By Stefene Russell
All we know about these wild misses is that they hired Block Bros. to photograph their pajama party in December 1924. (Block Bros. had just opened a new studio at 3617 Grandel—now the Earthways Home—after gangsters blew up the building they rented downtown.) The very clean, very empty scotch bottle and theatrical smoking gestures suggest that these ladies are not as well-versed in vice as they pretend. St. Louis' Charles Creath, who was said to have once broken up a razor fight in a dance hall with one terrifying trumpet note, had just released "Pleasure Mad" with his band, the Jazz-o-Maniacs; mere yards away at the Orpheum Theater was the stage where proto-flapper Louise Brooks danced with the Denishawn Company just 13 months prior. How could these ladies resist accessorizing their silk pajamas with a little bit of devil-may-care naughtiness?
