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Notoriously Bad Character: The True Story of Lou Graham and the Immigrants and Sex Workers Who Built Seattle
Lou Graham was the kind of woman that would have made great TV. She was mysterious enough to draw interest, but flashy enough to give the people what they wanted. She was a woman who made untold amounts of wealth—it’s hard to say how much, but it was a lot—when she was alive, and, as a result, she was at least somewhat chummy with police chiefs, lawmakers, and local business owners. She was known for footing the bill, whether it be for new sidewalks or the legal fees of down-on-their-luck women. She took in children and employed immigrants. She, herself, was an immigrant.
This not a conventional biography — instead, it is a look at Lou Graham within the greater context of Seattle, and Seattle within the greater context of Lou Graham. It is an attempt to find the truth of a young woman in a young city in a young nation filled with people who spent the majority of their time surviving, not documenting. It is a book about immigration, sex work, the critical nature of documentation, and the ways that people once reinvented themselves time and time again.
This not a conventional biography — instead, it is a look at Lou Graham within the greater context of Seattle, and Seattle within the greater context of Lou Graham. It is an attempt to find the truth of a young woman in a young city in a young nation filled with people who spent the majority of their time surviving, not documenting. It is a book about immigration, sex work, the critical nature of documentation, and the ways that people once reinvented themselves time and time again.
331 pages, Paperback
Published May 23, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 1, 2024
Some people make history but are mostly left out of it. That's the issue with Lou Graham, the most notorious 'madame' of early Seattle.
And that's the problem. The reason nobody has ever before written a biography about Graham, despite her well known reputation and salacious possible story lines, is that there just isn't much information about her.
Olsen has an extensive bibliography of sources, and cites them throughout the book to bolster the facts she delivers, but she still has to resort to a lot of speculation because we simply don't know.
What's known is tantalizing: An immigrant from Germany (although it's likely few people, or none, in Seattle knew this), she was able to stand up the most lavish bordello in early Seattle. Unlike the 'cribs' near the waterfront, her establishment featured live music, good liquor, and sumptuous furnishings (as inventoried after her sudden and unexpected death at age 42). Her place was the one that the bankers and lawyers visited, if they visited at all (as evidenced by an interview with 90-year-old banker Joshua Green).
Since there is so little known about Graham, the author fills in the book with a lot of history about early Seattle and the practice of prostitution. While Graham operated an illegal enterprise, she survived by paying graft, making important friends, and bankrolling the city coffers through the regular payment of 'fines', often for not having a liquor license. This background information is the real value of the book, as early Seattle as seen through the lens of vice is different than the standard histories.
The most intriguing thing about Graham is that while she was very wealthy, she bought lots of property and may have laundered her money by making loans to businessmen who rebuilt Seattle after the great fire. The banker Jacob Furth had surprising amounts of capital to lend after the fire, and there was a known relationship between Graham and Furth. It may have been Graham's money that Furth used. It's also been documented that if Furth could not justify a loan to his board of directors but knew the man was trustworthy, he would send a note with the man to Lou Graham, who would make the loan at probably high interest rates.
So Graham may have had the same problems with laundering money that a crime lord has. She was, of course, a sort of crime lord, albeit a crime that was consensual.
I would like to rate this book higher since I admire the grit in doing the research to produce it, but there's just not enough known about Graham to call this a decent biography. The author fills in the book with color about the red light district, as I mentioned. She also spends time discussing what happened to various people after Graham's death, often people who were only tangentially connected. Also, while the book is self-published and should be evaluated as such, there are still a surprising number of typos, incorrect words, and sentence fragments that should have been caught in a reasonable editing process.
Still, the research done for this book dispels some of the myths about Lou Graham, and fills in some of the gaps about her activity and finances. It should take its place as an adjunct to more standard histories of Seattle.
Also, I can't help but feel that there's just enough known about Lou Graham to build a framework of a story, but there's plenty that's not known to justify a spicy and well-crafted historical novel. Anybody out there want to give it a try?
And that's the problem. The reason nobody has ever before written a biography about Graham, despite her well known reputation and salacious possible story lines, is that there just isn't much information about her.
