Adler, Polly (16 April 1900?–09 June 1962), prostitution madam and author, was born Pearl Adler in Yanow, Russia, the daughter of Morris Adler, a tailor, and Gertrude Koval (called “Isidore” and “Sarah” in her autobiography). Later in life Adler also used several aliases, including Joan Martin and Pearl Davis. When Adler was twelve, her family arranged for her to be tutored by the local rabbi in the hope that she would receive a scholarship to study at a Gymnasium in Pinsk. A year later, before learning the results of the scholarship competition, Adler’s father sent his daughter to live in the United States. Traveling alone, thirteen-year-old Adler arrived in New York in December 1913....
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Adler, Polly (16 April 1900?–09 June 1962), prostitution madam and author
Marilynn Wood Hill
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Everleigh, Ada (1876-1960), businesswomen
Leslie Tischauser
Everleigh, Ada (15 February 1876–03 January 1960), and Minna Everleigh (13 July 1878–16 September 1948), businesswomen, were born in rural Kentucky, the daughters of a prosperous lawyer whose last name was Lester. Their mother’s name is unknown. They received little education. The sisters married brothers in 1897, but both husbands proved to be violent brutes, and the sisters left them after less than a year. Ada and Minna left Kentucky in 1898 and settled in Omaha, Nebraska, where they worked as prostitutes during the Trans-Mississippi Exhibition and eventually invested in a brothel. The closing of the fair led to a shortage of customers, and the sisters decided to head for more lucrative surroundings. With money inherited from their father they traveled to Chicago and on 1 February 1900 opened the famous Everleigh Club in the heart of the city’s vice district, known as the Levee District. They had assumed the name Everleigh at some point and used it throughout their residence in Chicago. Within a year they employed thirty women and achieved a national reputation for providing entertainment for men. “Minna and Ada Everleigh are to pleasure what Christ was to Christianity,” a reporter wrote....
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Everleigh, Minna
See Everleigh, Ada
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Stanford, Sally (1903-1982), San Francisco madam, mayor of Sausalito, California, and restaurant owner
Lynn Downey
Stanford, Sally (05 May 1903–01 February 1982), San Francisco madam, mayor of Sausalito, California, and restaurant owner, was born Marcia Busby in Baker City, Oregon. (Some sources give her name at birth as Mabel Janice Busby, but in her autobiography she says Marcia is her given name.) Little is known of her parentage or early life, except that she grew up in poverty on an Oregon farm. Sally supplemented the family’s income by caddying at a local golf course and working as a waitress....
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Swearingen, Al (8 July 1845–15 Nov. 1904), saloon and brothel owner
Corey J. Murray
Swearingen, Al (8 July 1845–15 Nov. 1904), saloon and brothel owner, was born Ellis Alfred Swearingen in Oskaloosa, Iowa, the third of ten children (along with his twin brother Lemuel) born to Daniel Swearingen and Keziah Montgomery; his parents were farmers. Al spent his early years on the family homestead. His father served as county sheriff while tending the family farm. Later, Daniel worked as a grocer and ran a slaughterhouse. His earnings, combined with many successful real estate ventures, brought the family over $10,000; but when Al was twenty-three, his father abandoned the family, running off with his wife’s younger sister and inflicting wounds—both financial and emotional—that would never heal....
