Includes bibliographical references (pages 553-578).
Contents
Part one. The war begins, 1890-1891 -- Going respectable -- The Sodom of the South -- The first casualty -- Retribution -- Part two. Drawing boundaries, mid-1890s-1907 -- A sporting man -- New sounds -- Desperado -- Storyville rising -- Jazzmen -- The sin factory -- Part three. Battlegrounds of sin, 1907-1917 -- The black hand -- A reawakening -- An incident on Franklin Street -- Hard times -- The new prohibitionists -- Part four. Twilight of the demimonde, 1917-1920 -- Exodus -- A killer in the night -- "Almost as if he had wings" -- The Axman's jazz -- The end of an empire -- The soiled phoenix -- Afterword: Who was the Axman?
Summary
Empire of Sin is the remarkable story of New Orleans' thirty-year war against itself, pitting the city's elite "better half" against its powerful and long-entrenched underworld of vice, perversity, and crime. This early 20th-century battle centers on Tom Anderson, the czar of the city's Storyville vice district, who fights desperately to keep his empire intact as it faces onslaughts on all sides. Prostitutes, reformers, jazzmen, Mafiosi, politicians, and one serial killer all battle for primacy in the wild and wicked city unlike any other in the world.
