Twenty Tales by Twenty Women: From Real Life in Chicago
Lawrence J. Gutter
(, March 8, 2009)
This volume is a study on prostitution in Chicago in 1901 by Lawrence J. Gutter.Book Preface:"It may be weeds I've gathered, too; But even weeds may be as fragrant, With some sweet memory, As the fairest flower." Without apology this book goes forth. If it is productive of some good, it will have fulfilled its mission. In presenting this work it is with a feeling of restitution. If I have digressed from, or stormed the barricaded citadel of formal literature, I have done so without hesitation, simply complying with an obeisance to civility toward my fellow men. I have pictured life as a man of the world is sometimes forced to see it, and not altogether as angels would transcribe it. If the manner in which the subjects are hereinafter treated and woven into stories, meets the approval of the public, the work will have served to indicate the power and simplicity of truth. — The Author. "All truth is precious, if not divine, And what dilates the pow'rs must needs refineChapter Headings:A woman's anguish -- The diary of a Chicago girl -- The life story of a Southern widow -- A story of the Chicago ghetto -- A woman of thirty-eight -- A forecast -- A daughter of proud Kentucky -- My lover's bequest -- The victim of a drug -- What happened to a girl who flirted -- Sold at a fixed price -- A story of suicide bridge -- Two babes and two mothers -- Not guilty -- My lover's daughter -- As told to a clergyman -- A story of stage life -- A trip across the lake -- One woman's way -- A story of the levee -- A scientific phenomenonFrom the Introduction:"This book, unlike the Bible, is all written in Chicago. The twenty disciples come from twenty different places. They, endeavoring to lose their identity in the whirl of racy life and excitement, seek the phantom happiness in this great city. For a time all goes well. Gaiety and mirth mangle, and fortune conspires with pleasure to mislead the novice; then the scenes grow old; happiness eludes the grasp; tawdry garments no longer please the eye ; the tinsel tarnishes ; disappointed hope begets despair, and then a few grains of a friendly drug or the cold waves, of the lake offer rest and relief. The city becomes pregnant with these poor unfortunates, tortured by regret and shame, goaded down by necessity and the scorn of former friends. Then there is birth — this book is born. It goes out into the world to tell the naked truth for the good of mankind."