Parish Spotlight
Introducing the Visual Arts Issue
Featuring the art of Randell Henry
Featuring the art of Randell Henry
The fight to preserve Louisiana artist legacies
The Lebanese-owned department store that became a Southwest Louisiana staple
Public art commissions from Prospect
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin
A Marrero company found sweet success with sugarcane fiber until the walls tumbled down
A toxic silhouette album provides an intimate look at early Louisianans
The history and preservation of New Orleans’s ceramic street tiles
In Winn Parish, an ancient salt dome has sustained life for centuries
Underground publications offer a window into Louisiana communities
The portrait artist who immortalized the faces of Spanish colonial Louisiana
Each October, Folklife Month recognizes Louisianans keeping the culture
One person’s trash fish is another’s delicacy
The murder mystery novel that gripped Depression-era New Orleans
Fifty years of Festivals Acadiens et Créoles
In Houma, LUMCON hopes to train up a sea-savvy citizenry
Notes on a topographic peculiarity
Prospect’s sixth edition of the citywide triennial
An excerpt from Nocturnal New Orleans
Artists and fabricators push boundaries of creativity along Boom or Bust Byway
Louisiana’s flagship literary festival starts a new chapter
Musician, photographer, Renaissance man, and Humanist of the Year Dickie Landry
Story-laden trees anchor the Louisiana landscape
American Empire, Bananas, and the Crescent City
Gordon H. “Nick” Mueller, PhD, is the 2024 Champion of Culture
Jane Wolfe is the Light Up for Literacy awardee
Elizabeth Ellis’s "The Great Power of Small Nations" named the 2024 Humanities Book of the Year
"Creole New Orleans, Honey!" named Museum Exhibition of the Year
Freddi Williams Evans is the Lifetime Contributions to the Humanities awardee
The Precipice, the 2024 Documentary Film of the Year, documents the Pointe-au-Chien Tribe’s fight for federal recognition
"The old songs live forever"
Andre Dubus's Lafayette stories
Bush tracks of South Louisiana
The ballad of Louisiana’s former state song
One writer’s crabmeat-filled obsession
Of rivers, shifts, and avulsions
Francophone developments in Louisiana tourism
The legacy of Laura Simon Nelson
An excerpt from "Gumbo" by Jonathan Olivier
At ninety, he’s proud of his Louisiana roots
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin
Ben Depp is the Documentary Photographer of the Year
A lens on North Louisiana
The life, death, and rebirth of Central Grocery
Romanticism, local color, and nostalgic New Orleans
The Bayou Corne sinkhole
The sour-sweet taste of grandmother’s house
A St. James original
The Miss-Lou Memorial Day Parade
The history and legacy of the Ninth Ward’s Law and Desire corridor
Patty Friedmann’s The Exact Image of Mother
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin
Louisiana Iris Conservation Initiative
Louisiana, Carolana, and the imperial chess match of 1699
Longleaf pine restoration contends with arson in Vernon Parish
The improvisational artistry of Germaine Bazzle
Creole tomatoes and the women who love them
Two new exhibitions shine “three great lights” on the history, symbology, and lore of Freemasonry
An excerpt from The Danse Macabre: Celebration and Survival in New Orleans by Cheryl Gerber
Iranian-born Sara Rastegar curates Living the Unknown
Celebrating writers’ attraction to New Orleans
Julian Moreau’s The Black Commandos.
River pilots in an age of automation
Illegal free Black labor in antebellum New Orleans
New Orleans was an operatic capital, with people of color often at the fore
An elegant refugee who became an unsung hero of Louisiana French folklore
An alternative view of Louisiana’s geographical context
The dish owes many debts to Native cooks—but not its name
North Louisiana’s Tony Joe White
The new Louisiana Poet Laureate shares work about people, places, ruination, and rebirth
Mary Barnes and the Louisiana Civil Rights Movement
Opelousas commemorates a complex child welfare project
George B. Hamlet, Monroe’s first Black mayor
Discovering Cajun and Creole music
A community finds belonging and resists erasure
Robert Mann’s Kingfish U
An excerpt from Creole New Orleans in the Revolutionary Atlantic, 1775–1877 by Caryn Cossé Bell
The Art of Language
A new photography book from The Historic New Orleans Collection
The LSU Museum of Art in Baton Rouge premieres Andy Warhol/Friends and Frenemies: Prints from the Cochran Collection
A rejuvenated Creole Heritage Center continues to empower Louisiana Creoles
Louis Armstrong’s complicated relationship with New Orleans
What the ivory-billed woodpecker can teach us about the unknown
The 1984 Louisiana World Exposition
A Houma-based blimp squadron
The loss of Shreveport’s C. C. Antoine House highlights a need to protect vulnerable historical sites
The Great Arctic Outbreak of 1899
Selected by outgoing Louisiana Poet Laureate Mona Lisa Saloy
A century and a half for the Reconstruction-era parish
Uncovering Black history in Iberia Parish
How Thibodaux’s cathedral obtained its patroness
“God, don’t let me die before I do something useful.”
Self-taught artist Welmon Sharlhorne
Honoring those maintaining Louisiana’s cultural richness
Sweet potatoes are not yams—usually
A review of Jake Bittle’s The Great Displacement
The sojourn of Élisée Reclus
Diverse, inventive, rock-solid, and soulful
The Chris Owens legacy
An excerpt from Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU by Robert Mann
Joe Bluhm and Dominique McLemore exhibit at artspace in downtown Shreveport
On view at Ogden Museum of Southern Art through February 2024
French tables help perpetuate Louisiana’s linguistic heritage
The Humanities Book of the Year is Necropolis: Disease, Power, and Capitalism in the Cotton Kingdom by Kathryn Olivarius
