Cholera and COVID: Birmingham’s two historic health crises
Dr. Mortimer Jordan mapped the 1873 cholera outbreak and water sources in Birmingham. (contributed)
Alabamians, and people around the globe, are looking ahead with hope that the worst of a deadly pandemic has passed, and that normal life will soon resume.
Nearly 150 years ago, residents of the nascent city of Birmingham were hoping for the same, following an epidemic that nearly destroyed the town – just a couple of years after its founding.
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The deadly plague that walloped Birmingham in 1873 wasn’t COVID-19 but cholera, a waterborne disease that thrived in the steamy summer weather and spread quickly through the city’s less-than-sanitary, rudimentary water sources. Nearly half the populace of between 3,000 and 4,000 – those with means and ability – fled the stricken city, and businesses throughout town shut their doors. Others holed up in their homes while some who failed to take it seriously suffered dire consequences – a situation not dissimilar to the early days of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.
“There definitely are some parallels,” said Jim Baggett, head of the Department of Archives and Manuscripts at the Birmingham Public Library and archivist for the city of Birmingham.
This is the first known photograph of Birmingham. It was taken from the new Jefferson County Courthouse, either in 1873, during its construction, or in 1875, following its completion, by photographer A.C. Oxford. (William H. Brantley Collection, Samford University, Bhamwiki)
Captions, apparently added by William H. Brantley, indicate the following structures:
1. “chimney of old sail” First Presbyterian Church
2. First Baptist Church, Sixth Avenue and 22nd Street
3. First Methodist Church, Sixth Avenue and 21st Street
4. First Birmingham Water Works, 13th Avenue and 22nd Street
5. T.L. Hudgins residence, Sixth Avenue and 21st Street
6. John Terry residence (site of Phillips High School)
And, just like in our times – amid the terror, misinformation, confusion and suffering, there were heroes who emerged who nursed the sick, and worked to maintain order and quell hysteria. They included an unlikely alliance of city leaders, the town’s few health professionals and, as described by Dr. Mortimer H. Jordan in his 1874 account of the public health disaster: “that unfortunate class who are known as ‘women of the town.’”
Jordan, secretary of the Jefferson County Medical Society of Birmingham in 1873, couldn’t quite bring himself to identify the caring leader of those “unfortunate” women in his report. It was Louise Wooster, the proprietor of a prosperous local brothel. Wooster and her cohorts arguably helped save the city, and Jordan himself cited their “heroic and self-sacrificing conduct” during the outbreak. Many other grand tales about Wooster’s life – some of them embellished in her 1911 autobiography – are probably not true, among them: that at her death, some of Birmingham’s most prominent citizens arranged for a cortege of empty carriages to escort her coffin to Oak Hill Cemetery.
Today, Wooster’s grave at Oak Hill still draws visitors who want to pay tribute to her and her lifesaving work during Birmingham’s days and nights of cholera – not unlike the many tributes that have been bestowed on the health care professionals who’ve helped guide and nurse Birmingham, and so many other communities, during the modern plague of COVID-19.
July 4, 1873: a superspreader event
It was June 12, 1873, when the first case of cholera was reported in the new city of Birmingham. The victim’s name – he was a recent arrival from Huntsville, which was suffering from its own cholera outbreak – is lost to history. Jordan’s account identifies him only as “Mr. Y.” Within 24 hours of becoming ill, Mr. Y was dead.
Dr. Mortimer Jordan. (Encyclopedia of Alabama)
While Jordan suspected cholera, the doctors who treated Mr. Y did not identify it as the cause of death and failed to take the proper precautions in disposing of Mr. Y’s body, bodily fluids and bedding, according to an account in the Encyclopedia of Alabama.
Symptoms of cholera include vomiting and severe diarrhea – ailments that can be attributed to many other diseases. Baggett said what likely happened is, as people came down with the disease, those caring for the ill dumped the tainted feces and vomit into local creeks that also served as water supplies, especially in the city’s poorer neighborhoods. Hence, the disease spread.
“They didn’t know any better,” Baggett said.
On June 17, two sisters took ill and quickly died. Again, their bodily fluids were likely not handled appropriately. The sisters lived on a hill above an impoverished neighborhood along Second Avenue North between 11th and 14th streets known as the “Baconsides.” It was a low, swampy area with open sewers, and that community was hit especially hard. Within 10 days, the disease was spreading widely in the general population.
Still unsure what exactly was killing people, the local health community took a few wrong turns in dealing with the deadly disease. At first, they thought, the scourge might be spreading through the air. So, pots of tar were placed on street corners and lit on fire, in hope the smoke would help disinfect the community. “They were doing exactly the wrong thing,” Baggett said.
