Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson and the City of New Orleans

American journalist Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson, generally known as Eliza Nicholson (1843-1896), was an influential figure and a leading pioneer in the American daily press during the last decades of the nineteenth century. She was the first woman to both publish and edit a major metropolitan newspaper, the New Orleans Daily Picayune, which she ran successfully for twenty years, from 1876 until her death in 1896. She held a unique position in the male-dominated world of journalism. In the 1870s, in fact, fresh opportunities opened to women journalists in the American press, but most of them were allowed to contribute only to the “women’s pages.” Others wrote for feminist publications as well as for women’s magazines, editing and publishing some of them. However no woman journalist, except Nicholson, was the editor and publisher of an important newspaper. Nicholson was a real forerunner and ground breaker. After her death more than thirty years elapsed before another woman was able to play a similar role as owner-editor of a major newspaper. However, while in her times Nicholson was a powerful and unconventional woman who eventually became a celebrity, today she is not very well known in the United States, even though several historical essays about her life and her work have appeared over the years, and in Louisiana she is still an honored and revered figure. On the other side of the Atlantic, including Italy, she is totally unknown. This paper is not a comprehensive study of Nicholson’s life since it focuses only a specific aspect of her work as a newspaper editor and a publisher, that is, her relationship with the city of New Orleans. More specifically, the essay argues that: 1) Through her newspaper Nicholson contributed to shaping the modern urban identity of New Orleans. She advocated civic reforms and public works that enhanced community welfare. Thanks to her work, the Picayune became a major cultural and political force in Louisiana. 2) At the same time Nicholson was influential in shaping a new representation of Southern female identity. She promoted women’s careers in journalism, and more generally favored better educational and working opportunities for women. As a successful and respected businesswoman, she was a living example of this new Southern female identity and became a role model for aspiring professional women journalists.