Roots of Fire is the LEH Documentary Film of the Year
An excerpt from The Vieux Carré by John DeMers
A Shreveport family upholds more than a culinary legacy
The rise and fall of a Reconstruction experiment
The man who shines his light on NWLA arts and artists
The mystery of a two-hit wonder
The influence of Italian immigration on jazz and swing
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Mona Lisa Saloy
Organic rice cultivation in Rapides Parish
Freedom on the Move is the 2023 Best in Digital Humanities awardee
Notes on parish topography
Examining democracy in a traveling exhibition
A self-taught artist explores Louisiana’s Creole past
The lesbian dive that became a nexus for gay rights in New Orleans
Monroe’s Mohawk Tavern
H. Leighton Steward’s Sugar Busters!
Marianne Fisher-Giorlando is the 2023 Lifetime Contributions to the Humanities awardee
Introducing the 2023 Champion of Culture, State Senator Gerald Boudreaux
Documentary Photographer of the Year Jenny Ellerbe’s images of Native American mounds
Chef John Folse is the LEH’s 2023 Humanist of the Year
Megan Holt is the 2023 Light Up for Literacy awardee
Celebrating twenty years of SASFest, creating a fringe fest, and a new twist on a favorite tradition
Ellen Soffer’s evocative use of color
From drag to rap promotion and everywhere in between
Oaks celebrated on a Books Along the Teche bike tour
The Blue Moon Saloon and Guest House
Libuse keeps central European traditions alive in central Louisiana
An excerpt from Moving the Chains: The Civil Rights Protest That Saved the Saints and Transformed New Orleans
Cornell Woolrich’s Waltz into Darkness
“Yet She Is Advancing”: New Orleans Women and the Right to Vote, 1878–1970
Foraged vegetables created the restorative gumbo z’herbes
Two luminous, youthful musicians
The Toledo Bend Reservoir
The changing terrain of Cameron Parish
Sartorial mainstay Meyer the Hatter
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Mona Lisa Saloy
Hiding in plain sight
Defending the cotton crop with old-fashioned horsemanship
In Louisiana, like the rest of the country, attempts to ban books rise during times of cultural shifts that discomfort segments of society.
Lessons from the Houma Language Project
An excerpt from Rien Fertel’s latest book from LSU Press
The upcoming relocation and restoration of the Pacale–Roque House in Natchitoches will reshape the riverfront of Louisiana’s oldest city
The controversial kickoff to the twinning between Lafayette and Moncton, New Brunswick
Louisiana’s small cemeteries at risk in changing landscapes
Farewell to King Louie Bankston
Tim Edler’s Crawfish-Man
New Orleans was nearly relocated to a site near Baton Rouge
A foodway born out of necessity is maintained as a tradition
Book series set the stage for every Prime Time program
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Mona Lisa Saloy
A personal-ad scam run out of Angola led to a double murder
The wooden grave houses of Talbert-Pierson Cemetery
Telling the story of urban enslavement
Asian-Cajun Fusion: Shrimp from the Bay to the Bayou by Carl A. Brasseaux and Donald W. Davis
An augmented reality experience at The Historic New Orleans Collection
An excerpt from Cherie Quarters: The Place and the People That Inspired Ernest J. Gaines, by Ruth Laney
New exhibition traces evolution of Black studio photography
Immersion programs seek to arrest French’s retreat from Louisiana
How the Coushatta describe Good Friday
The mystery behind one of the Gulf Coast’s oldest colonial relics
Plaquemines Parish architecture
When groceries came to you
Big talker Jelly Roll Morton exaggerated—but not much
Of, By, and For the People to pilot in Voices and Votes parishes this fall
An Excerpt from Drumsville! by Robert H. Cataliotti
The first European look at what became our state
Tommy McLain’s late-career classic
The delights of fried pork skin
Honoring tradition bearers and those who preserve Louisiana culture
Chitlin’ Circuit heritage preserved in a mixed-use space
A photographer’s ’70s sojourn in Basile
Archaeological treasures in Louisiana’s first capital
Preservation-conscious technologies marry exploration and stewardship
An old capital of Texas and center for Native trade
Homes used for centuries tell of their past residents’ lives
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Mona Lisa Saloy
The Caddo grass house, destroyed by a deadly tornado, reopens this fall
“La Fin du Monde,” the Red (or White) Scare, and the story of the Great Meteor of 1957
KaDavien Baylor’s Larger-Than-Life Mural Messages
A tale of erasure, restitution, and possible resolution
A closer look at the city’s Spanish history
New Orleans’s St. Roch Chapel gets a facelift
Nancy Lemann’s Lives of the Saints
Foodwise, Louisiana and its island neighbors are south of the South
Lake Pontchartrain’s shore was an early jazz locus
Baby and Toilet outshone their names
Handsome and diverse additions to the skyline
Renewing connections, expanding impact
Erna Brodber’s Louisiana
Batman Black and White: The Sketch Covers
Freedwoman Eliza Dorsey’s struggle for a Civil War pension
Reflections on Louisiana Green Book sites
A new interactive gathering space will showcase the artist’s life and work
Zack Smith’s festival photographs
An Urban Landmark, Reframed
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Mona Lisa Saloy
The ancient medical theory behind the Louisiana landscape’s transformation
The New Orleans Museum of Art presents Queen Nefertari’s Egypt
Rebuilding a smokehouse after Hurricane Ida
A Houma museum commemorates the parish’s Black heritage
A poem by the Poet Laureate of French Louisiana
Cecilia’s own saxophonist Dickie Landry
Creole musician Amédé Ardoin’s legacy
A petroleum state explores wind power
A record store acts as a musical and social nexus
Carrie Nation invades New Orleans
Grant’s Canals and the assault on Vicksburg
A career spent advocating for Tunica–Biloxi traditions
The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood
The permanent exhibition at the new Museum of the Southern Jewish Experience
Hurricane Ida forces public historians to make difficult decisions
French Quarter Sicilians and Italian POWs
A conversation with Shreveport-native and Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown.
The origins of Louisiana parish names
Honoring Joyce Marie Jackson, PhD, with a Lifetime Contributions to the Humanities Award
Homes and beaches can be rebuilt after Ida, but what about culture?
