H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College
Encyclopedia
H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, or Newcomb College, was the coordinate women's college
of Tulane University
located in New Orleans
, Louisiana
. It was founded by Josephine Louise Newcomb
in 1886 in memory of her daughter.
Newcomb was the first women's coordinate college within a United States university. This model was later used in partnerships such as Pembroke College
at Brown University
and Barnard College
at Columbia University
.
In 2006, Newcomb College was merged into other Tulane undergraduate colleges, as part of Tulane's Renewal Plan following the major losses and damage of Hurricane Katrina
in 2005. Alleged heirs of Mrs. Newcomb sued, challenging Tulane on the issue of donor intent and seeking to preserve Newcomb as a separate coordinate college within the university, but the lawsuit ended in 2011 after appellate court rulings in support of the university's position.
Until its move in 1918 to its Broadway campus, Newcomb College was made up mostly of day students. Its move to its current site on the uptown campus of Tulane was also the occasion of development of dormitories and more campus life. Students at Newcomb College became increasingly sophisticated and the school's reputation grew.
The university had recruited Brandt V.B. Dixon as the first president of Newcomb College. To ensure girls and young women were academically prepared for college, Dixon established the Newcomb High School, which operated from 1888 to 1920. The preparatory school ensured that girls were ready to study at the college level, as some parents tried to send girls to Newcomb who were as young as 13 or 14, with little academic preparation. Dixon worked with faculty and students to continue to raise academic standards. By 1916, Newcomb had achieved a strong regional reputation and become "one of seven Southern schools which held a standard college designation within the Southern Association of College Women."
Out of its art school, the college created the business of what became the renowned Newcomb Pottery
. This reflected both a progressive interest in craft and parents' desire for their daughters to learn a practical, "industrial" skill in the economically difficult postwar years. It was first headed by Mary Given Sheerer, previously associated with the Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati. While the pottery did not employ that many women, some did find work there. Angela Gregory
was artist-in-residence at Newcomb College. It produced more than 70,000 pieces before the pottery program closed in 1939. During these years, the college's art program expanded to include other arts and crafts, such as illustrated bookplate
s, jewelry, embroidery
, and hand-bound books, the latter often given embossed leather covers and elaborate clasp
s.
Newcomb contributed greatly to the early development of basketball
and other sports for women, which added to its reputation. The college was one of the first women's colleges to compete in national basketball games, along with northern women's colleges such as Smith
, Mount Holyoke
, and Vassar
.
In 1895, Newcomb's physical education instructor Clara Gregory Baer
published the handbook Basketball Rules for Women and Girls. The book described both the one-handed shot and the jump shot, which would not be adopted by men's basketball until 1936. The college had the first women's team to wear bloomers
, a better solution for sports. On March 13, 1895, Newcomb students played the first public basketball game in the South before 560 other women at the Southern Athletic Club.
Newcomb ball
, a game played as an alternative
to volleyball
, originated at Newcomb College and bears its name. The sport was very popular in the 1920s. The game is still played in various forms across the world.
As it grew, the college reflected many social changes, such as the wider roles of women during and after World War II
. Married women were included in admissions. The college began to offer more coeducational classes with Tulane University. After the U.S. Supreme Court
ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), in the early 1960s both the university and college integrated to adjust to a new moral imperative. The focus of the curriculum changed over the years, and women were offered more science and business classes.
announced that the university would be reorganized on July 1, 2006, to accommodate needed changes due to losses following Hurricane Katrina. The board also approved the recommendation of a special Tulane Renewal task force to name a revised, co-educational, single undergraduate college Newcomb-Tulane College
. The new college within the university is not strictly a successor to Newcomb College.
This followed years of talk about restructuring. Some of the faculty had believed that Newcomb's separate status had adversely affected promotions, for instance, as well as other academic opportunities and had long encouraged a realignment within Tulane University. Since social changes of the 1970s, college and university discussions had centered on a different arrangement within the university.
After working its way through the Louisiana courts, the initial case filed in May 2006, Howard v. Tulane, was heard by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The court ruled on July 1, 2008, that the "successors" of a testator have standing to enforce the terms of a predecessor's will, though it did not rule specifically on the merits of the interpretation of Mrs. Newcomb's will. Instead the court returned the case to the trial court to require the plaintiffs to prove they are heirs. The plaintiffs dismissed their case.
