover cures, but for more prosaic concepts like interior decorators and, in one instance, meat. A few private detective agencies also had the foresight to take out ads, in the reasonable assumption that a man contemplating adultery might want to forestall any ideas his wife might have in that direction. Storyville clients had disposable income, and what they didn’t spend on lust, they might spend on Veuve Cliquot or, the next morning, ozone water.

As with many historical sources, what the blue books leave out serves as a valuable editorial comment. The inelegant, dirty “cribs” that catered to poor men, and occasionally even an integrated clientele, are not mentioned—addressing the seamy side ruins the illusion. The grim, more common story of a woman turning to prostitution because her body was her last available asset wasn’t fun or escapist, so, in the grand tradition of New Orleans, it was not discussed. The guides also don’t mention the smaller, adjacent neighborhood of “Black Storyville,” where both the prostitutes and their clients were African American. 

Arceneaux’s work should grace any open-minded person’s coffee table. Storyville served the role for New Orleans that New Orleans serves for Louisiana and the rest of the country: a place of sparkle, glamor, and license, where being bad didn’t just feel good, but looked and sounded good, and had in fact been raised into a form of sashaying, perfumed performance art. Buy a little trace of that libertine mystique for your own home—and be sure to leave it out, so you can see which of your guests are shocked. 

In conjunction with the book’s release, The Historic New Orleans Collection presents the exhibition Storyville: Madams and Music. Drawing both on the blue books and on other artifacts, the exhibit paints a broader picture of the people of Storyville, with special attention to the area’s role as the cradle of jazz: Jelly Roll Morton and King Oliver got their starts playing in Storyville saloons, and a contender for the first jazz record, “Livery Stable Blues,” came out in 1917, the year Storyville was disestablished. This free exhibit is an excellent complement to the book, and is on display through December 9 at THNOC’s Williams Research Center.

Whiskey and brothel advertisements found in a blue book dated 1906. Image courtesy of the Historic New Orleans Collection.