What the Children Said: Child Lore of South Louisiana
Life and writing with Kalamu ya Salaam, LEH Lifetime Contributions to the Humanities Award winner
A shellfish allergy renders a food columnist wistful
The Neutral Ground is the LEH Documentary Film of the Year
New THNOC exhibition goes backstage at a classic drama
The 2022 Light Up for Literacy Award goes to Jeannine Pasini Beekman and Tracy Cunningham
The LEH Documentary Photographer of the Year chronicles community spaces under threat
Bruce Allen is NWLA arts’ man for all seasons
Celebrating A Streetcar Named Desire’s 75th anniversary
Ruby Bridges is the 2022 LEH Humanist of the Year
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Mona Lisa Saloy
Arts and culture blossom by the Teche
A St. Martin Parish farmer keeps Acadian brown cotton growing
French, Yat, and other modes of speech add a je ne sais quoi to Louisiana’s culture—and marketing
John Rechy's City of Night
Natchitoches stars as a thinly veiled version of itself in Steel Magnolias
Toledo Bend Reservoir is a keeper
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Jack Bedell
Creole connections exist between South Louisiana and South America
Jim Croce died shortly after playing at Northwestern State University
The story of the lone known Black victim of the 1973 Up Stairs Lounge tragedy
In Monroe–West Monroe, a rising tide lifts all gravy boats
Historically deprived Black communities reel from Hurricane Ida
Mapping remoteness
Confronting a changing Gulf Coast
Louisiana’s festival queens act as local advocates and bearers of tradition
Family memories of two civil rights icons
No, not LSU (but close)
A collection of songs for children in Louisiana French
Cabinetmaker Greg Arceneaux brings artistry and heritage to his craft
A prolific session musician with a sound all his own
The labor rebel and mythic outlaw of Beauregard Parish
LeAnne Howe’s Shell Shaker
K. Stephen Prince’s The Ballad of Robert Charles: Searching for the New Orleans Riot of 1900
Prime Time becomes an approved vendor partner for the Louisiana Department of Education
A holiday tradition continues at the R.W. Norton Art Gallery
Mike and Larsson McSwain’s pandemic travel sketches
Making Mardi Gras marches into THNOC’s exhibition enter
Louisiana’s new poet laureate writes about and for Black Creoles of New Orleans
An excerpt from the new book Dancing in the Streets explores the planning and artistry behind social aid and pleasure clubs’ finery
How a Cleveland R&B song became a New Orleans brass band staple
Robert Stone's A Hall of Mirrors
Recommitting to public art and art education in northeast Louisiana
Fans are still wild about French Quarter native Richard Simmons
Things We Lost to the Water by Eric Nguyen
Not so high and mighty
Uncommon entertainment abounds with Culture Fest, Hoots & Hops, and Skeletal Survival & Monster Mash
The memory of a Black beach on Lake Pontchartrain
There’s plenty of competition in looking for birds
Football-mad Louisiana does well at baseball, too
Rougarou Fest saves the Cajun werewolf and other traditions
A new exhibit at West Baton Rouge Museum
Special deliveries of PRIME TIME
A major milestone in the documentation of Cajun and Creole music
The legacy of UL Lafayette trampolining coach Jeff Hennessy
Recognizing culture bearers and tradition keepers
Bass fishing and waterfowl hunting in Louisiana
Reviving the South’s hottest night spot
Relics of a Jewish philanthropist’s work to further Black education
The Thanksgiving season brings the region’s two favorite squashes to the table
Frogging in Jefferson Davis Parish
This small green pod tells the history of Africans in diaspora
Fermented chile sauces are a common fixture on Louisiana tables
The Masur Museum reopens with an exhibit from Letitia Huckaby
Simple staples with deep roots in North Louisiana
Opening this year on Howard Avenue in New Orleans
Things that go bump in the Louisiana night
A drag star shone in New Orleans's 1950s nightlife
Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change
Bevolo celebrates seventy-five years
The first published short story by an African American author and its Louisiana roots
Spanish coins for luck, comfort, health, and protection.
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate John Warner Smith
Hoodoo and Vodou’s indelible connection
When audiences eventually return to the Official State Theatre of Louisiana, they’ll find it better off than it’s been in a long time
Women in a Houma family adapt a utilitarian tradition to artistic ends
Louisiana’s sweet citrus wine
Putting the “West” in the West Bank
The Great Epizootic devastated New Orleans’s equine population
Deep Delta Justice by Matthew Van Meter
Summer reading for a shifting world
Art and technology energizing Shreveport–Bossier
John Clemmer at 100
PRIME TIME hits the airwaves
African American masking and spirituality in Mardi Gras
How Chicago’s legendary newspaper inspired migrants and amplified local journalism
Memories of the Louisiana fur trade
Don’t worry—just boil it three times
Saloonkeepers’ choice: no money or customers?
The surprising linguistic and cultural confusion behind corn porridge
Discussing the ways poetry can help the spirit in these disruptive times
How a Monroe man’s legacy nurtures community, economy, and international relations
A look back at past mass-vaccination campaigns in Louisiana
Member of Admiral Byrd’s expedition perished in Monroe
Cracking good Easter fun
A historian chronicles kidnapping in antebellum America
Sweetening the present, remembering the past
The raw, raucous blues of Boogie Bill Webb
Fluid feature, fluid meaning
A facility providing an example of coastal cooperation
School desegregation in Caddo Parish, Louisiana
Organizing the history of the culinary icon
The power to produce change
Historian Andy Horowitz looks back to understand Louisiana’s most devastating storm
Amid a bumper crop of Louisiana-themed podcasts released in 2020, Slow Burn: David Duke stood out for its breadth and humanity
Professor Longhair: Rugged & Funky is Humanities Documentary Film of the Year
Photographer Abdul Aziz documents tumultuous times
A well-loved folklorist will be remembered for kindness, humor, and scholarship
John Scott is the 2021 Humanist of the Year
The festival bounces back with an online iteration
The 2021 Light Up for Literacy Award goes to Dr. Patricia Austin
Two Hundred Years of American Design
Celebrating 20 years of Shreveport's mega mural
Remembering the politics and philanthropy that preceded the jazz
Natural symbols for southwest Louisiana resilience
Looking at the career of an influential scholar
Poetry by David Havird, selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate John Warner Smith
Valerie Martin's A Recent Martyr
An African American businessman ran a popular Ferriday nightclub
European powers used awards to keep Native allies on their side
What if Abraham Lincoln had died in an 1828 scuffle?
