RLO: The Rise and Fall of the American Vice District
One-Hour Television Documentary

Red Lights Out explores the history of regulated prostitution in America. Beginning in the 1800s, cities across the country experimented with regulatory systems in an effort to control the growing vice trade. They varied, but most systems included minimum age requirements, weekly medical inspections, and the segregation of prostitutes into red light districts. If a prostitute was found infected with a venereal disease she was sent to a special hospital for treatment. If healthy, she was allowed to ply her trade within a specific area of the city.

One of the first cities to adopt regulated prostitution was Nashville, TN. In 1863, under the cover of martial law, Union officers established the system to protect the health of their soldiers. Over the next fifty years, cities across the country studied the Nashville experiment and drafted their own regulatory systems. In St Louis, the “social evil ordinance” licensed brothels and mandated regular health inspections.  In Houston, the city council created a regulated brothel district on the outskirts of town. In New Orleans, the so-called “Storyville ordinance” created the largest and most celebrated red light district in the country.

Across the country, lines were drawn between pragmatists who believed regulation was the best way to control the "social evil" and moral reformers who sought to totally eradicate prostitution. Their battle would help define the moral compass of the nation and strip the civil liberties of an entire class of people.

Red Lights Out traces these historical events through the experiences of Agnes Sears, a prostitute who by the early twentieth century had worked in brothels from St Louis to the Canadian Northwest. Her memoirs provide a personal, eloquent, and ultimately tragic account of life inside the vice trade.

Distribution

Currently in production with a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Completion Date:
Fall 2009