Houses of ill repute thrived in post–Civil War New York. The city’s population was exploding, and poverty bred a criminal underclass mostly ignored by the police.
That’s where Red Light Lizzie and Jane the Grabber come in.
These two madams led rival gangs of “grabbers” or procurers—recruiting young women new to the city with promises of a well-paying job.
Instead, the girls, many from wealthy backgrounds, were put to work in the hundreds of brothels all over the city.
(Above, what a refined young lady of the day looked like.)
Lizzie and Jane were real pros. They had business offices and even sent out monthly circulars to clients advertising the newest girls they’d procured.
But after so many girls from upper-class families disappeared into the city’s underworld, the public became outraged. This “grabber scandal” of 1875 resulted in Jane getting arrested.
It’s not clear what happened to Lizzie. Whether she went to prison or left New York in the wake of the scandal, surely another madam took her place.
Ephemeral New York 