Archaeology
Evans Culture
This entry covers the prehistoric Evans culture during the Middle Archaic Period, 6000–2000 BCE.
Archaeology
Archaeology Index
Archaeology
Archaeology of the New Orleans Area
In New Orleans archaeological explorations span 2,500 years of history
Archaeology
Pre-Clovis and Clovis Cultures
This entry covers the Pre-Clovis and Clovis cultures during the Early Paleoindian Period, 11500–9500 BCE, and Middle Paleoindian Period, 9500 BCE–8800 BCE.
Archaeology
San Patrice Culture
This entry covers the San Patrice culture during the Late Paleoindian and Early Archaic Periods, 8800–6000 BCE.
Architecture
Architecture IndexArchitecture
St. Francis Cabrini Church
Badly damaged by the levee failure following Hurricane Katrina, St. Francis Cabrini Church was demolished despite the efforts of preservation advocates.
Architecture
St. Emma Plantation
St. Emma Plantation was the site of a Civil War skirmish known as the Battle of Kock's Plantation.
Architecture
Oak Alley Plantation
The 800-foot-long allée of live oak trees leading from the river to the columned house constitutes one of the most familiar and evocative images of Louisiana's grand plantation houses.
Architecture
Ardoyne Plantation
Ardoyne is the most elaborate and romantic-looking Gothic Revival residence surviving in Louisiana.
Art
Art IndexArt
Hippolyte Sebron
Hippolyte Sebron resided in Louisiana for a brief time, from 1849 to 1855, but he had a profound effect on the development of landscape and genre painting in the state.
Art
Turner Browne
Turner Browne, a still photographer and cinematographer, is best known for "Louisiana Cajuns/Cajuns de la Louisiane," published in 1977.
Art
Matthew Jouett
Matthew Harris Jouett was recognized during his lifetime as the first notable American artist to emerge from the American frontier.
Art
Achille Perelli
Italian-born sculptor Achille Perelli was an active participant in the New Orleans arts scene from 1850 to 1891.
Business & Industry
Business & Industry IndexBusiness & Industry
Grabow Riot (Massacre)
Labor union meeting results in death and arrest of timber workers.
Business & Industry
D. H. Holmes
For one hundred forty years, D. H. Holmes served as a shopping destination for generations of New Orleanians, growing from a small dry goods shop to an enormous consumer emporium.
Business & Industry
Paul Trévigne
Paul Trévigne, a free man of color, was an editor, teacher, and orator who advocated for civil rights in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Business & Industry
Louisiana Film Industry
An early participant in the industrialization of film exhibition, distribution, and production, Louisiana adopted the moniker “Hollywood South” in the early twenty-first century.
Disasters
Disasters IndexDisasters
George Prince Ferry Disaster
The 1976 George Prince ferry disaster between Destrehan and Luling was the deadliest ferry disaster in US history and a touchstone for a new set of safety protocols for ferry travel.
Disasters
2016 Floods
A rainy weekend in August 2016 unexpectedly left behind more than three times the amount of rain dropped by Hurricane Katrina, damaging 146,000 homes in fifty-six of Louisiana’s sixty-four parishes.
Disasters
Cancer Alley
Located along the Mississippi River in southeast Louisiana, Cancer Alley is home to the highest concentration of heavy industry in the United States, with residents reporting high rates of cancer, heart disease, respiratory illnesses, and autoimmune disease.
Disasters
Belle Isle Salt Mine Collapse
Once one of the most productive salt mines in the country, the Belle Isle Salt Mine was the site of numerous deadly accidents.
Folklife
Folklife IndexFolklife
Rougarou
The rougarou is one of the most well-known figures in South Louisiana folklore.
Folklife
Darryl Reeves
Darryl Reeves is a master blacksmith who hand-forges decorative and functional ironwork for many of New Orleans' historic homes and public buildings.
Folklife
All Saints Day
All Saints Day or All Hallows Day is a Catholic tradition honoring the saints and also deceased family members each November 1.
Folklife
Campeche Chair
The Campeche chair, a leather or caned sling seat supported by a non-folding cross-frame, was in widespread use in the United States and New Spain in the first half of the nineteenth century.
Foodways
Foodways IndexFoodways
Crawfish Étouffée
One of Louisiana’s renowned dishes, crawfish étouffée is typically comprised of crawfish cooked in its own juices with other seasonings and served over rice.
Foodways
Creole Cream Cheese
Creole cream cheese is a silky, slightly tart cheese used in sweet and savory dishes throughout Louisiana.
Foodways
Pralines
The praline, a confection made of sugar and nuts, is a representative dish of the Franco- and Afro-Creole Atlantic diasporas.
Foodways
Citrus Industry
Louisiana’s citrus industry traces its origins to the early 1700s, but the effects of climate change increasingly threaten its long-term viability.
Geography
Geography IndexGeography
Mandeville
Mandeville was founded in 1834, occupying part of what was formerly the sugar plantation of Bernard de Marigny de Mandeville in Louisiana.
Geography
Sherwood “Woody” Gagliano
Woody Gagliano sounded the alarm on Louisiana’s coastal land loss crisis and worked with his colleagues for decades to remedy the problem.
Geography
Bayou Teche
Before railroads and highways, Bayou Teche served as an important transportation route deep into the fertile interior of south-central Louisiana.
Geography
Bourbon Street
The origins of the notorious adult playground
Government, Politics & Law
Government, Politics & Law IndexGovernment, Politics & Law
Walter B. Hamlin
Walter B. Hamlin served as the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court for one year, from 1972 to 1973.