Based on the Supreme Court's definition of "successor", a subsequent action, Montgomery v. Tulane, was filed in 2008 by Susan Henderson Montgomery, another great niece of Mrs. Newcomb and the plaintiff claiming to be a successor. After losing in New Orleans civil district court, the plaintiff filed an appeal to the state. On October 13, 2010, a state appeals court sided 3-2 with Tulane University. On February 18, 2011, the Louisiana Supreme Court voted, 4 to 2, with one abstention, to let a lower court's ruling in favor of Tulane stand. The plaintiffs in the case said that the lack of federal issues meant that the case would not be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and that the lawsuits were over.
In May 2007, NCI inaugurated "Under the Oaks," a Commencement awards ceremony recognizing the accomplishments of students involved in Newcomb programs. It maintained some traditions, such as the Daisy Chain, in which rising female seniors dress in white and carry a rope of greenery and fresh-cut daisies.
Under the hand of a new Provost Michael Bernstein, Rebecca Mark was removed from the helm of NCI two years into her appointment, and Molly Travis (Tulane Department of English) was appointed as the second Interim Executive Director at NCI, serving 2008-2009. Sally J. Kenney (formerly of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota
) was named the official first permanent executive director of the Newcomb College Institute in June 2009, and arrived on campus January 2010.
Women's Colleges in the Southern United States
Women's colleges in the Southern United States refers to undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations consist exclusively or almost exclusively of women. Salem College is the oldest female educational institution in the South and...
of Tulane University
Tulane University
Tulane University is a private, nonsectarian research university located in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States...
located in New Orleans
New Orleans, Louisiana
New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population...
, Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
. It was founded by Josephine Louise Newcomb
Josephine Louise Newcomb
Josephine Louise Newcomb, born Josephine Le Monnier , was the philanthropist whose donations led to the founding of Newcomb College at Tulane University.-External links:...
in 1886 in memory of her daughter.
Newcomb was the first women's coordinate college within a United States university. This model was later used in partnerships such as Pembroke College
Pembroke College (Brown University)
Pembroke College in Brown University was the coordinate women's college for Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. It was founded in 1891 and closed in 1971.-Founding and early history:...
at Brown University
Brown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
and Barnard College
Barnard College
Barnard College is a private women's liberal arts college and a member of the Seven Sisters. Founded in 1889, Barnard has been affiliated with Columbia University since 1900. The campus stretches along Broadway between 116th and 120th Streets in the Morningside Heights neighborhood in the borough...
at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
.
In 2006, Newcomb College was merged into other Tulane undergraduate colleges, as part of Tulane's Renewal Plan following the major losses and damage of Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season was a powerful Atlantic hurricane. It is the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. Among recorded Atlantic hurricanes, it was the sixth strongest overall...
in 2005. Alleged heirs of Mrs. Newcomb sued, challenging Tulane on the issue of donor intent and seeking to preserve Newcomb as a separate coordinate college within the university, but the lawsuit ended in 2011 after appellate court rulings in support of the university's position.
History
Josephine Louise Newcomb (born Josephine Louise Le Monnier, 1816–1901) established the college as a memorial to her daughter Sophie, who died in 1870 at the age of 15. Following an initial donation of $100,000, she made gifts totaling $3 million. She wanted to support a liberal academic education for young white women. Newcomb was influenced by Ida Richardson and the college was associated with the Progressive Movement from its earliest years.Until its move in 1918 to its Broadway campus, Newcomb College was made up mostly of day students. Its move to its current site on the uptown campus of Tulane was also the occasion of development of dormitories and more campus life. Students at Newcomb College became increasingly sophisticated and the school's reputation grew.
The university had recruited Brandt V.B. Dixon as the first president of Newcomb College. To ensure girls and young women were academically prepared for college, Dixon established the Newcomb High School, which operated from 1888 to 1920. The preparatory school ensured that girls were ready to study at the college level, as some parents tried to send girls to Newcomb who were as young as 13 or 14, with little academic preparation. Dixon worked with faculty and students to continue to raise academic standards. By 1916, Newcomb had achieved a strong regional reputation and become "one of seven Southern schools which held a standard college designation within the Southern Association of College Women."
Out of its art school, the college created the business of what became the renowned Newcomb Pottery
Newcomb Pottery
Newcomb Pottery, also called Newcomb College Pottery, was a brand of American Arts & Crafts pottery produced from 1895 to 1940. The company grew out of the pottery program at H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College, the women's' college now associated with Tulane University in New Orleans, Louisiana...
