Louise Wooster

Louise Catharine Wooster (1842–1913), better known as Lou Wooster , was a famous madam in Birmingham, Alabama. Her colorful character and nurture of the sick and dying during the cholera epidemic of 1873 endeared her to the Birmingham community. The "Lou Wooster Public Health Award" is named in her honor.

Overview

Louise Wooster was born in 1842 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama to William Wooster and Mary Chism Wooster. Her father died in 1851 and Mary Wooster remarried. A few years later, Lou's stepfather abandoned the family and took their money with him. Mary Wooster died a few years later virtually destitute.

By her middle teens, Lou was an orphan with nothing to rely on but the mercy of relatives. During this time, she was abused, attempted suicide, and after her older sister became a prostitute. She later wrote that she "fell, step by step, until at last I was beyond redemption".

In 1873, Lou was a well paid lady of the evening when a deadly cholera epidemic swept through Birmingham. Several thousand people fled the city, but Lou stayed to nurse the sick, feed the hungry, and prepare the dead for funerals. After the epidemic, few of Lou's clients remained in Birmingham and she moved to Montgomery, Alabama to open a brothel.

By 1880, she had returned to Birmingham operating multiple brothels near City Hall where she could attract the wealthiest patrons. Lou made a fortune, donated heavily to charities and frequently came to the aid of fallen women.

Lou was a master at storytelling and self-promotion. She wrote a book chronicling her life titled "Autobiography of a Magdalene".

Lou died in 1913 and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery in Birmingham, Alabama.

The Lou Wooster Public Health Award, University of Alabama in Birmingham

This award was presented May 3 2007 to Patricia Todd, MPA, who is also known as the first openly gay State Representative in Alabama at the School of Public Health Honors Convocation.

References

; Sources consulted

; Endnotes