Newcomb Institute

Newcomb College, the first degree-granting coordinate women's college in the United States, was established in New Orleans in 1886. The school's founder, Josephine Louise Newcomb, gave (nearly $3 million in today's currency) to the Tulane University Board of Administrators to establish a women's college in memory of her daughter, Harriott Sophie Newcomb, who died of diphtheria at age fifteen. When the Title IX Education Amendment was signed into law in 1972, undergraduate women and men at Newcomb College and Tulane University began taking courses together, and single-sex classes ended. In 1987 the faculties of the two schools merged, and in 2005, following Hurrican Katrina, Newcomb and Tulane merged to form Newcomb-Tulane College, now the home for all undergraduate students. Today, the Newcomb Institute carries on the legacy of Newcomb College and continues Josephine Louise's mission by educating undergraduates for gender equity. As an interdisciplinary academic center of Tulane University, the mission of the Newcomb Institute is to develop leaders, discover solutions to intractable gender problems of our time, and provide opportunities for students to interweave curriculum, research, and community engagement through close collaboration with faculty. The Institute is home to the Newcomb Archives and the Newcomb Alumnae Association. The Newcomb Archives produce, document, preserve and share knowledge about women, gender, and feminism in the Gulf South. The Newcomb College Alumnae Association fosters community among the graduates of Newcomb College and mobilizes alumnae to support current undergraduates through professional connection.