. This reflected both a progressive interest in craft and parents' desire for their daughters to learn a practical, "industrial" skill in the economically difficult postwar years. It was first headed by Mary Given Sheerer, previously associated with the Rookwood Pottery in Cincinnati. While the pottery did not employ that many women, some did find work there. Angela Gregory
Angela Gregory
Angela Gregory was an American sculptor and professor of art. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, Gregory has been called the doyenne of Louisiana sculpture. Her mother, Selina Bres Gregory, was an artist who studied at Newcomb College in New Orleans with William and Ellsworth Woodward. Her father,...
was artist-in-residence at Newcomb College. It produced more than 70,000 pieces before the pottery program closed in 1939. During these years, the college's art program expanded to include other arts and crafts, such as illustrated bookplate
Bookplate
A bookplate, also known as ex-librīs [Latin, "from the books of..."], is usually a small print or decorative label pasted into a book, often on the inside front cover, to indicate its owner...
s, jewelry, embroidery
Embroidery
Embroidery is the art or handicraft of decorating fabric or other materials with needle and thread or yarn. Embroidery may also incorporate other materials such as metal strips, pearls, beads, quills, and sequins....
, and hand-bound books, the latter often given embossed leather covers and elaborate clasp
Clasp
Clasp, clasper or CLASP may refer to:* Medal bar, an element in military decoration* Fastener, a hardware device that mechanically joins objects together* "Clasp", a track from Jethro Tull's album Broadsword and the Beast...
s.
Newcomb contributed greatly to the early development of basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
and other sports for women, which added to its reputation. The college was one of the first women's colleges to compete in national basketball games, along with northern women's colleges such as Smith
Smith College
Smith College is a private, independent women's liberal arts college located in Northampton, Massachusetts. It is the largest member of the Seven Sisters...
, Mount Holyoke
Mount Holyoke College
Mount Holyoke College is a liberal arts college for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts. It was the first member of the Seven Sisters colleges, and served as a model for some of the others...
, and Vassar
Vassar College
Vassar College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college in the town of Poughkeepsie, New York, in the United States. The Vassar campus comprises over and more than 100 buildings, including four National Historic Landmarks, ranging in style from Collegiate Gothic to International,...
.
In 1895, Newcomb's physical education instructor Clara Gregory Baer
Clara Gregory Baer
Clara Gregory Baer was an American physical education instructor and women's sports pioneer. Baer introduced the first teacher certification course for physical education in the Southern United States, and authored the first published rules of women's basketball...
published the handbook Basketball Rules for Women and Girls. The book described both the one-handed shot and the jump shot, which would not be adopted by men's basketball until 1936. The college had the first women's team to wear bloomers
Bloomers (clothing)
Bloomers is a word which has been applied to several types of divided women's garments for the lower body at various times.-Fashion bloomers :...
, a better solution for sports. On March 13, 1895, Newcomb students played the first public basketball game in the South before 560 other women at the Southern Athletic Club.
Newcomb ball
Newcomb ball
Newcomb ball 1 is a ball game played as a variation of volleyball....
, a game played as an alternative
Volleyball variations
As volleyball is one of the world's most popular team sports, second only to football in the number of players, there are numerous variations of the basic rules. The rules have changed around the world since its creation in 1895, as skills have developed, to make the game more suited for...
to volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, originated at Newcomb College and bears its name. The sport was very popular in the 1920s. The game is still played in various forms across the world.
As it grew, the college reflected many social changes, such as the wider roles of women during and after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Married women were included in admissions. The college began to offer more coeducational classes with Tulane University. After the U.S. Supreme Court
Supreme Court of the United States
The Supreme Court of the United States is the highest court in the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all state and federal courts, and original jurisdiction over a small range of cases...
ruling in Brown v. Board of Education (1954), in the early 1960s both the university and college integrated to adjust to a new moral imperative. The focus of the curriculum changed over the years, and women were offered more science and business classes.
Restructuring
In December 2005 the Tulane University board of directorsBoard of directors
A board of directors is a body of elected or appointed members who jointly oversee the activities of a company or organization. Other names include board of governors, board of managers, board of regents, board of trustees, and board of visitors...
announced that the university would be reorganized on July 1, 2006, to accommodate needed changes due to losses following Hurricane Katrina. The board also approved the recommendation of a special Tulane Renewal task force to name a revised, co-educational, single undergraduate college Newcomb-Tulane College
Tulane University Newcomb-Tulane College
Tulane University's Newcomb–Tulane College is the academic home for all of Tulane's full-time undergraduate students. The College was founded in 2005 to maximize Tulane's use of resources by combining the administrative functions of the all-male Tulane College with the administrative functions of...
