High priced prostitution trade in turn-of-the-century Chicago

Melissa Lafsky of Freakonomics interviewed Karen Abbot, author of Sin in the Second City, about the "Everleigh sisters, two madams who ran a famously high-class brothel on South Dearborn Street that earned them extraordinary wealth and international fame."

Q: Could you describe the economics of the Everleigh brothel? What was the total income? Salaries for the Everleigh madams and their prostitutes? Food/decorating budget?

A: On a busy night, the Everleigh sisters could make as much as $5,000. They spent $18,000 per year in renovations alone, including the upkeep of a $15,000 gold piano and several $650 gilded spittoons. They allotted a budget of $2,000 to $5,000 a month for imported spirits. The sisters sold bottles of champagne for $12 in the parlors and $15 in the bedrooms, but never beer or liquor. They also paid about $800 a month in protection fees [to law enforcement officials].

The Everleigh Club “butterflies,” as they were called, pocketed from $100 to $400 each week—an unthinkable salary in other houses. “One $50 client is preferable to ten $5 ones,” Minna [Everleigh] advised her courtesans. “Less wear and tear.” A man had to pay $50 just to walk in the door, in an era when a three-course meal cost fifty cents. Dinner in the club’s Pullman Palace Buffet could cost another $150.

When the sisters retired, they had $1 million in cash, the equivalent of $20 million today.

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Reader comment:

Sarah says:

I enjoyed reading your post about Sin in the Second City. I wonder if your readers are familiar with the inflation calculator (with which I am not affiliated). It made the info even cooler when I figured out that $800 a month in protection was equivalent to more than $17,000 today...