Olsen has an extensive bibliography of sources, and cites them throughout the book to bolster the facts she delivers, but she still has to resort to a lot of speculation because we simply don't know.
What's known is tantalizing: An immigrant from Germany (although it's likely few people, or none, in Seattle knew this), she was able to stand up the most lavish bordello in early Seattle. Unlike the 'cribs' near the waterfront, her establishment featured live music, good liquor, and sumptuous furnishings (as inventoried after her sudden and unexpected death at age 42). Her place was the one that the bankers and lawyers visited, if they visited at all (as evidenced by an interview with 90-year-old banker Joshua Green).
Since there is so little known about Graham, the author fills in the book with a lot of history about early Seattle and the practice of prostitution. While Graham operated an illegal enterprise, she survived by paying graft, making important friends, and bankrolling the city coffers through the regular payment of 'fines', often for not having a liquor license. This background information is the real value of the book, as early Seattle as seen through the lens of vice is different than the standard histories.
The most intriguing thing about Graham is that while she was very wealthy, she bought lots of property and may have laundered her money by making loans to businessmen who rebuilt Seattle after the great fire. The banker Jacob Furth had surprising amounts of capital to lend after the fire, and there was a known relationship between Graham and Furth. It may have been Graham's money that Furth used. It's also been documented that if Furth could not justify a loan to his board of directors but knew the man was trustworthy, he would send a note with the man to Lou Graham, who would make the loan at probably high interest rates.
So Graham may have had the same problems with laundering money that a crime lord has. She was, of course, a sort of crime lord, albeit a crime that was consensual.
I would like to rate this book higher since I admire the grit in doing the research to produce it, but there's just not enough known about Graham to call this a decent biography. The author fills in the book with color about the red light district, as I mentioned. She also spends time discussing what happened to various people after Graham's death, often people who were only tangentially connected. Also, while the book is self-published and should be evaluated as such, there are still a surprising number of typos, incorrect words, and sentence fragments that should have been caught in a reasonable editing process.
Still, the research done for this book dispels some of the myths about Lou Graham, and fills in some of the gaps about her activity and finances. It should take its place as an adjunct to more standard histories of Seattle.
Also, I can't help but feel that there's just enough known about Lou Graham to build a framework of a story, but there's plenty that's not known to justify a spicy and well-crafted historical novel. Anybody out there want to give it a try?
January 25, 2025
This book was a really good about the history of Seattle and its relationship with prostitution. I read the book to get a better understanding of Madame Lou, the namesake of a club in Seattle. I got a lot more out of the book that I expected.
Seattle, like a lot of major cities, has a complicated relationship with the sex work field. It recently passed a new ordinance called SOAP (Stay out of Prostitution) zone to battle the crime in a particular area of the city. The book points out these ordinances are not new to Seattle.
Madame Lou Graham was a madam and a wealthy one who helped all kinds of people in Seattle. The book follows her and the work she did for the city.
I recommended this book to a particular group I belong to since the topic would be some interest to members of the group.
Seattle, like a lot of major cities, has a complicated relationship with the sex work field. It recently passed a new ordinance called SOAP (Stay out of Prostitution) zone to battle the crime in a particular area of the city. The book points out these ordinances are not new to Seattle.
Madame Lou Graham was a madam and a wealthy one who helped all kinds of people in Seattle. The book follows her and the work she did for the city.
I recommended this book to a particular group I belong to since the topic would be some interest to members of the group.
July 21, 2024
I have read many many accounts of madams and their employees and it is continually frustrating that the records are sparse. Brooks Olsen has done a wonderful job trying to sift through the sparse records and set some of the story of Lou Graham straight. While we all would love to know how she made her way from Germany, how her English was so impeccable, why she didn’t leave a will, these are all left to the imagination. I do apologize I had the buy the book in print for my collection but it has many typos so I take that as penance.
June 22, 2024
This author meticulously documents the important women who founded and made Seattle and the NW what is today. Lou Graham, Emma Taylor, Nellie Delmas, the Mercer Girls, and so many others haven’t had their history properly documented or told and Brooks Olsen dives deep in their delicious and impactful tales. Lou Graham - the madam in Seattle - an eccentric and savvy businesswoman would make an excellent television character- diamonds and all!
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews