The Lancaster Vice Files
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.
A century ago Lancaster was known 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.
The Lancaster Vice Files
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 Although these titles hint at Eckert's proximity to gambling and commercial sex, the unpublished Vice Files reveal surprising details about Eckert's experiences in the underworld of vice.
Writer and Producer: M. Alison Kibler
Narrator: Dylan Sykes
Research Team: Jayden LaCoe, Kylie Loughney, Rachel Rubins, Dylan Sykes
Financial Support from the Center for Sustained Engagement with Lancaster at Franklin & Marshall College
Additional Support from LancasterHistory