It was perfectly legal and regular in every city in America until The Temperance and Sufferage movements at the turn of the 19th Century. Then it became popular to pass laws enforcing blue-nose morality on the public at large. That's when, well, pretty much every social "problem" we have in American society arose. They weren't "problems" until the morality squad of do-gooders dubbed them "problems" and called for the imprisonment of of the people causing those "problems." Prohibition created the mafia, illegal drugs created the cartels, outlawing prostitution moved it out of clean quarters into the alleys and slums. And all of them together have put 2,400,000 Americans behind bars and haven't even dented the so called "problems" the laws were supposed to solve.

People sure are good at making problems for themselves to solve.

I'm starting to suspect that it all traces back to womens' suffrage, and I always have Catholics to blame as well. They do a number on everything they touch.