Spectacular Wickedness

From 1897 to 1917 the red-light district of Storyville hosted a diverse cast of characters who reflected the cultural milieu and complex social structure of turn-of-the-century New Orleans. Emily Epstein Landau examines the social history of this famed district by looking at prostitution through the lens of patriarchy.

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From 1897 to 1917 the red-light district of Storyville, located just outside of the French Quarter, hosted a diverse cast of characters who reflected the cultural milieu and complex social structure of turn-of-the-century New Orleans, a city infamous for both prostitution and interracial intimacy. In Spectacular Wickedness, Emily Epstein Landau examines the social history of this famed district by looking at prostitution through the lens of patriarchy and demonstrates how gendered racial ideologies proved crucial to the remaking of southern society in the aftermath of the Civil War. In doing so, she reveals that Storyville's salacious and eccentric subculture played an important role in the formation of New Orleans's identity in the New South era.