A review of A Thousand Ways Denied by John T. Arnold
The history and future of the meat-free Lent
The legacy of Slim Harpo
A cultural region?
Coastal challenges threaten Fort Jackson and the Orange Festival
Divergent coverage of Jim Crow– and Civil Rights–era violence in Louisiana
In New Orleans and Breaux Bridge, Father Antoine Borias navigated race and saved souls
An aspiring writer meets Walker Percy
The Work of Alice Moore Dunbar-Nelson
Poetry by Ethan Leonard
A chance discovery helped cement a tribal legacy
Carmel’s Rock Chapel offers visitors a fascinating peek into the history of DeSoto Parish
These small islands are the last vestige of once-sprawling New France
John Dufresne’s Louisiana Power & Light
A resurrected Anglo-Creole fixture in Mandeville
Poetry by Donney Rose, selected by John Warner Smith
Ernie Ladd, the Junkyard Dog, and the intersection of sports, race, and culture in New Orleans
Capturing music in sculpture
Monroe remembers an early helicopter enthusiast
The art of Clyde Connell
The Dictionary of Louisiana French as accomplishment and aid
A new look for Christmas in the Sky
A graphic novel illustrates Reconstruction
The fabric of Acadiana
Louisiana honors its culture bearers
Louisiana’s original state line
Seventeen years giving Shreveport a broader sense of self and art
The unsung art of duck decoy carving
Louisiana’s Isleños trace their roots to a storied archipelago
The Red Beans Road Show
Free people sought reunion with friends and family after emancipation
The gift of playing with venerable innovators
Supporting aspiring Louisiana artists
How two Black-owned newspapers launched Louisiana’s civil rights struggle
The Louisiana Delta Easter Rock
A historic house and museum in Columbia, Louisiana
Environmental education in southeast Louisiana
An author comes to terms with a Klansman in the family
Ritual wrapping and binding in contemporary southern art
Hoop net fishing in Avoyelles Parish
Acadiana’s “Temple of Amusement”
PRIME TIME suggestions for helping children through difficult times
Racial violence in New Orleans in 1900 and 2005
Rock journalist Nik Cohn’s Triksta chronicles a chapter in the city’s hip hop history
New Orleans’s answer to Elvira and Joe Bob Briggs
Getting to know gas stations makes a flat road come alive
Louisiana’s first poet laureate was female—and vehemently anti-war
Hannah Chalew’s art for our time
Louisiana off the Interstate
The Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo is the longest-running fishing tournament in the United States
Did a simple vitamin deficiency cause the jazz pioneer’s mental illness?
One of Louisiana’s most endangered buildings
Exciting discoveries in the archives
How the 31st parallel shaped Louisiana
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate John Warner Smith
New inductees exhibition opening at the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame and Northwest Louisiana History Museum in Natchitoches
The sculpture of Frank Hayden
PRIME TIME at an Ascension Parish police station is a runaway success
Central Europeans in Livingston Parish
Keeping drawing alive in a time of computer graphics
Notes from the field on the Memories of Hurricane Harvey in Louisiana Project
Women have been fundamental in building support for jazz and its history
Radio staple “Judy in Disguise” has Baton Rouge roots
A new THNOC exhibition and book to explore Acadiana in the 1970s
Belle Cheney Springs—the southern Saratoga
Renovations refresh a lesser-known Shreveport museum
Plentiful stories about the prison have cemented misunderstandings
Covering the crisis that more than doubled New Orleans’s population
Geographer's Space with Richard Campanella, Episode 9
This special quarantine issue of Geographer’s Space is produced in partnership with LSU Press
Photographer Charles Muir Lovell’s work reflects the power of place
A new medium for Mardi Gras Indian culture
Celebrating the city’s influence on the world’s literati
A spring preview of arts events in southwest Louisiana
The starchy Acadiana staple is anything but plain
LSU Press is the LEH’s 2020 Champion of Culture
Newcomb Art Museum exhibition goes beyond the bars, winning the LEH’s Museum Exhibition of the Year award for Per(Sister)
The story of free black sailors trapped in Louisiana’s slave prisons
Melissa A. Weber sits down with the 2020 Humanist of the Year
Mossville: When Great Trees Fall is a character-driven documentary with global implications
A glimpse into the world of horses
SRAC fosters the performing arts in northwest Louisiana
Speed Lamkin stayed stuck in the other author’s shadow
Defenders of Cajun, Coushatta culture recognized for their efforts
The Sicilian roots of a local feast
French colonization leaves cultural traces in the Midwest
The multimedia art of Karen Bourque
The Isle de Jean Charles relocation project ignores realities for Native residents
A geographic exploration
The history of professional baseball in Shreveport
Dr. Lynn Clark is this year’s recipient of the Light Up for Literacy Award
Exploring the art of children’s literature
Voices from the Civil Rights Movement
Documenting Louisiana’s musical heritage
Performance artist Dread Scott and an army of volunteers commemorate resistance to slavery in recent performance piece
Geographer's Space with Richard Campanella, Episode 8
Baroque urban planning shaped Baton Rouge
Abe Lincoln’s bloody melee
The Grateful Dead got a sour reception in New Orleans
Cultivating creativity and community
Louisiana’s first state prison survives in archival images
An early New Orleans shutterbug was also an Ursuline nun
Record producer Eddie Shuler welcomed weirdness into Goldband Studio
Nigerien Moussa Sadou makes a home for himself in Louisiana
Archived notices of people escpaing slavery plot a geography of resistance
A historic renovation brings the past to the present
Shirley Ann Grau’s debut novel evokes the coast
An interview with Bertney and Linda Langley
Work by the new Poet Laureate of Louisiana
A sculptor remembers a riverside boyhood
A photographer looks at the changing landscapes of the river’s final miles
The Monroe Symphony Orchestra
A gay Mardi Gras krewe shines in Acadiana’s capital
John Coykendall’s life in plants
Another look at language and identity
A long history of African American entrepreneurship
The LEH presents a new K–12 curriculum focusing on the sounds of the state
How artists are making science more accessible
In 2015 the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities honored broadcast and print journalist and author Cokie Roberts as Humanist of the Year.
