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Book:
New Orleans Women and the Poydras Home: More Durable than Marble
Author:
Pamela Tyler
Publisher:
LSU Press
Genre:
Books / Home and family
Year:
2016
City:
Baton Rouge
Rating:
3 / 5
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A two-hundred-year-old institution, the Poydras Home -- originally the Poydras Asylum -- stands as an exemplar of woman-led charitable organizations. In a thorough and engaging narrative, Pamela Tyler offers the first complete history of this remarkable New Orleans establishment from its founding as an orphanage for young girls to its present-day operation as a retirement community and assisted-living facility. Throughout, Tyler paints a vivid picture of the many women who faced down the challenges of war, disease, natural disaster, social unrest, and restrictive gender ideals to realize the mission of the Poydras Home.
Drawing on previously unreleased archival material, Tyler documents how the institutions benefactor, Julien Poydras, used his immense wealth to support a haven for impoverished girls, and how the dedicated women of the Poydras board pursued that ambition through more than just residential services. Tyler reveals that the majority of the Poydras orphans had one living parent, and it was dire poverty and a dearth of social services in New Orleans that drove single parents, usually mothers, to place their daughters in the asylum. Further research demonstrates that the Poydras went beyond simply providing a shelter for the children of distressed parents; volunteer managers worked to shape their charges character through an emphasis on morals, education, and the fundamentals of housewifery.
Following the institution from its antebellum origins to Reconstruction, through the Progressive era, and into the obsolescence of childrens homes in the mid-twentieth century, Tyler highlights the impacts of both national affairs and daily life on the charity. This rich history winds through the last fifty years as the Poydras Home boldly and successfully changed its mission to provide care for elderly men and women.
The result of years of research, New Orleans Women and the Poydras Home is a sweeping social history that recognizes the determination of women caregivers and the thousands of lives they benefited.

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New Orleans Women and the Poydras Home

NEW ORLEANS

WOMEN

AND THE

POYDRAS HOME

MORE DURABLE THAN MARBLE

PAMELA TYLER

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
BATON ROUGE

To Anne Firor Scott,
my favorite pioneer

Published by Louisiana State University Press
Copyright 2016 by Louisiana State University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
First printing

Designer: Michelle A. Neustrom
Typeface: Sina Nova
Printer and binder: Maple Press

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Tyler, Pamela.

Title: New Orleans women and the Poydras Home : more durable than marble / Pamela Tyler.

Description: Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015042800| ISBN 978-0-8071-6322-1 (cloth : alkaline paper) | ISBN 978-0-8071-6323-8 (pdf) | ISBN 978-0-8071-6324-5 (epub) | ISBN 978-0-807-1-6325-2 (mobi)

Subjects: LCSH: Poydras Home (New Orleans, La.) History. | CharitiesLouisianaNew OrleansHistory. | Women philanthropistsLouisianaNew OrleansHistory. | OrphanagesLouisianaNew OrleansHistory. | Poor girlsServices forLouisianaNew OrleansHistory. | Retirement communitiesLouisianaNew OrleansHistory. | Congregate housingLouisianaNew OrleansHistory. | New Orleans (La.) Social conditions.

Classification: LCC HV99.N42 P687 2016 | DDC 362.73/2dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042800

The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

C hance arguably plays a larger role than choice in the course of human events; history is littered with indirect linkages. A prime example is the chain of events that led to the establishment of a home for orphaned and indigent girls in the turbulent city of New Orleans in 1817. This institution, the Poydras Asylum, which endured for nearly a century and a half as a refuge for girls who needed a home and which eventually served several thousand young people, owes its start to some seemingly random and unconnected events. Over the decades, this institution survived bank failures, the Union armys occupation, the turmoil of Reconstruction, bitter religious dissension, a crippling economic depression, two world wars, a catastrophic hurricane, and deadly epidemics of yellow fever, cholera, and influenza. In the mid-twentieth century, as the rise of foster care began to render orphans institutionalization obsolete, the individuals who operated the asylum made a decision to alter their mission, and in 1959 the Poydras Home was reborn to serve the elderly.

