NEW ORLEANS, LA.- Quiet Reserve: Stitching an Ambitious New Woman examines embroidery’s role as a professional and artistic practice at H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College in the early twentieth century. The college’s needlework curriculum encouraged students to see embroidery as both creative expression and viable career training, reshaping ideas about women’s labor and independence in the U.S. South.

Students described their work as “art needlework,” producing handsewn textiles inspired by natural motifs and everyday life. Under the leadership of Ellsworth Woodward, the program cultivated a distinctive style marked by refined design and accessible techniques that allowed students to develop sophisticated, personal artistic voices. Woodward, the first director of Newcomb’s School of Art, noted that the students’ needlework conveyed a “quiet reserve in design.”

The exhibition highlights how Newcomb helped expand opportunities for Southern women in the decorative arts while promoting the ideals of the “New Woman”— college-educated, self-sufficient, and professionally trained. Curated by Sarah Brokenborough, a graduate curatorial assistant at the Newcomb Art Museum and PhD candidate at Tulane University, Quiet Reserve explores embroidery as both artistic practice and economic opportunity.





This exhibition is supported by the Decorative Arts Trust’s Dean F. Failey Grant, the Anne Robertson Sellin Endowed Fund, and Handwork 2026 presented by Craft in America.

CURATED BY

Quiet Reserve: Stitching an Ambitious New Woman is curated by graduate curatorial assistant and Tulane PhD candidate Sarah Brokenborough.

ARTISTS

Elizabeth “Betty” Davis, Beatrice DeGrange, Katherine Lucinda Wilson Elder, Sarah Agnes Estell Irvine, Irene Borden Keep, Ruth Maddox, Joseph Fortune Mayer, Helen DeGrange McLellan, Gladys Moulton, Caroline Mulhearn, Pauline Wright Nichols, Pearsall, Rita Marie Roger, Gertrude Roberts Smith, Laura Boddie West, Ellsworth Woodward, Women’s Self-Help Society