Newcomb Archives: preserving college history
Newcomb archivist Susan Tucker, retiring this month after three decades of service, is asking alumnae to contribute photos to the Newcomb Photograph Collection. (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)
For almost three decades, Susan Tucker, curator of books and records for the Newcomb Archives, has been in service to her alma mater.
Later this month, Tucker will retire, leaving behind a legacy of books, papers and other materials that serves as a resource to students, scholars and her fellow alumnae. She is a 1972 graduate of Newcomb College.
As a gift to her alma mater, Tucker is asking alumnae to contribute pictures of themselves to the Newcomb Photograph Collection. Photos can be mailed or submitted electronically.
Always thinking of the archival record, she says, “Photographs of you at whatever stage of life will allow us to help researchers as they study the lives women have led.”
Along with others on the Newcomb College staff, Tucker founded the Newcomb Archives in 1988, first pulling scrapbooks and student records from a vault in Newcomb Hall and a basement in Josephine Louise House on the Tulane University uptown campus.
Over the years, the Newcomb Archives added about 60 manuscript collections, forming a concentration on the lives of women who attended Newcomb College or taught at Tulane University, and of women who shaped the Louisiana women"s movement. During these years, Tucker also expanded the Oral History Project.
Now available online, interviewees recall stories of their classes, professors and social life, all while painting a picture of their experiences on campus and in the city of New Orleans.
In addition to managing the Newcomb Archives, Tucker served as an editor of books including Newcomb College, 1886â“2006 (LSU Press, 2012) and Women Pioneers of the Louisiana Environmental Movement (University Press of Mississippi, 2013). She also authored Telling Memories Among Southern Women (LSU Press, 1988), which served as an inspiration for the blockbuster novel and 2011 film The Help.
Aidan Smith is external affairs officer for the Newcomb College Institute.
“Photographs of you at whatever stage of life will allow us to help researchers as they study the lives women have led.”—Susan Tucker, Newcomb archivist
