Helene Goldsmith Godchaux, 1901-1993

Activist Godchaux was an early mover and shaker who followed in the second generation of women after the founding of the local NCJW in the 1890s. Under her presidency in the 1920s, NCJW funds for Foreign Born went from $300 to $3500. She started a Naturalization Bureau and an Immigrant Adjustment Committee. The document pinned with her name at the far right shows the myriad details in creating an effort to assist immigrant women to find work sewing and producing crafts. Council also, in Godchaux’s words, later in the 1940s “answered the call of frantic parents in Germany” and began to consider how to bring children to the US.

In addition, she was active in over twenty groups citywide, and the first woman president of many charitable boards. Like many of the women in this exhibition, Godchaux was also an avid supporter of the arts. One of her passions was in the support of music in the city. She worked for over thirty-two years in various capacities for the much loved New Orleans Symphony.

Helene Goldsmith Godchaux, Photograph, ca. 1920. Nursery School Photos, Newcomb Archives, Newcomb College Institute, Tulane University.