Citadels of Sin : Vice Districts and the Birth of Chicago Organized Crime

Revealing Chicago's underworld before Al Capone Vice in Chicago did not begin—or end—with Al Capone. In this vividly written narrative, historian Richard C. Lindberg peels back the mythology of Prohibition-era gangsters to reveal a more entrenched, intricate and disturbing system of vice and corruption that took shape decades earlier. Long before the rise of organized crime syndicates, Chicago's political leaders in league with the criminal classes deliberately created and managed politically-protected segregated vice districts known in Chicago and in other cities as "Levees," that institutionalized prostitution, graft, and forced sex work in the name of preserving civic order by isolating the vice trade from the citizenry. Set against the backdrop of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Citadels of Sin situates Chicago within a nationwide experiment in regulating prostitution. Reformers, clergy, and municipal officials across the United States believed that confining vice to designated districts would protect respectable neighborhoods and commercial centers. More than fifty such districts emerged nationwide. Instead of curbing crime, however, the Levees became engines of corruption, enriching politicians, police, lawyers, and judges while normalizing exploitation and violence. Lindberg argues that these systems laid the groundwork for modern global human trafficking. Chicago, with its size and political complexity, supported three major Levees. On the West Side, poverty and endemic corruption devastated local communities. On the North Side, one vice district survived longest, eventually transforming into the fashionable Rush Street nightclub scene. The South Side levee proved most consequential of all, evolving into the organized crime network known as "the Outfit," whose influence continues to endure. Lindberg brings the levee era to life through sharp portraits and damning accountability. He exposes how media sensationalism glamorized vice while masking its human