The Angolite provides a journalistic outlet for the incarcerated
Younger Louisianans get a scientific grounding in how water shapes our coast
A traveling writer stirs the pot
The lyrical legacy of Caesar Vincent
Cattle drivers’ descendants keep their on-the-trail foodways alive
Bailey’s Dam at the Red River Rapids
An interview with Chef Hardette Harris, the curator of the Official Meal of North Louisiana
A survival staple that requires work to survive
It takes a bold imagination to look at such critters and see canapés.
Stumble upon the fun in a Rainbow City in Shreveport’s new Common Park
A Harlem Renaissance look at the ruin of a man
Creating place and purpose in a new medical school
The Abbeville Giant Omelette Festival
Photographer Richard Sexton captures the complexities of the Mississippi’s industrial corridor
Scottish designer Geoffrey Mann captures the musical rhythms of New Orleans
The difficulty of finding the outhouse in Sicily
The Wideman International Piano Competition is music to the ears
A hymn to the cherished sausage
An iconic Louisiana species takes Berlin
A rare example of an Afro Creole-owned plantation
The first African American woman in Louisiana to earn a medical degree and practice medicine
A secret festival is the highlight of the Madison Parish social calendar—for those in the know
Chosen by outgoing Poet Laureate Jack Bedell
Insensitive harvesting threatens an iconic Louisiana ingredient
A catalog of wonders in Shreveport
A tale of industrial and political revolutions
The “Hanging Jail” in Beauregard Parish offers architectural history and decades of ghost stories
A new history of Reconstruction in Louisiana and South Carolina reveals an alternative path not taken for US race relations
Louisiana-made podcasts provide a window into the inner life of the Bayou State
A North Louisiana site preserves engineering history
Budget woes threaten the capital’s cultural institutions
Japanese internment in Louisiana during World War II
The role of Latino/as in rebuilding New Orleans
The complex relationship between language names and identity
Award-winning glass artist Eric Hess curates artspace Summer of Glass
The art of Dusti Bongé
2019 marks three hundred years since the arrival of the first slave ships in Louisiana
Silent film clip appears to show Louis Armstrong as a teenager
Selected by Louisiana Poet Laureate Jack Bedell
Silk art by Megan Barra
A Prairie-style historic home in Northeast Louisiana
Fifty years since Louisiana’s Woodstock
Art takes center stage as a new campus opens on Royal Street
A French orphan survived captivity in two countries to give an early testimonial of women’s experiences in colonial Louisiana
A geographical self-assessment
The value of focus and presence in artistic work
Between the covers with Steve Cannon
NOMA awarded Museum Exhibition of the Year
Poetry by the 2019 Humanist of the Year.
A first-time writer pens a vivid portrait of her Acadiana childhood
The extraordinary life of a pioneering ballerina
Ashley Mace Havird is the current Caddo Parish Poet Laureate
Two centuries ago, commerce and culture moved at the Mississippi’s pace
A new exhibit shows off Alexandria Museum of Art’s enviable permanent collection
Architect John Desmond made a modernist style just for Louisiana
Newcomb Art Museum’s new exhibition addresses critical issues facing incarcerated or formerly incarcerated women
An exhibition at the Cabildo looks at the Pontalbas’ architectural influence
Linda Gail rocks her way out of Jerry Lee’s shadow
A local reflects on St. Bernard Parish’s generations-long struggle to stay afloat
Photographer Frank Relle sees beauty as crucial to his craft—and his message
Dr. Hiram F. Gregory receives award for Lifetime Contributions to the Humanities
The proud eclecticism of John Fohl and Corey Ledet
An impressive art collection in a locally unique historic house
The trumpet legend shines in Cameron Washington’s documentary
Light Up for Literacy Award goes to Dr. Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell
Brugmansia aren’t your garden-variety gateway drug
The 2019 Humanist of the Year talks about music, memory, and the power of storytelling
The Shreveport visionary’s Prize Fest has incentivized innovation
Making quinceañeras in Union Parish
Barbara Giles’ The Gentle Bush rewrites Gone With the Wind
An unusual look at species impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill
A complicated tangle of public and private property ownership stymies restoration efforts for Bayou Bienvenue
A new exhibition at the New Orleans Jazz Museum celebrates Professor Longhair’s Centennial
The architect of Monkey Hill was also a painter of the Sportsman’s Paradise
A celebration of the river, steamboats, history, and beer
Tour of homes explores the private art of Shreveport collectors
The issues provided honest coverage of the Mechanics’ Institute Massacre of July 30, 1866
New releases from Charles Lloyd & the Marvels + Lucinda Williams and Walter “Wolfman” Washington
A possible origin of its name
Nystrom's book explores the backstory of Italian New Orleans
On location in New Orleans, Elvis staked his claim as an actor
The Alexandria Museum of Art exhibits the work of Hari & Deepti in Winter 2018
A hard-boiled detective in an intergalactic world
Mable John and the power of home
A French Quarter rock-n-roll tragedy
Portrait #1: An Early Start
Lexicon: Languages of Louisiana
Shreveport architects Samuel and William Wiener are the subject of a forthcoming documentary
Ernest “Dutch” Morial and the 1979 New Orleans police strike
The books will be donated to families attending more than eighty PRIME TIME programs across nine states in Fall 2018
The there and back again story of Kathleen Babineaux Blanco
Geographer's Space with Richard Campanella, Episode 6
Geographer's Space with Richard Campanella, Episode 4
Geographer's Space with Richard Campanella, Episode 2
Geographer's Space with Richard Campanella, Episode 5
Geographer's Space with Richard Campanella, Episode 1
Geographer's Space with Richard Campanella, Episode 7
Geographer's Space with Richard Campanella, Episode 3
The quiet poems and powerful legacy of Pinkie Gordon Lane
Nelson Algren’s A Walk on the Wild Side stalked the sordid side of Depression-era New Orleans
Songs that inspired our tricentennial music issue
Tulane 2018 graduate Justin Gitelman spoke to members of the New Orleans music scene's next generation. Read what they had to say, and listen to his interview with NOCCA and Berklee grad Khris Royal.
