Madam: The Biography of Polly Adler, Icon of the Jazz Age

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer Applegate (The Most Famous Man in America) writes a highly readable and richly detailed piece of cultural history. All but forgotten today, Polly Adler (1900-62) was once the proprietor of Manhattan's most renowned bordello and an associate of some of America's best-known gamblers, racketeers, musicians, and celebrities. Using archival materials and sources available only in private collections, this biography appeals on many levels. It traces a unique kind of Horatio Alger story, that of an unschooled Jewish immigrant from Belarus who arrived in the United States alone and friendless in 1913, and who relied on her charisma, brains, and unfettered ambition to become nationally infamous as the "queen of the vice-ring." In addition to its detailed account of Adler's rise to fame and fortune and her encounters with colorful characters, Applegate's book offers fascinating descriptions of New York City history, immigrant and working-class life, organized crime syndicates, changing sexual mores, and cultural upheavals of the 1920s. Readers will learn how Adler came to count some of the most powerful men in the United States among her customers, and how she was ultimately brought down by Thomas Dewey and J. Edgar Hoover.