Mother St. Croix Photographs of Ursuline Convent
The ebullient nun documented her cloisters, sisters, and pupils with care and skill. In doing so she became the earliest known woman to photographically record daily life in New Orleans
Among the Historic New Orleans Collection’s most remarkable recent additions is a photograph album by the late 19th-century pioneering female photographer Mother St. Croix, an Ursuline nun who arrived in New Orleans in November 1873. In 37 albumen prints, taken between 1888 and 1894 and printed from 6 1/2" × 8 1/2" glass negatives, St. Croix documented life at the Ursuline Convent on Dauphine Street in the Ninth Ward. The Ursulines moved to this convent from their original French Quarter location in 1824 and remained there until 1912. While a handful of other female photographers appear in contemporary city directories, their work seems to be limited to studio portraits—making St. Croix the earliest known woman to photographically record daily life in New Orleans.
Born Marie Faureaud in Clermont-Ferrand, France, in 1854, St. Croix entered the missionary branch of the Ursulines at Beaujeu in February 1873. In October of the same year, she received her religious habit and the name Marie de la St. Croix. In late November, she arrived in New Orleans with boundless energy, a calling to teach (she was famed for her needlework skills), and the desire to learn photography. According to a 1947 article on St. Croix in the Times-Picayune, she quickly became an accomplished photographer under the instruction of Edward H. Claudel, a local optician, and Father Albert H. Biever, the Jesuit priest who founded Loyola University New Orleans.
St. Croix’s photography was also encouraged by the Mother Superior of the convent, Mother St. Ignatius. In 1899 Mother St. Ignatius commissioned one of the sisters to purchase a new camera for St. Croix when attending a conference in Rome. The new camera allowed St. Croix to use 14" × 17" glass plates, in addition to 6 1/2" × 8 1/2". In 1904 she provided large prints for display in the Palace of Education at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Those prints, signed simply “Photo by a Sister,” are now in the collection of the Louisiana State Museum.
The photographs in the album acquired by HNOC include views of the convent buildings and classrooms, as well as the sisters and students going about their routines. St. Croix also captured the surrounding neighborhood with the Mississippi River in the background. The convent was a cloistered community, with a 15-foot-tall board fence surrounding the property. St. Croix’s exterior views were accomplished from either the tower of St. Ursula Hall (completed in 1893) or from one of several second-story balconies off the main building.
St. Croix captured this view from the tower on St. Ursula Hall at the Ursuline Convent, looking west towards Poland Avenue and the Bywater neighborhood. A row of trees and a 15-foot-tall board fence in the foreground mark the property line of the convent. A rustic shed associated with a neighboring truck garden is seen at left. Residences and lumber yards (of Lambou and Noel Lumber and Manufacturing Co.) are seen in the background.
St. Croix continued to photograph after the Ursuline community moved to a new convent, on State Street, in 1912. The new location even had a darkroom for her use. But after the move, St. Croix’s work became less inspired and appears to have been done primarily for public relations purposes. There are fewer photographs of the new convent and none of life outside the convent walls. Mother St. Croix died at the convent on July 15, 1940, at the age of 86. The album is the cornerstone of her photographic legacy and a rare example of early photography by a woman. It also provides a glimpse into the daily life of one of New Orleans’s oldest and most revered institutions.
By Jude Solomon, curator
Related Stories
From the French Quarter to the Vatican
Shortly after Robert Francis Prevost was announced as the first American pope, HNOC’s Jari C. Honora uncovered a surprising New Orleans connection, revealing the pontiff’s maternal grandparents to be Creoles of color from the Seventh Ward.
Faith and Femininity in the Ursuline Nuns’ Prayer Books
In a world where they were expected to be pious above all else, Ursuline nuns in New Orleans’s early years were still negotiating their identities—and you can see it in their prayer books.
Related Collection Highlights
Le Spiritualiste
When séances were all the rage, New Orleans produced the nation’s first and only French-language publication devoted to Spiritualism.
Ursuline Communion Wafer Iron
What this waffle iron look-alike tells us about female agency and spirituality in colonial New Orleans
Related Books
French Baroque Music of New Orleans
edited by Alfred E. Lemmon
with essays in English by Jennifer Gipson, Andrew Justice, Alfred E. Lemmon, and Mark McKnight, and in French by Jean Duron
Subscribe to Our Newsletter