By July 1, however, doctors were in general agreement that the deadly culprit was cholera, which was known to be waterborne. The community response turned to alternate measures, including cleaning streets, draining cesspools and meticulously disinfecting and burying body parts and fluids.
Still, things would get worse before getting better, fueled in part by large gatherings – not unlike some that took place during the current COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the more notorious gatherings took place in celebration of Independence Day. A large group boarded an excursion train to Blount Springs for picnicking and dancing, noted historian Leah Atkins recalled in “The Valley and the Hills,” her illustrated book about the history of Birmingham and Jefferson County. By the time the train returned to town, several people on board were sick. By the next morning, seven were dead.
During the height of the cholera epidemic, as people evacuated and others locked their doors, not knowing what the disease was, the usually bustling streets of Birmingham emptied – a scene repeated 150 years later in downtown Birmingham at the peak of the COVID-19 crisis.
Louise Wooster. (Oak Hill Cemetery website)
In his introduction to a 2005 reprinting of Wooster’s autobiography, Baggett recounted what one cholera survivor witnessed on the downtown streets during the pinnacle of the cholera epidemic. “When we arrived at 1st Avenue and 20th Street, looking in every direction there was no sign of life as far as the eye could reach. It was 6 o’clock in the afternoon. We looked and did not even see a cat or dog – everything quiet and not a soul stirring.”
Baggett, who works in downtown Birmingham, said he couldn’t help but think about that passage one day when he was walking downtown during the height of COVID-19, finding similarly deserted streets. “I went out at lunchtime and walked for blocks, and didn’t see anyone.”
And yet, while many of those who were able fled the city in 1873, others stayed to help the less fortunate. They included the city’s few medical professionals, the aforementioned ladies of the evening, as well as other citizens and public officials who risked their lives to battle the disease and save the town. Faith leaders stayed to help, among them Presbyterian minister W.L. Kennedy and Father William J. McDonough of St. Paul’s Catholic Church.
Frank O’Brien, a city alderman, became so ill while nursing the sick that a casket was ordered for him and his obituary prematurely published in a local paper. O’Brien recovered.
Birmingham’s madam nurses the sick
Wooster turned her brothel into an infirmary and told one doctor to send her anyone who was sick and had no one to care for them. Wooster also went from place to place, delivering food, purchasing coffins for the destitute and helping prepare the dead for burial, Atkins wrote.
Birmingham madame Louise Wooster, owner of a brothel, was one of the unlikely heroes of the Birmingham cholera outbreak in 1873. (Birmingham Public Library Archive)
When asked later why she didn’t join the mass exodus from town, even though she had the means to do so, Wooster said she was “determined to stay and help nurse the poor and sick and suffering ones who needed me.”
Jordan, in his account, passionately described how the fallen ladies of the town helped care for the stricken.
“These poor creatures, though outcasts from society, anathematized by the church, despised by women and maltreated by men, when the pestilence swept over the city, came forth from their homes to nurse the sick and close the eyes of the dead,” Jordan wrote. “It was passing strange that they would receive no pay, expected no thanks; they only went where their presence was needed, and never remained longer than they could do good. While we abhor the degradation of these unfortunates, their magnanimous behavior during these fearful days has drawn forth our sympathy and gratitude.”
Even as the city slowly recovered and people cautiously returned, Birmingham’s economy reeled. By the end of the summer, the city was still half the size it was before the crisis, and property values plummeted. Adding salt to the city’s wounds, the national financial Panic of 1873 in the autumn of that year resulted in multiple bank failures and triggered an economic depression that further battered the town. It would take years for the city to make up lost ground.
Birmingham in the mid-1880s. (Birmingham Public Library)
This time around, while Birmingham’s economy clearly suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic and businesses folded, a variety of factors, including the quick development of a vaccine and an influx of federal dollars, suggests a much swifter and stronger recovery than 150 years ago.
For all the horror of Birmingham’s cholera epidemic, some good did come of it. While scores died and many more got sick, the homes and businesses – including the Relay House Hotel – that were connected to the city’s newly organized water system escaped infection. As a result, city leaders moved quickly to expand the water and sanitary sewer network and improve drainage.
In 1885, the Birmingham Water Works was incorporated; Today, it is the largest water system in the state, serving the city and communities in five surrounding counties.
Read Jordan’s historic, firsthand account of the cholera outbreak here.
Alabama Legacy Moment: Cholera epidemic threatened young city of Birmingham from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
