Olivia Lahs-Gonzales, Director of the Sheldon Art Galleries, traces Josephine Baker’s meteoric rise from Targee Street in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood of St. Louis to her successes in Paris and around the world, and locates Baker as an example of the phenomenon of the “modern woman” of the 1920s.
Josephine Baker came of age in the 1920s, an exciting time of upheaval and renewal. A unique and spirited individual, her life and persona captured the public imagination.