The True Story of Lou Graham and the Immigrants and Sex Workers Who Built Seattle
Hanna Brooks Olsen

Thursday, November 13, 2025 at 6 pm via Zoom

At the turn of the 20th century in Seattle, new buildings were creating an unfamiliar skyline. More than a decade after the Great Fire, the city was still rebuilding and, at the same time, trying to define what the next century would bring. Walking the muddy, uneven streets was a woman who later became a legend and, eventually, something of a caricature. Lou Graham, known as Seattle’s Most Notorious Madame, was so much more than that. She was a speculator and an investor. She was a friend to the downtrodden. She was a wheeler-dealer and a big spender. In recent years, though, she’s become an idol for anything and everything people want her to be. How do we parse these false narratives – and what does it tell us about ourselves that we’d rather repeat misinformation than dig for the truth?

Hanna Brooks Olsen is a writer from Oregon (formerly Seattle). Her essays and reporting have appeared in the Nation, the Atlantic, the Democracy Journal, the New York Daily News, the BBC, Bust Magazine, Pacific Standard, Ms. Magazine, and elsewhere. She’s a regular contributor to Real Change in Seattle and is currently working on her second novel.

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