Shack Owners Who Evade Laws: Bubonic Plague, Rats, and Networks of Power in Storyville

When bubonic plague struck New Orleans in June 1914, the city was fortunate that the federal Public Health Service had honed its skills against the disease in San Francisco and Havana and that Martin Behrman, mayor of the city, ran a powerful and effective political machine called the Choctaw Club. Behrman put the power of the city’s government and political machine behind the PHS’s campaign to ratproof New Orleans, and it made great progress in the next eighteen months. Hundreds of thousands of rats were dispatched, each examined for plague. 75,000 buildings were rat-proofed, and 7000 demolished. But an indignant newspaper article in November 1915 pointed to one part of the city to which Behrman’s power did not extend and where the PHS’s recommendations were flouted: Storyville. Naming names and listing addresses, the reporter explained that the powerful men who owned properties in the restricted district were able to evade the enforcement of the rat-proofing law. This paper looks in detail at the individuals named in the newspaper article, to get a clearer sense of the business, political, and social networks in operation. It draws on city directories, census returns, federal Public Health Service records, and other sources to try to understand how some property owners were able to evade important public health requirements. This work should shed new light on the relationship between the city government and the Choctaw Club on the one hand and those who owned and profited from the vice economy in Storyville. Historians too long have focused on Tom Anderson, but the real political power Anderson wielded could not have existed without a broader network.