Newport may not be Shakespeare’s Forest of Arden, but the film’s plot revolves around the myth of the festival as a way to turn sorrow to joy and bring the major players to romantic bliss
New Orleans has an unfair reputation as a city where the only jazz that people play is a century old
Reznor was damaged goods when he moved to New Orleans in 1995
The video for Juvenile's hit shows a community that was often ignored, despite the enormous contributions it was destined to make to popular music and culture in the United States
Generations of black New Orleanians have made the band one of their favorites of all time
Over thirty years, the DJ has impacted local music as much as traditional musical royalty
Of all the choices that young people make, they almost never regret the music
That uptown–downtown negotiation wasn’t just a local one. It was tectonic: the two great cultural regions of the hemisphere were crunching into one another.
I was stopped at the light at Rampart and Canal the first time I heard Fats Domino sing “I was standing, I was standing on the corner of Rampart and Canal." This constituted an ultimate cosmic New Orleans moment.
“Buona Sera” is New Orleans through and through, a song suffused with both poetry and party.
Musicians, authors, artists, filmmakers and others share their favorite New Orleans songs
Musicians, authors, artists, filmmakers and others share their favorite New Orleans songs
Musicians, authors, artists, filmmakers and others share their favorite New Orleans songs.
Musicians, authors, artists, filmmakers and others share their favorite New Orleans songs.
The photographs of the 3-C Cowgirls photography group are selected for display at the Paramount Room of Calcasieu Marine National Bank during the annual Spring Art Walk in Lake Charles
SRAC has been orchestrating this black-tie, glitzy, glamorous, internationally award-winning fundraiser every other year since 1996
Louisiana Architecture Foundation, Hilliard Museum explore A. Hays Town homes
People abandon their midwestern suburbs. They escape their very important northeastern jobs. They come to New Orleans for a taste of freedom represented, in part, by the artistic work of the greatest trumpet player who ever lived and the “greatest rapper alive.”
The hymn “I’ll Fly Away” has long functioned as a signal of that transition from solemnity into celebration
Anchored by the simple tuba part, melody after melody unfurls out of the trumpets, trombones, and saxophones. On the street, “Tuba Fats” can last for blocks.
Popular songs reached nineteenth-century New Orleanians from the opera stage.
A contemporary blues with a seductive absence of regret.
It all became an aggressive gesture, a call into the night. We were still here.
The final two songs Morton recorded that day suggest a vanished world of barrelhouse bards.
Editor's letter and table of contents
An exhibition at the Cabildo celebrates the unique people, places, and things that have made New Orleans an extraordinary place for the last three hundred years
A new exhibition at Ogden samples the rich and diverse range of photography being practiced in the American South today
Reading Tom Dent and renegotiating Black aesthetics in the new New Orleans
The varied lexicon of regional identity
In 1968, two writers tussled over the fate of New Orleans jazz—and its festival
The New Orleans District Attorney reveled in the spotlight, hurling accusations against his enemies and using the media to advance his investigations.
Charter captains debate the impacts of the Master Plan and the future of Louisiana's coast.
Nelson Algren’s "A Walk on the Wild Side" stalked the sordid side of Depression-era New Orleans
On the road with The Great Big Doorstep, the second and final novel by New Orleans writer E. P. O'Donnell
Summer artspace exhibitions follow the distinct journeys of two artists, Julie Crews and Melanie Parent
A feature-length interview with Professor Longhair is released on DVD alongside the 1982 documentary "Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together"
New collection is dedicated to the social aid and pleasure clubs of New Orleans
Dudley LeBlanc’s Hadacol promised miracles and delivered star power
New Orleans’ first policewoman endured controversy to patrol vice districts
Caminada Headlands is the Coastal Master Plan’s largest completed restoration project
In his clashes with the press, the Kingfish used legislation, slander, and even physical force to control the message
Jayne Mansfield's last days in Louisiana.
Ben Sandmel reviews new releases from Lloyd Price, Gregg Martinez, Sweet Cecilia and more
On November 23, 1887, mobs of white vigilantes gunned down unarmed black laborers and their families during a spree lasting more than two hours, throughout mostly black neighborhoods in the city of Thibodaux
Revolutionary art is rediscovered in a trash heap 45 years after its creation
New exhibition and book examine early New Orleans and it's people
Zella Palmer talks with the culinary legend and 2018 LEH Humanist of the Year
Louisiana's 200-year-old tradition of rum production is revitalized, with distilleries sourcing the necessary raw material from farmers across the state
The lessons of the West Bay Sediment Diversion.
Geographical, economics, and political factors led to siting of New Orleans, other Louisiana cities.
The Shreveport Regional Arts Council's annual invitational exhibition reflects the energy, passion, and powerful talent of Northwest Louisiana artists.
An interview with Pat Mire as he celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of his landmark documentary, Dance for a Chicken
New collection showcases three photographers from New Deal agency
Artist Nick Cave weaves a trail in an uncommon tale of acceptance
Photographs of Depression-era Louisiana capture a state on the verge of great change
The Historic New Orleans Collection oral histories spark WWNO series
Louis Andrews Fischer was a Carnival visionary who designed iconic costumes, floats, and sets for Mardi Gras balls
French immersion schools fuel bilingual economy
"The novella is a critique of race, art, and politics that stings as much, if not more so, today than it did three decades ago."
Coastal communities in Plaquemines Parish plot the future with LA SAFE
The Ogden Museum of Art presents Prospect 4 and spotlights artist John T. Scott
Photographer Jeremiah Ariaz and writer Alexandra Giancarlo explore the long standing traditions of riders in Southwest Louisiana's Creole trail riding clubs
Richard Campanella initiates a cross cultural connection in an interview with French Canadian Lisanne Gamelin
This issue's Publisher's Column features a letter from César Rey Hernández, Director Ejecutivo de la Fundación Puertorriqueña de las Humanidades.
