New York Exposed: The Gilded Age Police Scandal That Launched the Progressive Era

On a Sunday morning in early 1892, Reverend Dr. Charles H. Parkhurst ascended to his pulpit at the Madison Square Presbyterian Church in New York and delivered one of the most explosive sermons in the city's history. Municipal life, he charged, was morally corrupt. Vice was rampant. And thecity's police force and its Tammany Hall politicians were a lying, perjured, rum-soaked, and libidinous lot. Denounced by city and police officials as a self-righteous blatherskite, Parkhurst resolved to prove his case. The bespectacled minister descended his pulpit and in disguise visited ginjoints and brothels, taking notes and gathering evidence. Two years later, his findings forced the New York State Senate to investigate the New York Police Department. The Lexow Committee heard testimony from nearly 700 witnesses, who revealed in shocking-and headline-dominating-detail just howdeeply the NYPD was involved in, and benefited from, the vice economy. Parkhurst's campaign had kick-started the Progres