“I’m afraid we are in for the time of our lives.”
The 3-story mansions on South Dearborn Street contained 50 rooms. As the sisters made plans for their new business venture, they traveled all around Chicago in their black carriage. They med the competitions, they knew who and where the city’s wealthiest men lived and the name of their wives, and charmed politicians and ward bosses. They hired black porters that would open doors for the gentlemen who entered paradise. The kitchen staff was superior to anywhere in the city and served the best food in Chicago. The sisters created a theme for each room in their club. The Gold Room contained a custom-made gold piano, the Mirror Room contained 1000 mirrors, and the Red Room was filled with red sofas, wallpaper, and silk curtains.
Pleasure was the name of the game. Ada and Minna did not hire any widows or amateurs to work in their club. They wanted girls that were experienced, had a “pretty face and figure,” were in perfect health, and looked stunning in couture gowns. The “Butterflies,” as the harlots were called, were educated in sensuality, philosophy, and lady-like manners that would put the Queen of England to shame. Each evening Minna told her Butterflies that it was their job to “amuse the men in ways that they had never been amused before” and to be proud that they worked at the Everleigh Club.
Without fanfare or publicity, the Everleigh Club opened its doors on Thursday, 1 February 1900 at 8 pm. Minna stood at the door to ensure that the men who sought entrance could afford the $50 minimum required to go through the threshold. That first night, the Club cleared $1000 meaning each Butterfly could easily pocket $100 per week. A salary far above the $6-8 per week at a brothel down the street.
Progressive reformers fought hard to shut down the Levee District. For over a decade reformers had professed the horrors of the white slave trade where young women were kidnapped, drugged, raped, and forced into a life of prostitution where they would soon die from neglect and abuse. This was not how Ada and Minna operated, yet they had no choice but to shutter their club in October 1911 when the reformers had succeeded in shutting down the Levee. The sisters were ridiculed for their participation in the world’s oldest profession and left Chicago with the millions that they had made. Minna Everleigh died in New York in 1948 and her sister Ada died in Charlottesville in 1960.
Where did we find this stuff? Here are our sources:
Abbot, Karen. Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys and the Battle for America’s Soul. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2007.
Miller, Donald L. City of the Century: The Epic of Chicago and the Making of America. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 1996.