Remembering Royce Osborn
The prolific, controversial career of Ralph S. Peer
Directors of the state’s arts councils respond
The Cracker Jack was apparently operating as a hoodoo drugstore by the 1920s, supplying customers all over the eastern United States
A century prior to New Orleans being dubbed “Hollywood South” for its thriving movie industry, the Crescent City was poised to become a major center for silent film studios
A history of the Llano del Rio Cooperative Colony in Vernon Parish, the longest lived socialist community in America
Photographers use Instagram to share Louisiana
Laura Simon Nelson's collection of Southern Art is now on display at The Historic New Orleans Collection
Louisiana State Museum's new exhibition in Baton Rouge looks at Louisiana during and after WWI.
When Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, a 200+ year old clock was undergoing restoration in a New Orleans repair shop. It was completely submerged in floodwater.
Artist Michael J. Deas envisions Edgar Allan Poe and his work
LDAF’s Blaise Pezold and an army of volunteers replant Louisiana’s fragile wetlands.
Jack E. Davis charts the history of the Gulf of Mexico
New documentary on traditional music combines vintage and contemporary material
The sculptor of a scandalous statue found a patron in an eccentric New Orleans financier
A review of Jessica Harris's memoir, "My Soul Looks Back"
Powerful forces in New Orleans turned fluoride into a Cold War battle
The Louisiana State Museum prepares to publish colonial documents collection online
Council for the Development of French in Louisiana (CODOFIL) prepares for 50th Anniversary.
Ogden Museum of Southern art exhibitions showcase William Eggleston and his influence
Advances in genetics provide new hope for Acadiana’s close-knit population of Usher's syndrome carriers
The Shreveport brewery embraces experimentation to find success beyond Louisiana
The Historic New Orleans Collection has an exhibition complementing the recently published book, "Guidebooks to Sin"
SRAC’s "Art of the Guitar Exhibition" celebrates James Burton, “Master of the Telecaster”
The science behind saving southwest Louisiana’s working coast.
Al Copeland and the race for perfection at Popeyes
New Orleans and Cuba enjoyed a strong commercial relationship prior to embargo
Jim Steg was the most influential printmaker to be based in New Orleans in the twentieth century.
Lower Louisiana, where elevations may vary only by inches over miles, provides a unique challenge to mapmakers
The New Orleans native captures the survival of a culture.
The longtime archivist and editor is this year's LEH Lifetime Achievement awardee
A brief history of Process Church's time in the French Quarter
Critical Mass 5, murals, and tours make Spring 2017 a frenetic season of events in Shreveport
LEH Documentary Film of the Year chronicles AIDS activism in northwest Louisiana.
An exhibit at the Louisiana State Museum focuses on the evolution of women’s krewes in New Orleans from the 1890s to the present
First major retrospective of James Michalopoulos opens at Ogden
The museum’s ties to this young New Orleans painter have grown even closer, thanks to a collaboration initiated by the curator
From Shreveport to the Oscars and back again
Nellie Murray was a celebrated chef in nineteenth-century New Orleans.
The Army Corp of Engineers, showboats, and the designing of a Louisiana waterway
An investigation of Louisiana’s change from counties to parishes
The Historic New Orleans Collection publishes new edition of Danny Barker’s autobiography
The struggle for federal recognition continues for several of Louisiana's Indian tribes
George Dunbar is a painter and sculptor, best known for his work in metal leaf, and clay. His work marries the stark geometry of modern art with lush, elemental materials, which call forth Louisiana's distinctive local landscape.
Remembering drummer Idris Muhammed’s versatile, funkified and oft-sampled body of work
As a major metropolis from the late 18th century to today, New Orleans has always had a strong tradition of retail activity
From Nick Cave to the Creole Wild West, Shreveport embraces the art of beading
An exhibition showcased Southern storytelling with over seventy pieces from the Ogden's permanent collection
Piecing together the life of Mary Oneida Toups, a legendary witch of the French Quarter
The staff at the National Audubon Society’s Paul J. Rainey Sanctuary in Vermilion Parish stand on the frontline of the battle for Louisiana’s coast.
Imagining “A Confederacy of Dunces” in 2016, and reexamining the motivations and misadventures of its protagonist. The final installment of our Pulitzer Prizes Centennial Campfire initiative.
Unbeknownst to most of the 165,000 people who live above it, a sandy atoll exists beneath greater New Orleans
Jerry Strahan isn't just the manager at Lucky Dogs – he's also the historian
Delphine Lalaurie was run out of New Orleans in 1834 when it was discovered she was torturing her slaves.
Nailah Jefferson directs first #CreateLouisiana-funded film
An exhibit surveys pre-Civil War currency in America with a special focus on Louisiana
Australian artist Simon Gunning called New Orleans home and became fascinated with the power of the Mississippi
64 Parishes sat down with Chef Vũ of Ba Chi Canteen to discuss family and food
A NOMA exhibit explores the subject of landscape through an impressive range of styles and time periods from the 17th through 19th centuries in Europe
A new exhibit in Natchitoches celebrates the team's history
Distinctive sail boats once defined coastal Louisiana’s oyster trade
LSU’s hatchery is designed to produce around a billion larvae each year, which will grow into edible oysters
Over 10 million pounds of shrimp pass through their processing facilities each year, making Big Easy one of the leading shrimp processors in Louisiana
70 percent of oysters in America are reportedly sourced from the Gulf Coast, and it’s the state’s Croatian immigrants that Louisiana has to thank for its $317 million oyster industry
Traditional Louisiana boat building practices offer insights for cognitive science
Revisiting the complex history and populace sentiment of Robert Penn Warren's 1956 Segregation. The third in a series funded by the 2016 Pulitzer Prize Centennial Campfires Initiative.
The Longs aren’t the only Winn Parish legends.
The Whitney Plantation Slavery Museum’s director of research reflects on the central themes in Wynton Marsalis’ 1997 "Blood on the Fields"
Much of southern Louisiana and at least one other part of the world (no, not Russia) enjoy this unusual treat
Ogden Museum showcases the history of New Orleans graffiti
Another generation of farmers brings Creole tomatoes to market
Louisiana is the third lowest, third flattest state–and, topographically, among the most fascinating
From bush tracks to bright lights in Acadiana
The brief but significant life of Audubon Driving Park.
The 2016 Michael P. Smith Photographer of the Year
The long, winding history of racial segregation and inequality of access to Lake Pontchartrain's beaches.
An excerpt from Laura D. Kelley's book.
