Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

Walter Cohen, Sr.
OCTAVE LILLY, JR., PAPERS, AMISTAD RESEARCH CENTER.
He was active in the NAACP, the Knights of
Pythias, Elks and Odd Fellows. He continued his
political work such as organizing a campaign to
have blacks pay the poll tax of 1910, a campaign
that led to at least five hundred new black voters. 1
In 1910, Cohen founded People’s Benevolent
Insurance Company, which during the 1920s converted
to People’s Industrial Life Insurance
Company. He also founded two People’s Drugstores
to rival Dejoie’s (q.v.), Labranche’s, Baumann’s, and
Nelson’s drugstores. Coincident with the 1920s
return of Republicans to power in Washington he
received a plum federal political appointment as
controller of the Port of New Orleans.
Just a week before his death Cohen was participating
actively in the Christmas Gift Fund for
poor children sponsored by black businessmen in
New Orleans. Cohen was a member of Corpus
Christi Catholic Church in New Orleans. He was
married there to the former Antonia Manadé. The
couple had three children: Walter Cohen, Jr., Bernard J. Cohen, and Margot C. Farrell.
For further reading see John N. and Lynne B. Ingham, African-American Business Leaders: A Biographical Dictionary.
Westport, Conn.:Greenwood Publishing Group, 1994; “Cohen, Walter L.” in A Dictionary of Louisiana Biography, vol. 1,
Louisiana Historical Association (1988); Robert Meyers, Jr., Names Over New Orleans Public Schools. New Orleans:
Namesake Press, 1975.
1 New Orleans Item, December 23, 1910.
R UDOLPH
M ATAS
(1860-1957)
Forty-eight years after receiving his M.D., but still almost thirty years before his death, Dr.
Rudolph Matas received honorary degrees from his alma maters Tulane and Princeton Universities.
What struck the Daily States at the time was that he had already received thirteen honorary degrees
from American and eight from European universities. 1 Although Tulane and Princeton were late to
recognize their own, Matas was the most honored physician in New Orleans history. He served as
Chair of Surgery in the Medical Department of Tulane University, he headed the Department of
Clinical Surgery in the New Orleans Polyclinic, was a chief surgeon of Touro Infirmary for decades,
performed surgery as visiting surgeon at Charity Hospital, and consulted in surgery at the New
Orleans Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital. At a time of segregation in medicine he also supported
the work of black physician Dr. J. T. Newman to found the Provident Sanitarium and Training
School for Nurses. Chicago-trained Newman had in 1871 been appointed the first black surgeon
at Charity Hospital.
The dapper Matas wore a fastidiously trimmed beard and mustache with his jet black hair. His
enormous energy left him no patience with antique ways of doing things. While Tulane’s dean of
surgeons Edmond Souchon still used a bulky knife in surgery, Matas went directly to the newlyinvented
small-bladed modern scalpel. Insightfully, he concluded that the calomel-induced purgings
and blood lettings that constituted the contemporary treatment for yellow fever were “homicidal.”
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