Where Does the Name Sugar Baby Come From?
Modern “working girls” are producers, crew, promo, creative, admin and talent all in one.
The original was different and far before the web. I think you will like her, amazing woman and role model…
Sugar Baby and Sugar Baby came at the turn of the 20th century from a happily married woman in San Francisco. The daughter of French Danish aristocracy and the wife of an influential billionaire. A woman who is still admired and respected in the 21st century. With her husband's money, funded major museums, community services and public buildings all over San Francisco.
Her name is Alma Speckles and is the original sugar baby and had nothing to do with pay per date prostitution.
Alma ended up a married woman with kids. Yet she is the role model for all independent women, married, live in and single. Alma candidly admitted, “I’d rather be an old man’s darling than a young man’s slave.” Alma knew what a kept woman was.
Alma's first sugar daddy was a wealthy retired miner named Charlie Anderson and she became his mistress. When Anderson refused to marry Alma, she sued him for “personal de-flowerment.” Walking away away with the respectable sum of $1,250, about $30,000 today. Unheard of then and now.
Alma's next wealthy sugar daddy was the wealthiest of the wealthy. They met while Alma posed for sculptor Robert Aitken. Aitken was creating a statue of the Goddess Nike. To honor the victory of the American navy at Manila Bay under a Naval commander named Dewey.
Fate had given Alma the literal Sugar Daddy of her dreams. Alma's goddess statuesque caught the eye of Adolph Spreckles, 24 years Alma’s senior, who sponsored the statue. Adolf Speckle's billions came from industrial size sugar plantations in Hawaii. But Alma's life story gave meaning to name sugar baby for future others. Alma dated Adolph for 5 years, until finally the two married in 1908.
Except from her biography titled: Big Alma "At six feet tall, Alma had an imposing presence that drew attention to her at an early age. Working as an artist’s model, she was immortalized in the form of the statue atop the Dewey Monument at the center of San Francisco’s Union Square. Among the many heads she turned was that of sugar magnate Adolph Spreckels, whom she married in 1908, and who built for her the grandest house in San Francisco. Alma’s outspoken manner and larger-than-life personality may have shocked the city’s well heeled, but these were fruitful assets in the many projects that claimed her passions. Intent on bettering her social standing by improving her cultural education, she journeyed to Europe. In Paris, she met dancer Loïe Fuller, who introduced her to the artistic circles flourishing there and to the sculptor Auguste Rodin. Alma became one of his most important patrons and began to develop one of America’s most influential art collections."
Loie Fuller
Alma brought the Bohemians to Haight Ashbury, San Francisco. During La Belle Epoque Alma went to Paris, France on a cultural shopping spree. Alma returned with modern dancer Loie Fuller and August Rodin and other notables. Alma had a lesbian love affair with Loie Fuller, very scandalous in her time.
From there the evidence of Alma spending her sugar daddy's money is all over San Francisco. Many Bay Area cultural institutions would not exist without Big Alma’s patronage. The Palace of Fine Arts, the Legion of Honor Museum of Art and San Francisco Maritime Museum to name a few.
Homework
Get a journal book, the paper kind.
Research high society socialites.
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