"Madam": How the oldest profession entered the Jazz Age
CBSN
During the Roaring '20s, F. Scott Fitzgerald said, the word "jazz" went from first meaning sex, to then dancing, and then music. You could get all three at New York madam Polly Adler's, where sex, dancing and music was also the order of priorities for her patrons.
Adler is the subject of "Madam," by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Debby Applegate – a biography that is also a story of America bursting into the modern age, with new roles for women, new rules for couples, and parties that flowed into rooms down the hall.
Adler arrived from Russia at age 13, and got her American start in a sweatshop, factories that were, Applegate said, "usually rather dark places. And one of the things she quickly realizes is, she has no control over the rest of her life. But she has control over her free time. So, she starts going to the dance halls."
