Josephine Louise Newcomb Collection

Description

This collection consists primarily of ephemera, correspondence, and personal effects of Josephine Louise Newcomb, founder of Newcomb College. Included in the collection are cards and letters addressed to Newcomb from family and acquaintances, as well as a small collection of letters relating to Newcomb College. Also included in the collection are poems written by Josephine Louise Newcomb and by her daughter, Harriott Sophie Newcomb.

Josephine Louise Newcomb (1816-1901) is known as the founder of the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College of New Orleans, Louisiana. She was born in Baltimore, Maryland to Mary Sophia Waters and Alexander LeMonnier. In 1845, she married Warren Newcomb. Newcomb gave birth to a son who died in infancy, in 1853. Her daughter, Harriott Sophie Newcomb, was born in 1855. In 1865, Newcomb's husband, Warren, died, leaving her as the heir to his estate. Through careful management and financial acuity, Newcomb was able to preserve and greatly expand her husband's fortune. In his memoir, Brand V.B. Dixon remarks that, "From the time that Mrs. Newcomb came into control of this property, mostly in securities of various kinds, she personally directed the investments and sales of her holdings with such judgment and skill that at the time of her death in 1901, she had given away in numerous donations or left by will nine or ten times the amount received from her husband."

In 1870 at age sixteen, Newcomb’s daughter, Sophie, died of diphtheria. Greif-struck, Newcomb spent many years searching for a fitting way to memorialize her daughter’s life. She devoted her life to philanthropy and gave generously to various causes. In 1886, Newcomb was approached by William Preston Johnston, Tulane University’s first president, about establishing a coordinate women’s college in New Orleans. Her initial donation of $100,000 established the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in 1886, “for the higher education of white girls and young women.”

Although the Newcombs had lived in New York during the Civil War, their sympathies aligned with the Confederacy – their New York residence was known as a gathering place for those with southern leanings. During his lifetime, Warren Newcomb dealt in wholesale of sugar, cotton, molasses, tobacco, and other southern products dependent on enslaved labor and the plantation economy. As Josephine's will and initial gift show, the establishment of Newcomb College was rooted in and supportive of the racially segregated politics and laws of the South during and after Reconstruction. A policy of segregation would remain in place at Newcomb College for the better part of a century, until the early 1960s, when Tulane University finally de-segregated after a lengthy court battle. Newcomb College admitted its first Black student in the fall of 1963.

In the years following her initial donation, Newcomb continued to give regularly to support the growth of the college. Upon her death in 1901, Newcomb bequeathed her fortune to the College. Over the course of her life, Newcomb gave over three and a half million dollars to the College.

After her death, a suit was brought by Newcomb’s relatives contesting her will. Citing examples of Newcomb’s eccentric character, her relatives sought to overturn her bequest to the College on the grounds that she was mentally unstable. The suit lasted nearly eight years but was finally ruled in favor of the College in support of Newcomb’s will.

Works Consulted

Brandt V. B. Dixon papers (NA-110), Newcomb Archives and Nadine Robbert Vorhoff Collection, Newcomb Institute of Tulane University.

Dixon, Brandt V.B. A Brief History of H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College 1887–1919: A Personal Reminiscence. New Orleans, LA: Hauser Printing Company, 1928.

Willinger, Beth and Tucker, Susan "Josephine Louise Le Monnier Newcomb" knowlouisiana.org Encyclopedia of Louisiana. Ed. David Johnson. Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 24 Feb 2011. Web. 7 Dec 2017.