. The new college within the university is not strictly a successor to Newcomb College.
This followed years of talk about restructuring. Some of the faculty had believed that Newcomb's separate status had adversely affected promotions, for instance, as well as other academic opportunities and had long encouraged a realignment within Tulane University. Since social changes of the 1970s, college and university discussions had centered on a different arrangement within the university.
Lawsuits
Arguing the "renewal" plan violated the donor's original intention of the gift, Newcomb's heirs filed and lost two suits against the university to invoke the restrictions of Newcomb's lifetime gifts and bequest in her will. The university stated that by naming Tulane her universal legatee in her will, Josephine Louise Newcomb placed no conditions on the use of her donations, but entrusted her gifts to the discretion of the Administrators of Tulane University.After working its way through the Louisiana courts, the initial case filed in May 2006, Howard v. Tulane, was heard by the Louisiana Supreme Court. The court ruled on July 1, 2008, that the "successors" of a testator have standing to enforce the terms of a predecessor's will, though it did not rule specifically on the merits of the interpretation of Mrs. Newcomb's will. Instead the court returned the case to the trial court to require the plaintiffs to prove they are heirs. The plaintiffs dismissed their case.
Based on the Supreme Court's definition of "successor", a subsequent action, Montgomery v. Tulane, was filed in 2008 by Susan Henderson Montgomery, another great niece of Mrs. Newcomb and the plaintiff claiming to be a successor. After losing in New Orleans civil district court, the plaintiff filed an appeal to the state. On October 13, 2010, a state appeals court sided 3-2 with Tulane University. On February 18, 2011, the Louisiana Supreme Court voted, 4 to 2, with one abstention, to let a lower court's ruling in favor of Tulane stand. The plaintiffs in the case said that the lack of federal issues meant that the case would not be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court and that the lawsuits were over.
H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute
Newcomb College Institute is an umbrella organization that runs programs (for women) that were formerly operated by the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College. In its first year (2006–07), under the leadership of founding Interim Executive Director Rebecca Mark (Tulane Department of English), the non-academic Newcomb College Institute hosted 104 speakers and 110 different programs for women, men and guests at Tulane.In May 2007, NCI inaugurated "Under the Oaks," a Commencement awards ceremony recognizing the accomplishments of students involved in Newcomb programs. It maintained some traditions, such as the Daisy Chain, in which rising female seniors dress in white and carry a rope of greenery and fresh-cut daisies.
Under the hand of a new Provost Michael Bernstein, Rebecca Mark was removed from the helm of NCI two years into her appointment, and Molly Travis (Tulane Department of English) was appointed as the second Interim Executive Director at NCI, serving 2008-2009. Sally J. Kenney (formerly of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota
University of Minnesota
The University of Minnesota, Twin Cities is a public research university located in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, United States. It is the oldest and largest part of the University of Minnesota system and has the fourth-largest main campus student body in the United States, with 52,557...
) was named the official first permanent executive director of the Newcomb College Institute in June 2009, and arrived on campus January 2010.
See also
- Newcomb-Tulane CollegeTulane University Newcomb-Tulane CollegeTulane University's Newcomb–Tulane College is the academic home for all of Tulane's full-time undergraduate students. The College was founded in 2005 to maximize Tulane's use of resources by combining the administrative functions of the all-male Tulane College with the administrative functions of...
- Women's colleges in the Southern United StatesWomen's Colleges in the Southern United StatesWomen's colleges in the Southern United States refers to undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations consist exclusively or almost exclusively of women. Salem College is the oldest female educational institution in the South and...
- Timeline of women's colleges in the United StatesTimeline of women's colleges in the United StatesThe following is a timeline of women's colleges in the United States. These are institutions of higher education in the United States whose student populations are comprised exclusively or almost exclusively of women. They are often liberal arts colleges...
External links
- H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College Institute
- Newcomb College Center for Research on Women
- Newcomb Art Gallery
- The Future of Newcomb College, Inc., organized to preserve Newcomb College as a women’s degree-granting institution.
- "Enriching Education for All Women", university website to answer questions about Newcomb College and the Newcomb College Institute.
- Newcomb College Pottery
- Newcomb Pottery Marks