The Lancaster Vice Files Podcast
Each episode opens the secret files of anti-vice investigators to piece together the portrait of a person from the hidden history of prostitution, gambling, and drinking
in Lancaster, Pennsylvania around 1900.
At this time Lancaster was infamous as a “wide open” city for prostitution, gambling, drinking because city officials encouraged and participated in vice. An undercover investigation of vice in 1913 left behind extensive records documenting the personalities and politics of Lancaster’s underground economy. Using these files, this podcast unearths the surprising
variety of people who struggled and sometimes succeeded in vice.
One background note: we recognize that the investigators’ records include
their particular slant on vice and we try to contextualize their assessments.
We recommend starting with the Kennedy Eckert episode.
Otherwise, there is no particular sequence to the Vice Files.
Episode 04
Barbara Foreman, Charity Girl
Barbara Foreman worked as a tobacco wrapper in the city in the early 1900s. She was part of a growing number of wage-earning women who traveled…
Listen Now
Episode 03
Jennie Taylor, Proprietor of Disorderly Houses
The local newspapers of Lancaster, Pennsylvania wrote often about Jennie Taylor, the daughter of a formerly enslaved man. She made the papers…
Listen Now
Episode 02
Amanda Breneman, Notorious Madam
Police arrested Amanda Breneman when they raided her brothel in 1914. In this case, unlike most other cases of women arrested for keeping "bawdy"…
Listen Now
Episode 01
Kennedy Eckert, Young Sport
Kennedy Eckert was a bell boy and a local billiards champion in Lancaster. Although these titles hint at Eckert's proximity to gambling and commercial…
Listen Now