The tragically true stories of these women inspired Fahn and Gracie. Together they represent a lost generation of women who endured unspeakable hardships.
Someone braver than me should kick over that particular rock and write a novel about this darker side, the one explored in the play Broken Blossoms, or the powerful Japanese film Sandakan No. 8.
I’m afraid my heart’s not up to the task.
Instead, I went down the velveteen-rabbit hole of Seattle’s Garment District, where the confluence of an early suffrage movement and the lifestyles of high-paid sophisticates created a river of new possibilities.
Seattle’s red-light district was a gray area of morality and economics, as elite companionship was somewhat acceptable, while a four-hundred-room crib joint built by Mayor Hiram Gill and his chief of police, Charles “Wappy” Wappenstein, was not.
Or as the great Western philosophers Cheap Trick once sang, “Surrender, but don’t give yourself away.”
These are the murky waters where Dame Florence Nettleton came to life, loosely based on the notorious Seattle madam Lou Graham, who, for decades, occupied a special rung on the ladders of business and governance.
I had a vague understanding of the red-light district, mainly from taking a tour of the Seattle Underground—a network of old tunnels and basements—and hearing stories about Seattle’s most famous madam.
I’d later read how Madam Lou, known as the “Queen of the Lava Beds,” had created “a discreet establishment for the silk-top-hat-and-frock-coat set to indulge in good drink, lively political discussions, and, upstairs, ribald pleasures—all free to government representatives.”
Madam Lou, along with her “housekeeper,” Amber, held court in a lavish brothel in the heart of Seattle’s Pioneer Square. They also had a daughter, Ulna, who was left behind when her guardians moved to San Francisco. When Madam Lou died a month later of a mysterious ailment (rumored to be an occupational disease), the absence of a will meant that Amber got nothing, and Ulna ended up in a convent. Meanwhile, Lou’s entire fortune, estimated at $200,000—roughly $5 million today—was donated to the King County school system.
You’re welcome, kids.
That’s the legend, and the stories about Madam Lou tend to focus on her wealth, her connections to banks, and her propriety—if you will—in that she supported the continued education of the women who worked for her.
But in general, the stories were all about Madam Lou.
What I hadn’t explored were the social conventions that might lead a woman (or young girl) into the employ of a place like the Tenderloin, or the Tangerine, beyond the stereotypes of addiction, abuse, or mental illness, which are often exaggerated for effect as much as the tall tales of Madam Lou’s vast financial empire.
In reading The Story of Yamada Waka: From Prostitute to Feminist Pioneer, and also Twice Sold, Twice Ransomed, the autobiography of Mrs. L. P. Ray (a former slave who ministered to the homeless in Seattle), it’s clear that there’s no definitive answer. But instead a rogue’s gallery of societal pressures that contributed in varying proportions to the difficulty of simply being born without a Y chromosome in the early twentieth century—abject poverty, lack of education, an appalling age of consent (as low as ten years old), religious condemnation, tribal shaming toward unmarried women who dared to (gasp) be sexually active, illegality of information pertaining to birth control, vicious wage gaps.
Oh, and racism.
While Madam Lou made a killing in the stock market, the Japanese and Chinese cribs often worked their girls, literally, to death—and local police looked the other way.
But beyond the peculiar and glamorous world of Madam Lou Graham and the red-light district was a revelation and a question. Why did frontier cities in the West have the most successful suffrage campaigns while also being hotbeds for vice?
It’s a challenging, mind-bending question.
While you’re thinking about that, I should mention that I once had a job interview in the Washington Court Building, the brick establishment built by Madam Lou and the physical blueprint for the Tenderloin.
It’s a nice place, but it could really use a piano.
Finally, there’s the metaphorical moon-rock of the Century 21 Expo, which featured the likes of Elvis, Bobby Kennedy, Ray Bradbury, Rod Serling, and John Glenn.
Both fairs heralded a new economic age: the Gold Rush in 1909 and the Jet Age in 1962. Both showcased the latest technology of their times, from dirigibles and aeroplanes, to satellites and cosmonauts. Both events attracted politicians (Taft, Nixon), celebrities (Buffalo Bill, John Wayne), foreign delegations and visitors from around the world. Both were sources of national pride, and each served as a coming-out party for a humble city tucked away in the great northwest.
But the AYP was starkly different in that there was an undeniable aspect of exploitation that boggles the mind by today’s standards. The AYP sensationalized humans—Igorrote villagers—whose attire drew the ire of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU asked Reverend Mark Matthews, a Presbyterian minister known for his moral crusades, to look into the matter. The concern was not that there were fifty villagers being exploited for their strange ethnicity, but that their loincloths might be inauthentic, designed for titillation.
There were exhibits of Siberians, Flathead Indians, Arabian women—not showcased to celebrate their cultures as much as to gawk at their otherness. Plus there were Eskimo children on display and, of course, the raffling off of a boy named Ernest.
By comparison, the Century 21 Expo gave away poodles, and even that was met with harsh criticism.
Though the Century 21 Expo was not without its own strange wrinkle—an institutionalized sexism that would make Don Draper twitch.
At Seattle’s second showcase to the world, the demonstrators at the National Science Pavilion were all women, were required to have a certain look, and included five Seafair princesses and a former Miss Alaska. They were given a quick course in biology to provide them with enough information to answer questions from guests. The Library of the Future exhibit sent out a call for the sexiest librarians. (Hey, Batgirl was a librarian.) And the elevator operators at the Space Needle were all female, required to be at least five feet six inches, Junoesque in proportion, and possess “the kind of personality that typified Seattle girls.”
While AYP organizers worried about the city’s red-light district and banned alcohol, the Century 21 Expo allowed libations to flow freely, and a bottle of Jim Beam in the shape of the Space Needle was quite popular.
But the most surprising difference was Show Street, the topless corner of Seattle’s second world’s fair, where fairgoers could rent Polaroid cameras to snap photos of showgirls in various stages of undress.
In this adults-only section of the fair, a charismatic promoter, Gracie Hansen, created attractions that would make Madam Lou proud. I guess the more things change, the more things stay the same, and the more young women are expected to wear green body paint and pose in bikinis.
I doubt Madam Flora would have approved.
Speaking of the Century 21 Expo, I often wonder if the real Ernest ever visited, and what he must have thought. Did he reconcile this glimpse of the future with his own humble past? Did he even know he was once a prize? And did anyone claim him?
These questions remain unanswered.
The real Ernest, as of the publication of this book, would be a centenarian, so it’s doubtful that he’s reading this. But perhaps someone knew him. And if they do, I hope they’ll contact me.
I’m on Twitter: @jamieford.
In the meantime, I’ll be here in my office, staring at a blank screen, contemplating my next book, turning over more rocks and waiting for my muse. As much as I’d like to be visited by Erato, the muse of romantic poetry, it’ll more likely just be Clio, the muse of history. And we’ll do this dance all over again.
Though a part of me still holds out hope for Olivia. Roller skates and all.