"PARA PAR@ ` ÜTEXT ` îNewcomb, Josephine Louise Le Monnier
1816╨1901
philanthropist
Born in Baltimore on October 31, 1816, 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. In December 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. Newcomb retired from active business in 1863 so that they might devote themselves to the rearing and education of their daughter, Harriott Sophie Newcomb. He died in 1866, leaving a fortune and Sophie to Josephine Newcomb. Sophie died at fifteen, in 1870, and after a period of despondency Newcomb set about finding a suitable memorial for her. Astute business sense enabled her to increase her wealth, and she made sizable donations to Washington and Lee University, 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. She died in New York City on April 7, 1901. Her will named Newcomb College residuary legatee, a bequest that amounted to about $2.5 million.
