Have you ever heard of Polly Adler? The best madam in the world? We hadn’t either until we recently stumbled upon the new release by Debby Parker titled “Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age.” The title immediately had us and sent us into a frenzy of learning more about this woman. Come on, icon of the jazz age? How could we not? Let’s dive into the life and times of Madam Polly Adeler.
During the prohibition, Polly owned and ran a notorious bordello in New York City, and even publicly made it her goal to become the best madam in all of America. Let’s throw it back a few years first though because we aren’t fabricating a bit when we say that this woman’s life was interesting from the start.
(image via: literary hub)
Holly Adler’s father thought it would be wise to send her to American, Holyoke, Massachusetts to be exact, first to get a feel for this new place, feeling confident that the rest of her family would follow. When Adler first arrived she faced a lot of sexual exploitation and soon came to be very street savvy. Adler began attending school to learn English, while also doing housework to make some extra income. But WWI led Adler to lose communication with her family as well as a large portion of her income from him as well. At this time Adler was forced to move in with her cousins in Brooklyn while continuing her education as well as working in a corset factory making roughly $5/per week. At 17 Polly was raped and later had an abortion that her family did not support; and because of a very heated argument, Polly moved out and to manhattan to support herself by continuing to pick up factory work.
In 1920 Polly’s entire life changed without her even knowing at the time when she met a bootlegger named Tony. Now Tony had an interesting proposition: he would pay rent in an apartment that Polly was to live in so that he and his married friend he was having an affair with could meet. This arrangement quickly turned into Polly “finding” women for Tony, among other men, and making $100/week doing so. From there, Polly unsuccessfully ran a lingerie shop, then revisited the reality of prostitution, and after this, a number of moves, each apartment grander than the next eventually landing at the Majestic, which held many secrets in the form of secret rooms and hiding stairways.
And sure, Adler was running a full-fledged brothel at this point, but she didn’t shy away from taking certain girls under her wing and encouraging them to read books and learning table manners. In the early 1930s, Adler found herself caught up in some legal issues, and after being arrested some sixteen times, she eventually served (24) days of her (30) day sentence. See? An interesting life, indeed! Before her death in 1962, Adler accomplished something she had always wanted to do: finish high school.
