New Orleans' Gilded Grit: Women’s History Walking Tour｜United States

Begin your walking tour by learning about the iron will and ironwork of Micaela Leonarda Antonia de Almonester Rojas y de la Ronde, the Baroness de Pontalba. Discover how she stamped her initials—and her vision—into the architecture of Jackson Square after surviving an assassination attempt by her own father-in-law. Her story is one of defiance and civic rebirth.

From there, trace the preservationist fire of Elizabeth Werlein, the grande dame who fought to keep the Quarter’s famous structures and soul intact. Speak of Madame LaLaurie—but not through haunted legend alone. Her cruelty will be laid bare as a testimony to racial violence cloaked in wealth and elegance.

And of course, summon Marie Laveau—Queen of the Voodoo world, healer, mystic, and matriarch of mystery. Her spirit still coils through Congo Square and whispers through shutters. Pass the places she touched, the myths she mastered, the people she protected and terrified.

Honor Rose Nicaud, a once-enslaved woman who carved out a life selling coffee on the streets—one of the city’s first Black entrepreneurs, sweetening the morning air with roasted beans long before cafés lined every corner.

These women didn’t just live in New Orleans. They built her, broke her, resurrected her.