Beer History Week is a celebration beginning with the Beer Culture Summit, continuing with daily programming from colleagues around the country, and concluding with Ales Through The Ages, presented by our friends at Colonial Williamsburg.
BEER HISTORY WEEK: DAY 6
We’re teaming up with our friends at Read & Run Chicago for an afternoon of running, beer, and book discussion! The afternoon includes a live virtual Q&A with author Karen Abbott.
HERE’S HOW IT WORKS:
Pre-Run: Grab a copy of Abbott’s Sin in the Second City and read it ahead of November 13th. Then get ready to jog a 3.5 mile route inspired by the book.
The Run: Meet at Dearborn & Cullerton. As you warm up, Chicago Brewseum Executive Director, Liz Garibay, provides a brief historic overview of vice life in Chicago during the late 19th century. Then Alison Yates, Founder of Read & Run Chicago, guides runners through grounds of the former South Loop vice district of the early 1900s. Along the pre-planned route, you’ll stop and learn about Chicago history and one of the country’s most infamous brothels, the Everleigh Club, and the dynamic women behind it.
Post-Run: We conclude at Half Sour, 755 S. Clark St., where we’ll grab brews and engage in a live virtual Q&A with author Karen Abbott.
$20 Ticket includes:
A great route and run.
A beer!
Virtual conversation with author, Karen Abbott.
Support of the Chicago Brewseum, a 501c3 non-proft organization.
SIN IN THE SECOND CITY
Operating in Chicago's notorious Levee district at the dawn of the 20th century, the Everleigh Club's proprietors, two aristocratic sisters named Minna and Ada Everleigh, welcomed moguls and actors, senators and athletes, foreign dignitaries, and literary icons, into their stately double mansion, where 30 stunning Everleigh "butterflies" awaited their arrival. Courtesans named Doll, Suzy Poon Tang, and Brick Top devoured raw meat, to the delight of Prince Henry of Prussia, and recited poetry for Theodore Dreiser. Whereas lesser madams pocketed most of a harlot's earnings, and kept a "whipper" on staff to mete out discipline, the Everleighs made sure their girls dined on gourmet food, were examined by an honest physician, and were even tutored in the literature of Balzac.
Not everyone appreciated the sisters' attempts to elevate the industry. Rival Levee madams hatched numerous schemes to ruin the Everleighs, including an attempt to frame them for the death of department-store heir Marshall Field, Jr. But the sisters' most daunting foes were the Progressive Era reformers, who sent the entire country into a frenzy with lurid tales of "white slavery" - the allegedly rampant practice of kidnapping young girls and forcing them into brothels. This furor shaped America's sexual culture and had repercussions all the way to the White House.
With a cast of characters that includes Jack Johnson, John Barrymore, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., William Howard Taft, "Hinky Dink" Kenna, and Al Capone, Sin in the Second City is Karen Abbott's colorful, nuanced portrait of the iconic Everleigh sisters, their world-famous club, and the perennial clash between our nation's hedonistic impulses and Puritanical roots. Culminating in a dramatic last stand between brothel keepers and crusading reformers, Sin in the Second City offers a vivid snapshot of America's journey from Victorian-era propriety to 20th-century modernity.