Alcée Fortier (June 5, 1856 – February 14, 1914) was a renowned Professor of Romance Languages at Tulane University in New Orleans.

He became president of the Modern Language Association and the Louisiana Historical Society, was appointed to the State Board of Education, and was active in the American Folklore Society and the New Orleans Academy of Sciences.

[1][2] Fortier was born in St. James Parish, on Petit Versailles Plantation, which was owned by his maternal grandfather Valcour Aime and had long been cultivated for sugar cane.

His father and grandfathers were sugar cane planters of French Creole ancestry.

The Fortier family had been in the Louisiana territory since the early 18th century, which it was a French colony.

His family suffered a loss in fortune following the war, losing the property value of their slaves and struggling to adapt to a free labor market in a period of agricultural decline.

Fortier returned to New Orleans and read law, then started working as a clerk.