Featured Map: Seventy five local communities in Chicago, distribution of Committee of Fifteen cases for 1930
By Cecilia Smith.
Seventy five local communities in Chicago, distribution of Committee of Fifteen cases for 1930
What is the item?
This is a map of “vice resorts” in Chicago, or places where prostitution took place during the year 1930. These areas were identified by the Chicago Committee of the Fifteen, which formed in 1908 to fight “vices” in the city. Major subjects of their investigations were pandering, prostitution, crime, homosexual sex, and interracial relationships.
The locations are overlaid on the 75 community areas that existed at the time. It was originally published in Walter Reckless’ Vice in Chicago (1933). The map and historical information presented here include materials reflecting the attitudes, language, and stereotypes of an earlier time period. These materials are presented as historical resources in support of study and research. Inclusion of such materials does not constitute an endorsement of their content by the BTAA Geoportal or the University of Chicago.
Seventy five local communities in Chicago, distribution of Committee of Fifteen cases for 1930
What BTAA Library submitted the item?
University of Chicago
Interesting tidbits:
Walter Reckless used this map in defense of reformers and law enforcement, whose actions people feared would encourage houses of prostitution to move into “good neighborhoods.” Referring to a comparison of cases in 1912 to the 1930 map, Reckless was confident that citizens should not be concerned, because the so-called “vice resorts” had moved only to neighborhoods of “declining respectability.”
Reformers were often business leaders, tying the social movement to municipal reform.
While there were 75 community areas in Chicago in 1930, there are now 77.