Sin City North: Sex, Drugs, and Citizenship in the Detroit-Windsor Borderland

227 Pages·2015·16.422 MB·English

by  Holly M. Karibo

Sin City
North
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THE DAVID J. WEBER SERIES IN THE
NEW BORDERLANDS HISTORY
Andrew R. Graybill and Benjamin H. Johnson, editors
Editorial Board
Sarah Car ter
Kelly Lytle Hernandez
Paul Mapp
Cynthia Radding
Samuel Truett
The study of borderlands— places where different peoples meet and no one polity reigns
supreme—is undergoing a re nais sance. The David J. Weber Series in the New Borderlands
History publishes works from both established and emerging scholars that examine border-
lands from the precontact era to the pre sent. The series explores contested boundaries and
the intercultural dynamics surrounding them and includes projects covering a wide range
of time and space within North Ame rica and beyond, including both Atlantic and Pacifi c
worlds.
Published with support provided by the William P. Clements Center for Southwest Studies
at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas.
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Sin City
North
SEX, DRUGS, AND CITIZENSHIP IN THE
DETROIT- WINDSOR B ORDERLAND
Holly M. Karibo
The University of North Carolina Press / Chapel Hill
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© 2015 The University of North Carolina Press
All rights reserved
Set in Miller by Westchester Publishing Services
Manufactured in the United States of Ame rica
The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability
of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on
Library Resources. The University of North Carolina Press has been a member
of the Green Press Initiative since 2003.
This book is derived, in part, from the following articles by the author:
“Detroit’s Border Brothel: Sex Tourism in Windsor, Ontario, 1945–1960,”
American Review of Canadian Studies 40, no. 30 (2010): 362–78, http:// www . tandfonline
. com / 10 . 1080 / 02722011 . 2010 . 496905; “Mainlining along the Line: Consuming Heroin
in the Great Lakes Border Region, 1945–1960,” 49th Parallel 30 (Autumn 2012): 1–32,
http:// fortyninthparalleljournal . fi les . wordpress . com / 2014/ 07 / 2 - karibo - mainlining - along
- the - line . pdf; “Swashbuckling Criminals and Border Bandits: Fighting Vice in North
Ame rica’s Borderlands, 1945–1960,” Histoire sociale / Social History 48, no. 95 (November
2014): 705–28, http://w ww. t andfonline . com / 10 . 1080 / 02722011 . 2010 . 496905.
Cover images: Woman with drink and cigarette (Courtesy
of The Tony Spina Collection: Walter P. Reuther Library, Archives of Labor and
Urban Affairs, Wayne State University); Detroit skyline (Courtesy of Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, LC- DIG- ppmsca-15308)
Library of Congress Cataloging- in- Publication Data
Karibo, Holly M.
(cid:26)Sin city north : sex, drugs, and citizenship in the Detroit- Windsor borderland /
Holly M. Karibo.
(cid:26)(cid:26)(cid:26)pages cm.—(The David J. Weber series in the new borderlands history)
(cid:26)Includes bibliographical references and index.
(cid:26)ISBN 978-1-4696-2520-1 (pbk : alk. paper)—ISBN 978-1-4696-2521-8 (ebook)(cid:26)
1. Detroit (Mich.)— Moral conditions— History—20th century.(cid:26)2. Windsor (Ont.)—
Moral conditions— History—20th century.(cid:26)3. Vice control— Michigan— Detroit—
History—20th century.(cid:26)4. Vice control— Ontario— Windsor— History—20th century.(cid:26)
5. Borderlands— United States— History—20th century.(cid:26)6. Borderlands— Canada—
History—20th century.(cid:26)I. Title.
(cid:26)HN80.D6K37 2015
(cid:26)306.09713'32— dc23 2015006178
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Contents
Acknowledgments, ix
Introduction, 1
1 / Building the “Detroit- Windsor Funnel,” 15
Tourism, Prohibition, and Border Politics before
World War II
2 / Border Brothels, 43
Sex Tourism in the Postwar Borderland
3 / Mainlining along the Line, 71
Building a Transnational Drug Market
4 / Sin, Slums, and Shady Characters, 95
Fighting Vice in the Detroit- Windsor Region
5 / Prohibition, Enforcement, and Border Politics, 121
Debating Vice at the National Level
Conclusion, 149
Epilogue, 157
Notes, 161
Bibliography, 177
Index, 203
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Illustrations
Detroit- Windsor skyline, ca. 1929, 4
Percy Cromwell cartoon, “Clumsy!,” 22
Ambassador Bridge, 24
Border guards questioning a border crosser, 25
Percy Cromwell cartoon, “Here’s Lookin’ Atcha,” 30
Postcard, Ouellette Ave nue, Windsor, 32
Sex workers off Hastings Street, Detroit, 40
Ouellette Ave nue, Windsor, 49
Elmwood H otel, Windsor, 49
Blue Water Hotel, Windsor, 57
“Zoot suit,” Detroit, 84
Hastings Street, prede mo li tion, 108
Hastings Street during renewal construction, 108
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Acknowledgments
This book was inspired by my own experience of crossing borders. What
I thought would be a temporary move from Michigan to Ontario turned
into a decade- long adventure, one that shaped my life in unexpected
ways. Settling in southern Ontario— relatively close to home yet at times
seemingly worlds apart—I became intrigued by the borderlands relation-
ship and the long and complicated history of migration in the Great Lakes
region. This pro ject has since brought me to the border states of Arizona
and Texas, and in each new place I have been reinspired by the complex
and contested meanings of borderlands. If in the following pages the “bor-
der” is never static, it is this very ever- shifting meaning of borderlands that
has sustained my personal and intellectual interest over the span of this
pro ject.
The foundation of this pro ject came together during my time as a gradu-
ate student at the University of Toronto. First and foremost, I’d like to
thank Dan Bender for his unyielding support. He encouraged me to push
the boundaries of my research and to think beyond borders— national, dis-
ciplinary, and methodological. Over the past eight years, his mentorship
and advice have enabled me to grow both professionally and personally.
While countless scholars provided intellectual and emotional support dur-
ing the many stages of this proj ect, I would especially like to thank Elspeth
Brown, Steve Penfold, Franca Iacovetta, and Victoria Wolcott. At the Uni-
versity of Guelph, Norman Smith and Catherine Carstairs provided some
of the earliest mentorship and inspiration that helped me get this pro ject
off the ground. My new colleagues in the Department of Social Sciences
at Tarleton State University have likewise provided encouragement and
intellectual engagement in the fi nal months of the review and publication
pro cess.
I would like to thank the Social Science and Humanities Research
Council of Canada, the Canadian Embassy in Washington, D.C., the Bent-
ley Historical Library, the Centre for the Study of the United States, and
the Department of History and School of Gradu ate Studies at the Univer-
sity of Toronto for their generous fi nancial support. Similarly, the help of
many archivists made my hunt for the “illicit” much more manageable and
ultimately very fruitful. I’d like to thank the archivists and staff at the
ix
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