Since the founding of New Orleans, women have played an active role in shaping the city. The approaching tricentennial in 2018 provides an ideal opportunity for reflecting on the many women who fought for the welfare and rights of their fellow citizens and the preservation of the city’s rich heritage. The exhibition Voices of Progress: Twenty Women Who Changed New Orleans presents the stories of twenty remarkable women whose contributions range from the nineteenth-century campaign for child welfare, through the early twentieth-century suffrage movement, to the mid-twentieth-century fight for civil rights and equality. Through letters, objects, photographs, film, and more, Voices of Progress spotlights the achievements of these extraordinary women in New Orleans history.

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Left: Martha Gasquet [Westfeldt];
June 13, 1901; gelatin silver print;
The Historic New Orleans Collection, bequest of Mettha Westfeldt Eshleman, 2001-52-L.6