Sophie Gumbel School listed in the National Register of Historic Places

MARCH 31, 2025

BY Isabel Berman

Second-year Historic Preservation graduate student Sam Crowley recently achieved a significant milestone when the building she nominated to the National Register of Historic Places was officially listed.

After conducting extensive research on the Sophie Gumbel School, located at 5700 Loyola Avenue in New Orleans, Sam presented her findings to the State Historic Preservation Office. The nomination was then reviewed and approved by the National Park Service. This listing brings long-overdue recognition to a largely overlooked chapter in the city’s history: the institutional education of children with disabilities.

Constructed in 1918 in the Jacobean Revival style, the Sophie Gumbel Training School was originally established to provide education and job training for white girls with intellectual disabilities. Over the decades, the building’s purpose shifted — it later served as an orphanage for white children and was eventually occupied by ArcGNO, a nonprofit serving individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, in the 1960s. In 2016, the building suffered a lightning strike that activated the sprinkler system, causing significant interior damage. Vacant ever since, the structure has deteriorated but still retains much of its architectural integrity.

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States’ official list of historically significant properties. In Louisiana, being listed offers valuable benefits such as protection from federally funded projects, national recognition, and eligibility for financial support through the Louisiana Historic Tax Credit — an incentive recently preserved during a special legislative session on tax reform in Baton Rouge.

When discussing the historical significance of the Sophie Gumbel School, Crowley, who is pursuing a Master of Science in Historic Preservation, explains, "in the early 20th century, training schools afforded intellectually disabled people the luxury of education as well as improved their living conditions and standing in their communities, while simultaneously promoting dangerous ideas about eugenics, exploiting them for their labor and leading to compulsory sterilization for many. Eugenics was a pseudoscience that sought to 'purify' the human race through calculated breeding, according to the Library of Congress. The Sophie Gumbel Training School demonstrates the effects of this movement as well as the educational reform movement in New Orleans."

"I wanted to share this story with others, not only to satisfy local curiosity about the building, but also to bring awareness to intellectually disabled peoples’ history and stories. In 2008, a Louisiana lawmaker proposed a scheme to end endemic poverty by awarding poor people $1,000 to undergo surgical sterilization. This incident highlights the cruciality of remembering the American eugenics movement — these ideas still exist, and if we forget how harmful they were, there truly is a danger of repetition."

Sam Crowley’s successful nomination not only helps preserve an architecturally and socially important site but also sheds light on an often-neglected aspect of New Orleans’ educational and institutional past. The listing opens the door to future preservation efforts and provides an opportunity for the community to re-engage with this part of the city’s heritage.