Louise Wooster

Louise "Lou" Catharine Wooster (born June 12, 1842 in Tuscaloosa; died May 16, 1913 in Birmingham) was an infamous madam who famously assisted the sick and dying during the 1873 cholera epidemic.

Many accounts of Louise Wooster's life varies, as she gave several different reports of her life in both her autobiography (published in 1911), and in various news reports of the time.

Louise was the fifth youngest out of eight daughters, seven of which were currently living at the time of her birth. Her father, William, was an engineer from New York, and her mother, Mary Chism, was a native of South Carolina. They were married in Tuscaloosa in 1838, where Lou was believed to have been born. William Wooster died in 1851 while the family were living in Mobile, leaving Mary a widow with seven children to care for. She eventually married a man name John Williams, who Lou blamed for squandering the family money.

In 1857, Lou accounts in her autobiography that her second eldest sister, Margaret, left home and became a prostitute at the age of 14, thus shaming the family name henceforth. After several failed marriages, Margaret later owned a brothel a block over from Lou's in Birmingham, on 3rd Avenue North, under the name "Maggie Bracken". Not long after Margaret's "fall", her mother, Mary, died, leaving Lou in charge of her two youngest sisters - Julia and Cornelia, who were placed in Mobile's Protestant Orphan Asylum, against young Lou's wishes. Lou went to live with her eldest sister, Frances, who was married to a Mr. Van Buren and currently living in New Orleans with another of her older sisters, Jennie. Frustrated with Mr. Van Buren's refusal to take her youngest sisters out of the orphanage, Lou forged a letter in Frances' hand, claiming inability to retrieve the girls due to illness, and asked that they be recieved into Louise Wooster's care.

According to her autobiography, Wooster met and fell in love with John Wilkes Booth in 1860, and was inspired to pursue a career in acting. She took the stage in Arkansas and New Orleans, but returned to Mobile when she fell ill and resumed her former trade.

By 1873 Wooster established a brothel on 4th Avenue North in Birmingham. She and her charges demonstrated great care for those afflicted by cholera during the epidemic that year, for which they were praised by Mortimer Jordan, Jr in the Jefferson County Medical Society's report.

Following the outbreak, Wooster established a new house in Montgomery, but had returned to Birmingham by 1880.

When she died in 1913 her lengthy funeral train consisted mostly of empty coaches sent anonymously to honor her passing. Wooster is interred at Oak Hill Cemetery.

The Wooster Lofts, the first loft development in Birmingham, was named in her honor.

In 2007, the UAB School of Public Health inaugurated the Wooster Award for exemplary service in public health. The inaugural winner was Alabama Representative Patricia Todd.

References

• Wooster, L. C. W. (1911) Autobiography of a Magadalen. Birmingham: Birmingham Printing Company.
• Baggett, James (2005) A Woman of the Town: Louise Wooster, Birmingham's Magdalen. Birmingham. Birmingham Public Library Press.
• Baggett, James (Fall 2005) "Louise Wooster: Birmingham's Magdalen." Alabama Heritage.
• Rudd, Steven. City madam finally gets honor she's due. July 1, 2007, Birmingham News. Accessed July 5, 2007.
• Oak Hill Cemetery, Surnames W, Jefferson, Alabama, accessed July 5, 2007.
• Jordan, M. H. (1875) Cholera at Birmingham Alabama in 1873. The Narrative of the 1873 Cholera Epidemic. Washington D.C.: Government Printing Office
• "Louise Wooster." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 13 Jun 2007, 23:23 UTC. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 5 Jul 2007 [1].