Government, Politics & Law
Insurrection of 1768
In 1768, French creole merchants and planters rebelled against the imposition of Spanish rule.
Government, Politics & Law
Luther Hall
Before becoming governor of Louisiana, a position he held from 1912 until 1916, Luther Hall served as a state senator, a district judge, and a state appellate court judge.
Government, Politics & Law
Audley Moore
Due to her tireless grassroots organizing efforts, Audley Moore was known as “Queen Mother” of the Black Freedom Movement and the modern reparations movement.
History
History IndexHistory
Up Stairs Lounge Fire
The act of arson at the Up Stairs Lounge, a gay bar in the French Quarter, was the deadliest fire on record in New Orleans history and the largest mass killing of queer citizens in twentieth-century America.
History
Pierre Rigaud Cavagnial de Vaudreuil
Serving as French governor of Louisiana from 1743 until 1753, Pierre de Vaudreuil was popular with the upper-class colonists and French officials for his elegant manners.
History
Germantown Utopian Colony
Germantown was a utopian colony founded in 1835 by a breakaway sect of the Harmony Society in what is today rural Webster Parish near the town of Minden.
History
Fannie C. Williams
Fannie C. Williams was an educator, community organizer, and civil rights activist.
Literature
Literature IndexLiterature
A Confederacy of Dunces
Despite the difficulties John Kennedy Toole faced while trying to publish A Confederacy of Dunces, the novel went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and sell more than two million copies.
Literature
George Washington Cable
The writings of George Washington Cable explored the Creole culture and generated national attention.
Literature
BLKARTSOUTH
Established in 1968 by writers Tom Dent and Kalamu ya Salaam, BLKARTSOUTH was a community writing and acting workshop that provided a forum for emerging black poets and playwrights to develop and showcase their work.
Literature
Wilmer Mills
Wilmer Mills was a poet deeply rooted in the rural Protestant culture of the Plains, an area located between St. Francisville and Baton Rouge.
Music
Music IndexMusic
Andy Anderson
Jazz trumpeter Andy Anderson had a successful career working in many jazz clubs and dance halls in New Orleans from the 1920s through the 1960s.
Music
Sidney Bechet
Clarinetist and soprano saxophonist Sidney Bechet was one of the first great soloists of traditional New Orleans jazz.
Music
Memphis Minnie
Known as “Kid” all her life to her family and re-named “Memphis Minnie” by the recording industry, New Orleans native Lizzie Douglas was a prominent and pioneering guitarist, vocalist, songwriter, and blues recording artist.
Music
Punch Miller
“Punch” Miller, also known as “Kid Punch,” was a New Orleans traditional jazz, blues, and brass band trumpeter and vocalist.
Peoples of Louisiana
Peoples of Louisiana IndexPeoples of Louisiana
Houma Nation
The United Houma Nation claims approximately 17,000 members and continues to keep Native American traditions alive from their tribal center in Lafourche Parish.
Peoples of Louisiana
Vietnamese
Vietnamese Americans are one of the newest major ethnic groups in Louisiana
Peoples of Louisiana
Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana
The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is the largest of four federally recognized tribal governments in Louisiana.
Peoples of Louisiana
Indigenous Slavery
Indigenous people were enslaved alongside enslaved African people as domestic and agricultural laborers, guides, interpreters, hunters, sexual companions, and wives in colonial Louisiana.
Religion & Spirituality
Religion & Spirituality IndexReligion & Spirituality
Winnsboro Easter Rock
Held on the Saturday before Easter Sunday, this women-led vigil includes counterclockwise percussive foot movement and call-and-response singing.
Religion & Spirituality
Archbishop Joseph Rummel
Archbishop Joseph Rummel was among the first religious leaders in Louisiana to proclaim the immorality of racism and ordered the desegregation of Catholic schools in New Orleans.
Religion & Spirituality
St. Louis Cemeteries No. 1, No. 2, and No. 3
Established in 1789, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 is the oldest cemetery in the city of New Orleans.
Religion & Spirituality
Voudou
Voudou, a synthesis of African religious and magical beliefs with Roman Catholicism, emerged in New Orleans in the 1700s and survives in active congregations today.
Science & Technology
Science & Technology IndexScience & Technology
Freeman and Custis Red River Expedition
An American effort to explore the Louisiana Purchase territory was hindered by a log jam on the Red River and two hundred Spanish troops.
Science & Technology
Flint-Goodridge Hospital
Flint-Goodridge Hospital opened in 1896 to serve New Orleans’s Black community and provide medical training for Black nurses and physicians at a time when other hospitals denied services to Black people.
Science & Technology
Cholera in Louisiana
During the nineteenth century, cholera epidemics caused tens of thousands of deaths throughout the state of Louisiana.
Science & Technology
Hurricanes in Louisiana
Louisiana hurricanes have played an essential role in the state’s history from colonization through the present and are as memorable as the places and people they impact.
Sports & Recreation
Sports & Recreation IndexSports & Recreation
Marty Burke
Louisiana professional boxer Marty Burke was Jack Dempsey' sparring partner.
Sports & Recreation
George Strickland
New Orleanian George Strickland spent twenty-one years as a major league baseball player.
Sports & Recreation
Joe Brown
Boxer Joe Brown made his professional debut at age seventeen at the Victory Arena in New Orleans.
Sports & Recreation
Ham Richardson
Ham Richardson was one of the top-rated mens tennis players in the world in the 1950s.
