The Ladies' Planning Board saves the day

Phoebe and Mary, pleading their case the next morning before the management of the Columbian Exposition, tried to explain that the debacle in the Woman’s Building with the rogue bolts of electricity had in no way been their fault, and in no way reflected badly on women as a gender.

But management refused to listen. They were holding the Ladies’ Planning Board personally accountable for the whole shameful affair, and they intended to shut the Woman’s Building down. Since the Board had gone into considerable debt to construct the building, and since they were now facing down substantial fines for public indecency, plus coping with the fallout from several major diplomatic incidents, this would likely be enough to end all efforts at lady-driven social reform in Chicago for years to come.

“Oh, no,” said Phoebe. “Nobody will ever take women seriously in America, ever again! We can’t let this happen!”

“Wait,” said Mary. “I have an idea.”

And she proceeded to explain to management that actually, the Women’s Building had a licence for the exhibition of public female nudity, being in fact technically classified as a hoochie-coochie dance hall. She went on to explain that the Ladies’ Planning Board had in fact secured the appropriate permits well in advance (which was a lie) and that they had always intended to stage hoochie-coochie shows on the premises (another lie). So, in fact, they were quite innocent of public indecency, and could be charged with nothing at all.

The case went before a local judge, who wrapped it up in about an hour. Mary and Phoebe could keep the Woman’s Building open. This came as an extraordinary relief to all the members of the Ladies’ Planning Board, plus all the various delegates from Japan and Germany and Spain and China and France and so on, who were very invested in the promotion of female dignity and would do anything to prevent the building from shutting down.

However, if the building was to be classified as a hoochie-coochie dance hall, that meant all female staff must perform as hoochie-coochie dancers, including the members of the Ladies’ Planning Board who ran the place. And, if they didn’t intend to perform as hoochie-coochie dancers, for several hours a day for the duration of the Exhibition (which ran for several months) they were guilty of both perjury and falsifying documents, and would face very serious criminal charges. They would all go to ladies’ jail for a very long time, and the Board would certainly go broke.

Phoebe, who happened to be the best lawyer in Chicago, tried to find any possible hole in this, and found to her chagrin that the case was watertight.

So, the next day, when the Woman’s Building reopened, it was with a gigantic sign posted out the front, reading “Step right up, folks! Live NUDE dancing girls inside!”

And the pretty delegates from all the countries in the world had to display themselves in the central exhibition hall, under the mural and the caryatids and the wide white dome that represented female strength and power, without their national costumes. Or any other kind of national costume. In fact, to their **** annoyance, the girls were obliged to pose nude for the goggling crowds, and occasionally to demonstrate some steps of their countries’ national dances for the public’s entertainment. The Japanese girls were stripped of their kimonos, the Germans deprived of their dirndls, the scowling Spanish ladies **** to perform their flamencos in their bare skin.

And the enormously rich and respectable women of the Ladies’ Planning Board had to put on a show five times a day in the French exhibition, an almost perfect miniature replica of the Moulin Rouge nightclub.

To be specific, they had to perform as bare-naked hoochie-coochie dancers, with nothing on but bells at their wrists and ankles, jiggling and wiggling their luscious curvy bodies for the entertainment of hundreds of hooting rubes from all around the world. A fast-talking carnival barker was even hired, to make lewd commentary on the girls’ bouncing breasts and wobbling buttocks, and tease them about how hotly they were blushing. In fact, the girls’ obvious mortification became a selling point. Flyers were pasted all over Chicago inviting the world to come and see the One and Only Bare-Bottomed Blushing Beauty Show, the World-Famous Embarrassed Nudie Cutie Exhibition (Yes, The Red Faces Are Real!).

Mary and Phoebe found this very embarrassing, of course, especially since all their male friends and acquaintances kept showing up to laugh and take pictures, but legally they had no alternative. They just had to keep on dancing naked for the rest of the Exposition. After all, women’s dignity was at stake.