Tulane University was founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young doctors who saw the need for trained physicians in the city of New Orleans. In 1847, it evolved into the public University of Louisiana, also offering law, liberal arts, and science coursework; it became a private institution in 1884 after Paul Tulane's donation. The addition of Newcomb College, the nation's first coordinate women's college, completed the university's basic structure in 1886. In 2005, Hurricane Katrina struck, forcing Tulane to close for a semester. It emerged from the floodwaters restructured and renewed into the progressive university focused on public service that it is today. The photographs in this book take readers through the collegiate experience of former Tulane and Newcomb students to illustrate the meaning of the Tulane motto, "Non sibi sed suis"--"Not for one's self, but for one's own."
Ann E. Smith Case is the university archivist at Tulane University. After receiving an undergraduate degree from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, she moved to Tulane in 1981 to pursue a graduate degree in anthropology/historical archaeology and began working in the school's University Archives in 1993. She became a member of the Academy of Certified Archivists in 2007. The images featured within this book are drawn from the historical collections of Tulane University.