The Madam

She was the oldest out of nine children in a Russian-Jewish family. She immigrated to America at the age of twelve alone because her family could not leave the country due to World War I that was about to begin. For two years she lived with her family’s friends, working at a clothing factory in New York. One day, a recently hired foreman asked her to come into his office where he raped her. “I had failed in my quest for the education… I had lost my virginity, my reputation and my job. All I had gotten was older,” (Adler 30). This quotation shows that Adler’s childhood was stolen from her and this is the turning moment that pushed her to decide not to be a victim of the circumstances but take control and create the best possible scenario of her life.

She moved to New York, and at the age of nineteen she started to spend her time with the theater people of Manhattan. Later on she moved into the apartment of an actress and a showgirl. In that apartment she met a gangster named Tony who later became her friend. He struck a deal with Adler in which he would pay to use the apartment for rendezvous’ with his girlfriend. Tony’s girlfriend was a married woman, so they had to be careful. Adler barely had any money and she agreed to Tony’s offer. It is from this moment the Adler’s bordello laid its foundation. Here is how she commented on that decision in her book, “But I am not apologizing for my decision, nor do I think, even if I had been aware of the moral issues involved, I would have made a different one. My feeling is that by the time there are such choices to be made, your life already has made the decision for you,” (Adler 40). Adler realized that this way she could earn money. After her innocence and naivety were taken from her she became corrupted, and the line between what is moral and what is not became blurry. Subsequently, she accommodated not only Tony, and turned into a successful Madam of her first brothel.

In 1920, Adler opened her bordello with the help of same mobster, Tony. The business was aimed at upper-class clientele, including politicians, celebrities. She hired a professional architect to design the building with hidden stairways and secret doors so that in case of a police riot her famous guests could escape scandal. Among her patrons was New York City Mayor, Jimmy Walker, famous mobster Dutch Schultz, and writer Dorothy Parker. It has been theorized the New York State Supreme Court Justice, Joseph Force Carter, missing since August 6, 1930, died in Polly Adler’s brothel (Toffel 2004). As Adler’s business was of use for famous and successful people, such aspects as prosperity, fame, and financial affluence were fulfilled in Adler’s American Dream.

In July 1936 Adler was arrested for 16^th time for maintaining a disreputable apartment. She pleaded guilty, was sentenced to 30 days in jail and paid $500 fine. She retired in 1944, went to college at age of fifty, and wrote a bestselling book A House Is Not A Home. In which she said “Still in many respects I was a creation of the times, of an era whose credo was: “Anything which is economically right is morally right” — and my story is inseparable from the story of the Twenties.” It would hard to find more accurate description and explanation of the choices that people of the time were making. While it was illegal she was doing something she had to do to survive. That is the era that dictated the rules in the game of life rather than personal weighed choices of people.

Polly Adler in many ways represents various aspects of the American Dream. She is an immigrant who came to the United States with a hope for a better life. She had to “build herself” since none of her family was with her, she did not have famous or powerful friends at first. She had reached the success on her own, being a tiny woman of just four feet eleven inches, in the cruel, men dominated world of gangsters, drug addicts and corrupted people. She was an intelligent, independent and strong.She chose not be a victim of the event of rape but managed to use her misfortune to create a career. Adler made her own version of the American Dream and she showed that you can be successful by unconventional means.