Rock-ribbed New England

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the number of aspiring women artists increased significantly. The most dynamic program for female students was at Sophie Newcomb College, the women’s coordinate of Tulane University in New Orleans. Under the leadership of Ellsworth Woodward, Newcomb emerged as a vibrant center for training women in such practical artistic pursuits as pottery, textile and jewelry design, and bookbinding.

A native of Massachusetts, Woodward became a strong advocate for distinctively Southern art. As an outsider, he had trepidations about his own ability to render the region effectively: “No Yankee artist, however skillful, can paint the South. He has never known the sights and sounds and scents in his childhood as you have . . . . I think what masterpieces I could paint—if only I were a Southerner-born!”