Josephine Louise Le Monnier Newcomb

American philanthropist
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Also known as: Josephine Louise Le Monnier
Quick Facts
Née:
Josephine Louise Le Monnier
Born:
Oct. 31, 1816, Baltimore, Md., U.S.
Died:
April 7, 1901, New York, N.Y. (aged 84)

Josephine Louise Le Monnier Newcomb (born Oct. 31, 1816, Baltimore, Md., U.S.—died April 7, 1901, New York, N.Y.) was an American philanthropist, founder of Newcomb College, the first self-supporting American women’s college associated with a men’s school.

Josephine Le Monnier was the daughter of a wealthy businessman and was educated largely in Europe. After the death of her mother in 1831 and the decline of the family’s fortune shortly thereafter, she lived with her father and sister in New Orleans, Louisiana. In 1845 she married Warren Newcomb, a prosperous wholesale grocer of Louisville, Kentucky. For some years they lived by turns in New Orleans, Louisville, and New York City. Her husband retired from active business in 1863 so that they might devote themselves to the rearing and education of their daughter, Harriott Sophie. He died three years later, leaving a fortune to Josephine and Sophie. Sophie died of diphtheria in 1870, and after a period of despondency Newcomb set about finding a suitable memorial for her.

Astute business sense enabled Newcomb to increase her wealth, and she made sizable donations to Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, to the Confederate Orphan Home in Charleston, South Carolina, and to other institutions. In October 1886, at the suggestion of an old friend, she gave $100,000 to the newly established Tulane University in New Orleans for the creation of the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College for women. Newcomb College opened in September 1887 and proved a success as the nation’s first self-sufficient women’s college connected with a men’s college. Over the next several years Newcomb’s gifts to the college totaled about $1 million. Upon her death in 1901, her will, with a bequest that amounted to about $2.5 million, named Newcomb College residuary legatee.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Tulane University

university, New Orleans, Louisiana, United States
Also known as: Medical College of Louisiana, Tulane University of Louisiana, University of Louisiana
Quick Facts
Date:
1834 - present

Tulane University, private, coeducational institution of higher learning in New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S. It grants undergraduate, graduate, and professional degrees through 11 schools and colleges. In addition to the main campus, there is the campus of Tulane Medical Center, which includes the School of Medicine and the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Notable among the research units at the university are the Middle American Research Institute, the Center for Bioenvironmental Research, the Murphy Institute of Political Economy, and the Roger Thayer Stone Center for Latin American Studies. The Howard-Tilton Memorial Library contains the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive and collections on architecture and Latin America. Total enrollment exceeds 11,000 students.

Tulane University was founded by a group of physicians in 1834 as the Medical College of Louisiana; it opened in 1835. When the University of Louisiana was created in 1847, the medical school became part of the university. The university closed during the American Civil War and struggled financially when it reopened after the war. In 1884 it was reorganized as Tulane University of Louisiana, named in honour of Paul Tulane, who had made a substantial donation to the university in 1882. In 1886, another benefactor, Josephine Louise Newcomb, established H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College for Women as a coordinate college. In 1894 Tulane moved from its original downtown location to its campus uptown. An engineering school was added in 1894, an architecture department in 1912, a business school in 1914, and the medical centre in 1969. Tulane University hosted the Sugar Bowl, an annual college football game, for its first four decades, from 1935 to 1975.

This article was most recently revised and updated by Amy Tikkanen.