Chicago, 1916: A Doctor Accused

Anna Albers

On May 16, 1916, 25-year-old Lucile Bersworth died in Chicago's German-American hospital after telling authorities that Dr. Anna Albers (pictured) had perpetrated an abortion on her. She also mentioned a man named Fred Krause, so he might have been her baby's father. Though Albers was held by the coroner and indicted by a Grand Jury, the case never went to trial. She was rather a respectable physician, at least as of 1912, so she seems an unlikely abortionist.