If the grass of Sublette Park could talk, it would have stories to tell. Most people don’t know this, but at one time in the 1870s, St. Louis dabbled in legalized prostitution. It didn’t last long, but one relic of that period was the Social Evils Hospital, or what later became known as the Female Hospital.
Originally built to treat STDs, it later became a place to shunt away the poor and pregnant. It was here that Josephine Baker was born, her birth tucked away in a dusty ledger in City Hall. The building itself is long gone, but it remains an excellent example of the Second Empire style in St. Louis.
Photographs of the interior while the hospital was operating exist.
It would be interesting to know who all these doctors are. As far as I could learn, Dr. Oscar H. Elbrecht took over the control as superintendent of the Female Hospital in 1903, after being appointed by the Mayor. A graduate of Washington University, he received a gift of a library from patients and staff in 1907.
Horrible to imagine what underprivileged women endured ; especially women of color. Too horrible to fathom 🙏🏽
There was on Market Street, a saloon named the Rosebud. The dance floor (for stage performers), was a mirror surface. And the dancers danced on the surface, reportedly wearing no underwear. If memory serves, the Rosebud was repeatedly written up in the National Police Gazette.