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Margaret Haughery was one of New Orleans’ best known and most beloved citizens - a laundress, dairymaid, peddler, baker, and entrepreneur who built up a fortune and gave it away to the poor and the orphans of the city. She came to New Orleans in 1835 and, within a year, had lost both her husband and her newborn daughter to yellow fever. She was consoled and lodged by the Sisters of Charity, who operated an orphan asylum, creating a bond that would last for the rest of Margaret’s life. Over the years, she turned various initially modest business efforts into prosperous commercial enterprises and donated the bulk of her profits to charity, primarily to the three orphan asylums of the Sisters of Charity. Historian Laura D. Kelley describes her in an entry in the online encyclopedia KnowLouisiana: “Haughery personally oversaw all aspect of her business, employing forty men whose occupations ranged from clerk to errand boy, but refusing to employ department heads. As her business grew, she investigated and invested in the latest improvements, and thus, hers became the first bakery in the South to operate machinery by steam. This efficient operation allowed her to expand even more until she had built the largest bakery in the United States.” When she died in 1882, she left charitable bequests in excess of $50,000.

(Louisiana Photograph Collection. Portrait Collection)

(Louisiana Postcard Collection)

(Rare Vertical File)