Storyville, New Orleans
It was located by a train station, making it a popular destination for travelers throughout the city, and became a centralized attraction in the heart of New Orleans.
In the late 1890s, the New Orleans city government studied the legalized red light districts of northern German and Dutch ports and set up Storyville based on such models.
The Storyville blue-books were inscribed with the motto: "Order of the Garter: Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense (Shame on Him Who Thinks Evil of It)".
Establishments in Storyville ranged from cheap "cribs" to more expensive houses, up to a row of elegant mansions along Basin Street for well-heeled customers.
Blue Books were created for advertising the services of the sex workers of Storyville and included the names of working prostitutes in New Orleans.
They also included advertisements for national and local cigar makers, distillers, lawyers, restaurants, drugstores, and taxi companies.
[5] Storyville contained a large variety of brothels and parlors to satisfy the diverse tastes of visitors to New Orleans.
The interiors of the rooms of Mahogany Hall filled the ads in Blue Books and other advertising pamphlets of the period.
[7] Notably the Father of Storyville, Alderman Sidney Story, an American politician, wrote the legislation to set up the District, basing his proposals around other port cities that limited prostitution.
[1] Archived May 6, 2014, at the Wayback Machine Lulu White was one of the best known madams in Storyville, running and maintaining Mahogany Hall.
[3] Her clients were the most prominent and wealthiest men in Louisiana and she is remembered for her glamour and jewels "which were like the 'lights of the St. Louis Exposition' just as reported in her promotional booklet"[10] Prior to leaving New Orleans, White lost $150,000 in her investment schemes following the closure of Storyville.
The complexity that occurred during the development of Jazz music was filled with chaos, violence, and an intensity that left an unmistakable mark on Storyville New Orleans.
A course of sequences within different colonial control brought on by the French, Spanish, and Anglo-Americans, created a mixed musical atmosphere all over the city.
[11] This musical blending gave musicians from different backgrounds the opportunity to perform in the saloons, brothels, dance clubs, and cribs of Storyville.
[12] The syncopated beat is a particular feature also linked to African music traditions that provided an influence to musicians within Storyville.
The segregation slowly started to diminish, and sharing their common interest brought the races together in some informal musical ventures.
Performers such as Jelly Roll Morton, and Manuel Manetta played piano all times of the day and night, which was customary within these brothel houses.
The appeal of music and vice gave New Orleans favorable money-making conditions and opportunities to play on riverboats and tours.
The US Navy, driven by a reformist attitude at home, prohibited soldiers from frequenting prostitutes, based on public health.
I want them adequately armed and clothed by their government; but I want them to have an invisible armor to take with them... a moral and intellectual armor for their protection overseas.Aided by the campaigns of the American Social Hygiene Organization, and with army regulations that placed such institutes off limits, he implemented a national program to close so-called "segregated zones" close to Army training camps.
While much of the area contained old and decayed buildings, the old mansions along Basin Street, some of the finest structures in the city, were also levelled.
