“For A Good Reason”

Private surveillance of prostitution in progressive era chicago

by abbie reese

In 1913, Claudia Woods was indicted by a grand jury in Chicago on federal charges of White Slavery Trafficking. She had paid Belle Young’s train fare from Minnesota to Chicago, the government claimed, to work as a prostitute. Claudia soon faced another charge—tampering with a witness. Claudia purportedly offered Belle $300 to leave Chicago and not testify. Claudia had wealthy friends. When her bail was raised from $1,000 to $5,000, an undertaker and a real estate broker posted her bond. Her 1915 trial on white trafficking ended with a jury finding Claudia not guilty. The government soon dropped the other charge against Claudia. Federal indictments often mentioned a defendant’s race; nothing was noted about Claudia. As informative as federal court records are, in offering insights on Mann Act charges and outcomes, Claudia’s voice cannot be heard. There are no transcripts of her testimony.

Her voice can be heard, however, “speaking back” in a unique trove of primary sources—a collection of 11,444 pages of reports written by privately funded investigators. A group of private citizens formed Chicago’s Committee of Fifteen in 1908; their work helped force the city to shut down the red light district. The organization had targeted their energies on eliminating pandering but a study they funded pinpointed the underlying issue: Gendered disparity in urban wages compelled women to work as prostitutes. Concern for social and economic oppression derailed, however, as “scatteration” took place and brothels emerged outside the Levee District. The Committee of Fifteen began an almost two-decade operation, hiring investigators full-time to conduct undercover surveillance in a profiling and entrapment scheme. Dispatched throughout the city with petty cash, the men looked for suspected prostitutes, then wrote about their interactions with “inmates” and their “keepers.” The stings were sanctioned by the mayor and the reports were turned over to police; the reports provoked raids, arrests, and charges in District Court and Morals Court. 

July 23, 1915: Daniel H. Jackson, an undertaker, and George F. Ecton, a real estate broker, posted Claudia’s bond. They valued their total worth at $44,000.
July 28, 1915: The trial began in the Chicago Federal Building.
July 30, 1915: Twelve white, male jurors found Claudia not guilty of violating the White Slave Traffic Act.
Aug 24, 1916: The other charge, of tampering with a witness, was dropped.

In the early 20th century, wealthy philanthropists and capitalists set the public law enforcement agenda, specifically through investigations into women suspected of working as prostitutes. Henry P. Crowell (owner of Quaker Oats) was an early backer of the Committee of Fifteen. Julius Rosenwald (part owner of Sears Roebuck and Co.) also backed the program. Crowell and Rosenwald matched one another’s donations from the outset of the Committee of Fifteen through the 1920s. Crowell, an evangelical, and Rosenwald, the son of Jewish immigrants, shared a vision for a “clean” Chicago. Other donors included Harold Swift (of the Union Stock Yards) and the wife of Cyrus McCormick. The superintendent of the Committee of Fifteen sought financial support from John D. Rockefeller Jr., who funded a similar task force in New York. Rockefeller declined, although he sought information on Chicago’s innovative methods tamping down on “vice.” Rockefeller hired staff from the Committee of Fifteen. 

The investigators created a unique historical and literary genre of writing. The men performed the role of potential client: they paid informants—hotel clerks, bartenders, servers, and elevator operators; they gave money to women that they claimed solicited them for sex; they drafted pseudo-ethnographic narratives in which they documented conversations and detailed physical descriptions—heights, weights, race, and garb. 

The authors’ prose reports are simultaneously social science record, speculative fiction, detective story, and victim impact statement. In most of the narratives, the investigator-authors depicted women holding the power. Meanwhile, the men positioned themselves as charitable. Because they received reimbursements for money they spent on the job, the investigators noted their daily expenses, including the number, type, and price of alcoholic beverages they ordered and drank while conducting reconnaissance. They also jotted reasons why they gave women money.

Claudia Woods crossed paths with Committee of Fifteen investigators. Like many of the Committee of Fifteen’s subjects of surveillance, Claudia emerged first as welcoming and then as a skeptical, fierce adversary. Claudia went by an alias—Estella. Committee of Fifteen investigators also knew her by her legal name. Investigator M, who I have identified as Harvey Devereaux (a South African immigrant), met Claudia in 1916. He wrote a vague narrative identifying her residence as a “house of ill fame” and Claudia as “the keeper.” Harvey did not describe Claudia’s appearance. Claudia told him she was expecting “two girls in at any moment.” He wrote that he purchased drinks from Claudia and then left “with an invitation to return.”

Another investigator documented the next encounter, almost a year later. Investigator V, who I’ve identified as Harry W. Nichols, wrote that he and Investigator R (the Committee of Fifteen’s chief of staff) went to Claudia’s new residence. Investigator R (William F. Goldhirsh) recognized “Estella” as “Claudie Woods.” Harry wrote a physical description of Claudia: “a colored woman…about 40 years old, 5’7” tall and about 175 pounds with coffee colored skin.” Claudia recognized Investigator R. She asked him to take off his hat; he did. Although the men saw two white women in the house, Harry wrote: “Claudie said there were no girls here and she let us in because she thought we wanted to see a Cadillac automobile.” She asked who sent them. They said “O.K. Dan,” who they met at a cigar store; they showed his car and she kept it. The two men left.

Six months later, Harry Nichols’ brother-in-law, Investigator X, who I’ve identified as a first-generation American, George O. Hadick, visited Claudia Woods at the same address. He also described Claudia’s appearance. George estimated Claudia was “5 foot four; weight about 180 pounds.” Claudia accused him of being an informant for deputy superintendent of police, M.L.C. Funkhouser: “After Estella went through a formality with me or in other words, the third-degree, searching me from head to foot, accusing me of being a Funkhouser man, federal officer, and D – – – Committee of 15 men, she then introduced me to a girl by the name of Marie (white).” Estella “urged” Hadick to go to bed with Marie for an hour. She told George that the Committee of Fifteen had “outed her” from a residence and “implicated her with the federal government and…she was not afraid for any of them.” Presumably, the Committee of Fifteen was behind those earlier federal charges.

Claudia appears in subsequent Committee of Fifteen investigations. While she was characterized Claudia in terms of contemporary novels, in the trope of the irredeemable businesswoman, she continues to speak back in Municipal Court cases and newspaper articles.

[This is the start of a story…[