Beyond Bourbon Street - An Insider's Guide To New Orleans

Guidebooks to Sin: the Blue Books of Storyville, New Orleans In 1897, New Orleans leaders created Storyville, the infamous red light district of New Orleans. For the next twenty years, Storyville was the legal center of prostitution in the Crescent City. The blue books were small guides that listed the 'finer' bordellos and even the individual prostitutes. The idea was likely cribbed from various other blue books which noted places and people of distinction. My guest this week is Pamela Arceneaux, an author, senior librarian, and rare books curator at the Historic New Orleans Collection. Pamela has written a wonderful book, called the Guidebooks to Sin: the Blue Books of Storyville. In this first of two episodes about the infamous New Orleans red light district, we discuss the creation of Storyville and the role of the blue books. We learn about the surprising contents and how they helped cement New Orleans’ reputation as an entertainment and tourist destination. We talk about the jazz and ragtime musicians w