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
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 the streets downtown, where theaters, cafes and dance halls offered enticing respite from the drudgery of work. What do the secret Vice Files tell us about this young working woman?
Writer and Producer: M. Alison Kibler
Narrator: Rachel Rubins
Research Team: Jayden LaCoe, Kylie Loughney, Rachel Rubins, Dylan Sykes
Geneological research by Hope Glidden
Financial Support from the Center for Sustained Engagement with Lancaster at Franklin & Marshall College
Additional Support from LancasterHistory