Wicked Philadelphia

Sin in the City of Brotherly Love

Thomas H. Keels

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2010
• Print ISBN:
  9781596297876
• eBook ISBN:
  9781614231059
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Historian Thomas Keels tells many ribald stories in his book, "Wicked Philadelphia: Sin in the City of Brotherly Love," including various methods of body snatching and murder.--Marty Moss-Coane, WHYY-FM Prim and proper Philadelphia has been rocked by the clash between excessive vice and social virtue since its citizens burned the city's biggest brothel in 1800. With tales of grave robbers in South Philadelphia and harlots in Franklin Square, Wicked Philadelphia reveals the shocking underbelly of the City of Brotherly Love. In one notorious scam, a washerwoman masqueraded as the fictional Spanish countess Anita de Bettencourt for two decades, bilking millions from victims and even fooling the government of Spain. From the 1843 media frenzy that ensued after an aristocrat abducted a young girl to a churchyard transformed into a brothel (complete with a carousel), local author Thomas H. Keels unearths Philadelphia's most scintillating scandals and corrupt characters in this rollicking history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• A Note on Geography
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Oh! It’s a Lovely War!
• Brotherly Love and Sisterly Affection
• The Victorians Called It “Seduction”
• “Is There No Law to Hang Them?”
• The Best Little Whorehouse in Philly
• My Mother, the “Countess”
• The Frayed Fabric of Our Lives
• The Sugar Daddy and the Broadway Butterfly
• The Sesqui Sinks
• What Lies Beneath
• Good Night, Sweet Prince
• Select Bibliography
• About the Author