Known for her political activism and preservation advocacy, Martha Gilmore Robinson was a prominent civic leader in New Orleans for over fifty years. In 1909 she graduated from Newcomb College, along with notable classmates Mary Meeks Morrison and Hilda Phelps Hammond. She was a founding member of Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré in 1916. She also served on the case committee for the local Child Welfare Association, which provided basic medical services to women and children in need.

Eventually she turned her attention to local politics. She served as president of the Women’s Division of the Honest Election League in 1932, and two years later, she founded the Woman Citizens’ Union, an organization dedicated to educating women on citizenship responsibilities and to promoting responsible government participation. This group later merged with the League of Women Voters, for which Robinson served as the president of the state and local chapters.

In her later years, Robinson became interested in historic preservation. She cofounded the Louisiana Landmarks Society in 1950. In the mid-1960s she served as president of the Louisiana Council for the Vieux Carré, a coalition of twenty-seven civic organizations that was formed to stop the proposed Riverfront Expressway, an elevated roadway that would have run along the riverfront in the French Quarter. In her lifetime of public service, Robinson received many honors, including the Order of the British Empire, the Times-Picayune Loving Cup, and the Louise du Pont Crowninshield Award from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.