Sex and Our City, Part 5: How racism shaped commercial sex in early 1900s Lancaster [column]

The history of commercial sex is tied to patterns of racial discrimination in the United States.

In some cities in the United States, red-light districts were isolated in Black neighborhoods in the early 20th century. In larger cities, such as Baltimore, vice districts were deliberately established in these segregated neighborhoods.

Black leaders spoke out against how the vice districts in their neighborhoods brought the most disreputable whites to their streets. They understood that the close proximity to vice harmed their reputations. Margaret Murray Washington, an educator and the wife of fellow educator Booker T. Washington, called on Black Americans to "resist the very common practice of establishing the district of ... vice near residency districts of colored (sic) citizens."

Let's consider whether Lancaster followed this pattern in the early 1900s, when commercial sex was widely visible and available , usually supported or ignored by police.

The dispersal of vice

In Lancaster in the early 1900s, commercial sex was not contained in a single red-light district . It was in all-white neighborhoods; it was in the racially integrated neighborhoods, particularly on West Mifflin and South Water streets; and it was in Lancaster's small Chinatown. It was in the German social clubs.

Yet, the dispersal of commercial sex does not mean that racial hierarchies did not shape the conditions and consequences of vice. Racial discrimination in employment and housing pushed some racial minorities and immigrant groups into vice. And, at the same time, commercial sex (also known as the "sporting world") was more racially open than other Lancaster pastimes. In other words, "dives" were linked with disreputable owners, whose reputations were shaped by racial stigma, and with the then-suspect practice of interracial mixing.

The cheapest brothels in Lancaster were concentrated in the city's poorest areas, which were usually the neighborhoods with more Black residents. The southern half of Lancaster city was poorer than the northern half; the 4th and 7th wards had the highest percentages of Black residents (2.7% and 6%, respectively, in the 1920 census).

Black Lancaster residents faced housing discrimination, which meant that most Black citizens were concentrated in the city's Southeast. They faced limited employment options and discrimination in public facilities. Lancaster businesses — restaurants, hotels and theaters — also sometimes refused service to Black residents. For example, in 1918, a waiter told the Rev. Dr. F.T.M. Webster, the pastor of Lancaster's esteemed Black church, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal, to take his meal to go. Webster replied that the only way he was taking his meal out was in his stomach. The waiter still refused to serve him in the restaurant because his boss told him not to serve any Black people. Decades later, in the 1960s, civil rights activists challenged the segregation of swimming pools, employment and housing in Lancaster.

Lancaster's largest red-light district ran along Water Street, from Lemon Street to Mifflin Street. This was not a monolithic neighborhood. South of King Street, the area became more impoverished.

In 1913, white investigators from a national organization called the American Vigilance Association (shortly thereafter renamed the American Social Hygiene Association) — which was dedicated to eliminating commercial sex in cities across the country — were brought to Lancaster by local anti-vice campaigners.

The undercover investigators visited West Mifflin Street, where Black sex workers, gamblers and drinkers congregated. The houses in these areas were in disrepair; the transactions were often public spectacles; and the prostitutes catered to working-class customers. In contrast, accounts of white brothels in more affluent areas of the city emphasized domestic comforts, fashionable decorations and privacy.

Brothel-keepers of the more expensive houses looked down on the houses located to the south of theirs. Lillie Grant, the white madam of a bawdy house on North Water Street, complained to an undercover investigator that there were "entirely too many houses (of prostitution) in Lancaster," and she had a particular desire to see houses run by Black people on West Mifflin Street cleared out.

This concentration of run-down brothels on West Mifflin was in the 4th Ward, which had some of the lowest quality housing in the city occupied by a mix of poor, immigrant, Black and white residents. This neighborhood also included coal yards, a tannery and the Conestoga Cotton Mills, which employed a large number of women.

Commercial sex in this area wasn't just cheaper than in more affluent areas, it was also racially mixed. In 1918, at a North Street house a few blocks from West Mifflin (but in the 7th Ward, not the 4th Ward), police found 14 men and women in the house, including "white boys from Downingtown." The Black woman who ran the house, Jennie Taylor, was sentenced to nine months in jail.

In 1913, anti-vice investigator Jules Simon noted the racial integration and the poverty of a brothel on the 200 block of West Mifflin, and observed that as brothels became cheaper, white men could not be assured that they would be preferred customers. The poor whites (identified by investigators as "hard working class") who came to these houses would not have held privileged positions.

Lancaster's Chinatown

Racially integrated vice was also a feature of Lancaster's very small Chinatown.

In 1908, a Chinese, or "chop suey," restaurant opened at 240 N. Queen St. It later moved to the corner of North Queen and Chestnut streets. Both locations were close to a laundry owned by Chinese immigrants and the train station across the street. The chop suey restaurant, known for its inexpensive and nutritious food, was open all night and served Black and white customers. It frequently made the news when unruly customers were loud, drunk and combative. Newspaper reporters noted that the owner had trouble controlling the "drunks." Prostitutes also congregated here late at night, sometimes taking a break from work.

In 1909, a young white woman from a prominent family was strangled to death in New York City. Elsie Sigel had been working as a missionary among Chinese immigrants. This crime made front-page news and fueled sensationalistic stories of white female victimization in plays, novels and the press. It also inflamed anti-Asian prejudice. Some states and cities considered bans on white women's employment in, and patronage of, Chinese establishments. These sentiments likely increased the police surveillance of Lancaster's chop suey restaurant. In 1911, city authorities ordered the restaurant closed because the owners "were unable to control the customers who came there."

It was not uncommon for police to crack down on venues that allowed racial mixing, while leaving segregated establishments alone. The restaurant reopened later, but in a new location and with a new owner. Police later charged that owner with running a bawdy house — renting out rooms in the attached lodging house for commercial sex.

Chinese immigrants' involvement with commercial sex and gambling was tied to the discrimination they faced. Anti-Chinese nativism fueled the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which severely restricted Chinese immigration. In addition, Chinese immigrants were barred from many jobs and faced other legal restrictions, including a ban against testifying in court against whites; this made them more vulnerable to white violence. These restrictions on the lives of Chinese Americans help explain why they worked in restaurants and laundries to earn a living and why some proprietors in Chinatowns across the nation turned to gambling and commercial sex to augment their incomes.

Vice provided opportunities in the face of racial discrimination. And dives such as cheap brothels were often spaces of racial integration. The racial openness of vice, in turn, often drew harsh attention from law enforcement. In these ways, race shaped constructions of vice — and virtue.

M. Alison Kibler is a professor at Franklin & Marshall College. You can book a Lancaster Vice Historic Walking Tour, listen to the "Lancaster Vice Files" podcast and read the blog at lancastervice.com . You can reach Kibler at .

Lancaster Vice is an occasional column that digs into the history of prostitution and other sordid commercial enterprises in Lancaster city in the early 20th century and examines what that history tells us about social change, political power, crime and economic disparities in that period.