Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

of Art.1 His architectural work made him the logical candidate to become the director of the Work
Projects Administration Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) in Louisiana, a federal program
designed to employ those in the architectural trades during the Great Depression of the
1930s. In that capacity, he traveled around Louisiana photographing historic buildings, from great
plantation houses to Creole cottages and slave quarters. One of those employed in the project was
Samuel Wilson, Jr., a Tulane School of Architecture graduate who had also spent time in Paris.
In 1955, Wilson became Koch’s partner, creating the well-known firm of Koch and Wilson,
Architects. During the two decades leading the firm after Koch’s death in 1971, Sam Wilson
became the leading figure in New Orleans restoration architecture and colonial scholarship. He
authored almost two hundred books and articles dealing with Louisiana architecture, and taught
Louisiana Architecture at popular Tulane University classes. Wilson co-founded the Louisiana
Landmarks Society and was its first president. He pioneered the “Vieux Carre Survey,” and served
as principal historian for the eight-volume Vieux Carré Demonstration Study. He died in 1993.
1 I wish to acknowledge the valuable assistance of Mr. John Geiser on this profile.
E DITH R OSENWALD S TERN (1895-1980) AND
E DGAR B LOOM S TERN (1886-1959)
As wealthy members of the New Orleans Jewish community, Edgar and Edith Stern could have led
merely comfortable lives— he as a real estate developer and pioneer in television (founding WDSU
in 1948) and she as a Sears heiress doing charity work. But they chose to lead lives of civic and cultural
engagement, both essentially founding schools. Edith co-founded Newcomb Nursery School in
1926 and Metairie Park Country Day School in 1929; Edgar obtained the funding for establishing
Dillard University in 1930. They were political reformers
who cared deeply about social justice. And they shaped
the cultural landscape of the city by their commitment to
the arts and historic preservation.
Edith Rosenwald Stern and Edgar Bloom Stern both
came from families that valued philanthropy and civic
activism. Edgar’s father Maurice Stern, a German Jewish
immigrant who acquired prodigious wealth as a cotton
factor, served on the Orleans Parish School Board as well
on the boards of Touro Infirmary and Temple Sinai. Edith
Stern’s father Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears and
Roebuck in Chicago, supported the construction of 5,000
schools for African-American children in the rural South
through his Julius Rosenwald Fund.
The Sterns believed in human dignity in a city in
which race is always an issue. Concerned about the lack
of housing for returning black veterans after World War
II, Edgar developed Pontchartrain Park, the first African-
American subdivision in the city. He also guided the nascent African-American Dillard University
as board president where he continued to serve for thirty years, earning The Times-Picayune Loving
Cup for his efforts. In 1949, Edith founded the Voters’ Registration League, a women’s good government
group that purged the voting rolls of spurious (dead) voters, and registered African–
American voters. At the same time Edgar served as Chairman of the Mayor’s Advisory Council
under reform mayor de Lesseps Morrison.
Above: Edith Stern.
COURTESY OF LONGUE VUE HOUSE AND GARDENS.
Left: Edgar Stern.
COURTESY OF LONGUE VUE HOUSE AND GARDENS.
BIOGRAPHIES
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