This volume tells two stories. One is the story of an institution that has served so many, so well, for so long. The other is the tale of a small coterie of New Orleans women, the unpaid board of managers of Poydras. It was they who created the institution, nurtured it, financed it, managed it, and, on more than one occasion, saved it. In some years, they fought merely to maintain their operation; in others, they expanded to pursue new goals. They were no strangers to ridicule and skepticism, particularly in the early years when they challenged ideas about gender propriety. The cast of characters changed over the years as Death claimed his due, but new managers were found. Learning competence and courage from veterans, they ensured continuity and carried the ideals and vision of the founders forward across the decades. The Poydras Home continues to operate as it began two hundred years ago, under the direction of a volunteer board of managers, who, to this day, are all women.

What follows is an institutional history in narrative form. From voluminous records, I have constructed a chronological story and added analysis and perspective. My colleagues in the history profession will note that this book is not particularly thesis-driven. But that observation really underscores the fact that the central theme is glaringly familiar, repeated in various histories again and again: the story of unpaid women, accustomed to the concept of benevolence and motivated by their religion, undertaking a mission of charity, facing innumerable challenges, exercising executive skills, encountering formidable setbacks, but ultimately succeeding. Like most white women involved in voluntary associations, the women of Poydras were, for most of their two-century history, traditionalists in terms of class and race. In their own words, in document after document, they left behind a record that details both their unconscious elitism and their genuine compassion, intelligence, and accomplishments. Always striving to do good for others, Poydras managers of past decades were a combination of often contradictory qualities. Imperfect though they were, they set themselves to an admirable task, and they prevailed.

The Poydras Home of today has an annual operating budget of $7.5 million and a staff numbering 140. Its board manages a multi-million-dollar portfolio of assets. When the home began in Phoebe Hunters drawing room on a cold January day in 1817, not only was its success uncertain, but the women who sipped tea and hatched plans had no money, only an idea. This volume will trace the genesis and flowering of that idea.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T he convoluted process of birthing this book involved a long gestation period. Between the embryonic idea and a fully formed manuscript lies a great deal of help, and I take keen pleasure in acknowledging here and now those who aided me.

After Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent ordeal New Orleans endured, I interviewed many women whose efforts were advancing the sluggish recovery of a great city. I later published articles about their work and occasionally spoke to audiences about the female face of recovery in the Crescent City. In 2008, Ruthie Frierson, whose Citizens for 1 Greater New Orleans performed herculean work to forever change the status quo for the better, invited me to address a gathering of local activist women, speaking broadly on the history of womens work for reform in New Orleans.

As I enjoyed post-lecture conversation in the comfortable space of the New Orleans Lawn Tennis Club, a stranger approached. She guided me toward a broad expanse of windows and pointed across the courts toward a complex of roseate stucco buildings, the Poydras Home. That was my first encounter with Pat Rosamond, a past president of the Poydras Homes board of managers and the dynamic chair of a committee established to find an author for a proposed bicentennial history of their redoubtable institution. In the course of our brief talk, a seed was planted. The book committeeCatherine Edwards, Pat Rosamond, Nelda Sibley, Karen Smith, and the late Betsy Ewingultimately decided that I would be the proper scholar to tackle the long history of their cherished facility. I thank them for their wisdom in knowing that a history should be written, for their willingness to give me carte blanche access to the voluminous Poydras records (usually kept under restriction in Special Collections at Tulane University), and, most of all, for their confidence in me through a long journey.

Former Poydras board member Mary Langlois shared a massive cache of documents regarding the ambitious expansion of Poydras in the 1990s, which were terrifically helpful. To the many other board members, the Poydras staff members, and the former residents of Poydras who sat for interviews with me, a big thank you; I could not have written this history without your input.

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