Writing after Tennessee Williams
2016 Humanities Book of the Year features two distinctive voices
The cadastral system left cultural fingerprints on Louisiana's landscape
A professor and her students record nearly 100 different oral histories of Latino immigrants living in the Lafayette area
The 2016 Humanist of the Year sits down with Michael Martin for an interview
Pasta’s remarkable arrival in New Orleans
During the Civil Rights years, blacks had achieved the miraculous by kicking open the doors — but once inside, well, there was hardly anything there
The African American culture nurtured in New Orleans’ Congo Square was, and is, unlike any other
A photo essay of Mardi Gras Indians from the Backstreet Museum’s founder, Sylvester Francis
The regalia of New Orleans’s Mardi Gras debutantes is inspired by the monarchs of Europe
Grown men chase chickens, cross dress and receive whippings at Prairie Cajun Mardi Gras gumbo runs. It’s all a part of springtime rituals traced back to medieval Europe
King cakes usher in Carnival season
The incredible life of a marching music pioneer
An exhibition at the Louisiana State Museum reveals the boundless creativity and eccentricity of Southern artists.
Bloggers dig deep to preserve the unsung heroes of Louisiana music
Photographer Rob McClaran documented Mardi Gras the year of the 1979 police strike
W.G. Tebault and the poetry of furniture
Clifton Chenier’s path in the zydeco musician’s own words and those of his fellow travelers and bandmates
Louisiana is the birthplace of several musical genres, but when locals turn their radios on, something very different is likely to come out
Legendary guitarist James Burton sits down for a chat with David Johnson
Sweet Crude, a New Orleans-based band, enjoys great popularity in cutting-edge Cajun and Francophone circles.
Greek theaters and their modern offspring have been springing up across Louisiana
The designation Mardi Gras Indian has become a mask in itself, spurring widespread confusion in outside communities about just who or what they are
The musical career of Nellie Lutcher
Primitive Baptist Preachers of North Louisiana
In 1866, six madams brought a crop of new talent back to New Orleans aboard the Evening Star, but the steamer never made it to its destination
The former governor reflects on his time in office
Three Louisiana political legends look back
In his new book, "Mayor Victor Schiro: New Orleans in Transition, 1961-1970," author Edward Haas examines Schiro’s role in the establishment of the Louisiana Superdome and the mayor’s negotiations with Governor John McKeithen, who championed the investment of state funds for the New Orleans stadium
A New Orleanian recalls days of trauma and disbelief in the days following Hurricane Katrina
Neutral ground, the New Orleans toponym used for street medians, is a phrase that originated in a territorial dispute in western Louisiana.
Victor Bussie and the battle over the right to work in Louisiana
How air conditioning transformed the South
More than two decades after he ran for Louisiana governor, David Duke remains a thorny presence in state politics
The Ogden Museum of Art showcases the photography, paintings, and drawings of Michael Meads.
A 1992 documentary puts the Bayou State's political circus in perspective
Here's where you can find the center of balance around which the population of Louisiana is evenly distributed
Southwest Louisiana’s resilient spirit is stronger than the hurricane that laid waste to many of its communities
In 1972 protests broke out at Grambling and Southern universities among students who questioned the governance of these historically black colleges
The Baton Rouge Bus Boycott of 1953
A voting-rights activist tells his story of trial and triumph
As New Orleans prepares to celebrate the 300th anniversary of its founding, geographer Richard Campanella looks back at the city's earlier commemorations
Stars seemed to align for New Orleans’ 250th anniversary in 1968
Its unique position between Acadiana and Anglo-rooted parishes to the north gives Central Louisiana a blend of traditional musical styles.
The boom and bust story of the Long Leaf sawmill
Inglewood Farm in Alexandria is the largest organic operation in the state, but its history stretches back to the mid 1800s
Dug a half-century ago as a shortcut for oceangoing vessels, the Mississippi River Gulf Outlet has become an environmental disaster
Louisiana and the federal government have been engaged in a decades-long contentious debate over who shares royalty payments from the mineral-rich submerged lands of the Gulf of Mexico
The Alexander State Forest Headquarters building is an important structure associated with the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), and a particularly fine example of the Corps’ accomplishments
The Purchased Lives exhibition surveys the brutal business of the domestic slave trade and one of its biggest hubs, New Orleans
One of America's best illustrators delights children across the world from his studio in Shreveport
Louisiana boasts many 19th and 20th-century buildings influenced by women
Buildings that served as training centers for nurses conveyed an impression of order and discipline
Drive-through daiquiris would not have been possible without the vigorous work of lobbyists and legislators
Mass-produced frozen daiquiris did not originate on Bourbon Street, but in a country store on the outskirts of Ruston
Relocating a capital city or even government buildings can have dramatic effects on the surrounding area
In 1828 and 1831, a young Abraham Lincoln would visit New Orleans by way of a flatboat journey down the Mississippi River. He was nearly killed on his first excursion.
The resurrection of a Mardi Gras tradition
70 years ago no nutria existed in Louisiana; now there are several million
Built in 1868 for the Society of Turners, a German benevolent association, Turners' Hall has been the home of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities since December 2000
Although it had been there for hundreds of years, Captain Henry Miller Shreve believed he could clear the Great Raft logjam
In the final days of the Red River campaign, a mutinous band of Union soldiers carried out a senseless and devastating act
The historically African American village of Fazendeville was destroyed to make room for a park devoted to the Battle of New Orleans
January 2015 marked the 200-year anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans
An exhibition at HNOC coincides with the bicentennial of a landmark battle
New Orleans resisted Prohibition nearly every step of the way
German immigrants and their descendants were once a vibrant and visible part of New Orleans' cultural landscape
From 1900 to 1920, Louisiana was one of the nation’s top three lumber-producing states
Louis Armstrong never forgot the employers who nurtured him as a boy
Like most cultural aspects of the state, Francophone Louisiana is linguistically diverse
A Gilded Age hotel in Central Louisiana has a storied history
Edmund McIlhenny and the birth of a Louisiana pepper sauce
“People always resisted the idea of having an idea.”
New Orleans is the only city that never entirely lost a fleet of electric streetcars from the early modern era
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