Nelson Johnson - Boardwalk Empire - The Birth, High Times, and Corruption of Atlantic City

Resort merchants were upset with the coverage their town was receiving at the hands of the Bulletin . They worried it might scare away some of the family trade. Everyone knew the resort was a sanctuary for out-of-town whores, especially during the summer, but no one was comfortable reading about them. A few of the merchants panicked and suggested the brothels be closed temporarily until things calmed down.

Despite the uproar, level heads prevailed and business continued as usual amid reports that local police officers were confiscating the Bulletin from Boardwalk newsstands as quickly as the papers arrived. The Bulletin responded with more page one editorials demanding city government to wipe out public prostitution, close down the gambling dens, and shut off the illegal booze. The paper preached at Mayor Harry Hoffman and city council members, “Do you gentlemen realize that you are called upon in your official capacity to take some action in these cases that have been brought to your attention? Can you imagine that gambling houses and brothels will bring wealth and prosperity to your city?” But gambling houses and brothels did bring wealth and prosperity to his city, and the mayor knew something the newspaper’s editors did not: The coming of fall would fade the Bulletin ’s exposés and by next summer everything would return to normal.

While Atlantic City could survive without prostitution, it was an important part of the resort’s entertainment package and there was no way the whorehouses would be closed. The Bulletin could condemn the peddling of flesh if it wanted, but most of the “johns” were from Philadelphia and Atlantic City was giving them what they wanted. Located only 60 miles from Philadelphia, it was inevitable the resort would be drawn into that city’s orbit. Despite present-day myths of the old Atlantic City’s grandeur and elegance, Jonathan Pitney’s beach village had become to Philadelphia what Coney Island would be to New York—a seaside resort dedicated to providing a cheap, good time for the working man. Cape May could keep the rich—Atlantic City welcomed Philadelphia’s blue-collar workers who came to escape Quaker Philadelphia.

The City of Brotherly Love has never been known as a party town. Founded in 1681 as a religious experiment by William Penn, a wealthy Quaker from England, Philadelphia was envisioned as a place where Christians could live together in spiritual union. Penn dreamt of a city governed by the rules of a Friends Meeting. He was committed to liberating his new city from the divisive politics and religious wars of Europe and refused to set up a conventional government, relying instead on brotherly love. Penn’s vision never became reality, but the mix of Quakers, Anglicans, Presbyterians, and Baptists, drawn to his city by the policy of religious tolerance, produced a God-fearing population with strict standards of social morality. Honesty and success in business, together with a virtuous life centered on one’s church and family, were the ideals of Quaker Philadelphia.

Among no group was the principle of blood being thicker than water more faithfully observed than with the Quakers. Persecuted throughout Europe for their religious beliefs, the Quakers were dispersed around the world and could be found in most seaports with which Philadelphia had commercial relations. Quaker tradition required them to share information on pricing and availability of goods, and their merchants prospered. It’s little wonder that Philadelphia, which did not exist until a half-century after the founding of Boston, had become the leading city of the colonies by the time of the Revolutionary War. It was also the most successful seaport in the New World. The city’s prosperity was in large part based on the exchange of Pennsylvania farm products for finished goods from Europe. During the Colonial period, Philadelphia was famous for its merchants, shipbuilders, and seamen. It was a major port and played a pivotal role in England’s relationship with the American colonies. Following the Revolutionary War, Quaker money transformed Philadelphia into America’s first industrial city.

The first half of the 19th century saw Philadelphia turn away from the sea, directing its energies inland. By 1825 the City of Brotherly Love was reaping profits from the coal and iron of Northeastern Pennsylvania. Philadelphia merchants cornered the market on the transportation of coal and were the first to excel in iron manufacturing, gaining notoriety for heavy machinery and ornamental cast iron. However, iron and coal were only part of the economy; finished cotton and wool were also major products of the city. By 1857 Philadelphia had more textile factories than any other city in the world. There were more than 260 factories manufacturing cotton and woolen goods. Cheap coal provided ready steam, giving Philadelphia a decisive edge over other cities in supporting its textile and garment industry. During the American Civil War, it was Philadelphia’s textile factories that clothed the Union Army.

The period from the Civil War into the new century saw William Penn’s experiment grow to be an industrial giant. In 1860 the city’s population stood at 565,000; by 1900, it had reached 1.3 million. Turn-of-the-century Pennsylvania was America’s foundry, the center of heavy industry—coal, iron, and steel. New York was the melting pot and Chicago the city of broad shoulders, but Philadelphia is where the Industrial Revolution was won in the United States. The factory mode of production was first introduced to America before 1840 in the cotton mills of New England. After the Civil War, the factory system came to full bloom in Philadelphia. For nearly three generations, Philadelphia had the most diversified and extensive economy of any American city. Its workers produced warships for foreign powers and steam engines for railroad companies around the world. They built tractors and trucks, knitted sweaters and dresses, refined sugar, and manufactured countless other products for the booming American economy.

Philadelphia was home to a staggering number of manufacturers in the iron and steel industry. Its foundries produced one-third of the country’s manufactured iron, turning out everything from nuts, bolts, rivets, horseshoes, machine tools, and power hammers to cast iron building fronts, ship plates, locomotive turntables, elevators, ice cream freezers, and sewing machines. In addition, the textile and garment industry continued to rank first in the world. By 1904 more than a third of the city’s one-quarter million industrial workers were employed in textile plants, processing one-fifth of all wool consumed in the United States.

A flood of unskilled immigrants was absorbed into Philadelphia through the jobs created by the city’s factories. The work wasn’t always pleasant, and for many employees the adjustment to the industrial age was traumatic. Mass production of the factory system involved the division of labor into a series of simple, repetitive tasks. This process contrasted sharply with the traditional European craft mode of production in which a single worker produced the end product out of raw materials. Bound in service to machines from dawn to dusk, these unskilled workers were part of a system that had no regard for the Old World order of apprentice-journeyman-master. No longer could a worker attain rank and status according to his skill and experience. For most employees, factory work was degrading, having lost all hope of ever gaining independence through being the master of a craft. The new industrial world broadened the gap between rich and poor by emphasizing the role that capital played in the control of one’s life.

As Philadelphia grew into an industrial powerhouse many immigrants made their fortunes. But it took more than money to break into Philadelphia society. As one British traveler noted, “The exclusive feature of American society is no where brought broadly out as it is in the City of Philadelphia … it is, of course, readily discernible in Boston, New York, and Baltimore; but the line drawn in these places is not so distinctive or so difficult to transcend as it is in Philadelphia.” While William Penn’s vision of a Christian community never materialized, the religious beginnings produced a conservative and traditional town.