Archaeology
Caddo Culture
This entry covers prehistoric Caddo culture during the Late Woodland and Mississippi Periods, 900–1700 CE.
Archaeology
Archaeology Index
Archaeology
Watson Brake Archaeological Site
Watson Brake is a prehistoric Evans culture site in Ouachita Parish dating to 3500–2800 BCE.
Archaeology
Troyville Earthworks
Located near Jonesville, the Troyville earthworks are a Baytown period Native American archaeological site that dates from 400 to 700 CE.
Archaeology
Historical Archaeology in Louisiana
Archaeologists at sites across Louisiana help fill in the written record through physical excavations of the past.
Architecture
Architecture IndexArchitecture
Maison Chenal Plantation
Pat and Jack Holden moved Maison Chenal Plantation eleven miles to its current location before meticulously restoring it as their residence.
Architecture
Glencoe Plantation
The architecture of Glencoe Plantation in Louisiana is unusually elaborate and resembles an illustration from a child's fairy-tale book.
Architecture
Benjamin Buisson
Pierre Benjamin Buisson was a talented architect, engineer, surveyor, and publisher, was born in Paris, France, and migrated to New Orleans while in his early twenties where he advanced his career with work on major public buildings.
Architecture
Madame John's Legacy
Madame John's Legacy derives its national landmark status not only from its architectural significance but also from its real and fictional associations with the French Quarter's French and Spanish colonial society.
Art
Art IndexArt
Southern Art Union
Established in 1880, the Southern Art Union organized southern artists, especially those in New Orleans, to promote an appreciation for the fine arts.
Art
Julia Sims
Julia Sims is a nature photographer best known for her work in Manchac Swamp between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.
Art
Debbie Fleming Caffery
Contemporary Louisiana photographer Debbie Fleming Caffery documents the people others often overlook: sugarcane workers, Mexican prostitutes, and the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Art
Francis Pavy
Lafayette artist Francis X. Pavy arranges archetypal images of South Louisiana into iconic patters within his paintings, block prints, and sculptures.
Business & Industry
Business & Industry IndexBusiness & Industry
L’Union
The South’s first Black newspaper, L’Union was an abolitionist journal that promoted full citizenship rights for men of African descent.
Business & Industry
J. D. Miller’s Recording Studios
J. D. Miller’s recording studios in Crowley are best known for recording South Louisiana musical genres but the studio leaves a mixed legacy, having produced a series of racist songs in the 1960s.
Business & Industry
Port of Lake Charles
The Port of Lake Charles opened in 1926 and remains one of the country’s most active oil, gas, and petrochemical transportation hubs.
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.
Disasters
Disasters IndexDisasters
Mechanics’ Institute Massacre of 1866
Following the Civil War, an attempt to amend the state’s constitution to grant Black men the vote provoked a deadly reaction from white supremacists, sparking national outrage and significant reforms.
Disasters
SS Kentucky Disaster
On June 9, 1865, the SS Kentucky capsized in the Red River south of Shreveport, marking the second deadliest inland maritime disaster in US history.
Disasters
Hurricane Camille
Hurricane Camille struck coastal Mississippi in mid-August of 1969, marking the first designated Category 5 storm and one of Louisiana’s most storied tropical weather events.
Disasters
Coastal Restoration
For a state experiencing land loss at an alarming rate, coastal restoration has become an urgent need.
Folklife
Folklife IndexFolklife
Legend of Evangeline
The legend of a displaced Acadian couple, Evangeline has played an important role in Louisiana history and culture despite its fictional nature.
Folklife
Chitimacha Baskets
Deeply rooted in the history, spirituality, and daily activities of the Chitimacha people, basketry remains a visible expression of the Chitimacha Indian tribe’s culture and tradition.
Folklife
Cajun Dance Halls
Cajun dance halls–salles de danse– are live music venues where dancing, courtship, and community building transpire.
Folklife
Cajun Folktales
Cajun Folktales are heavily influenced by French, West African, Caribbean, Acadian, German, and American South oral traditions.
Foodways
Foodways IndexFoodways
Dr. Nut
Created in the 1930s, Dr. Nut is best remembered as the favorite beverage of Ignatius J. Reilly, the protagonist of John Kennedy Toole’s New Orleans–set novel, Confederacy of Dunces.
Foodways
King Cake
A round, braided cake consumed during the Carnival season across Louisiana, especially in New Orleans.
Foodways
Freeman & Harris Café
Freeman & Harris Café was a Black-owned restaurant that served as a pillar of Black social, cultural, and political life in Shreveport.
Foodways
Réveillon
Rooted in nineteenth-century Creole traditions, the réveillon has experienced a modern-day remaking in New Orleans restaurants.
Geography
Geography IndexGeography
Florida Parishes of Louisiana
A portion of Louisiana was once the western extremity of colonial Florida
Geography
Red River Raft
The Great Raft was a thousand-year-old logjam in the Red River that prevented transportation downriver to New Orleans.
Geography
Fontainebleau State Park
The Fontainebleau State Park bears the name of Bernard de Marigny's sugar plantation, which formerly occupied this site and was itself named after the estate of the French king Francois I.
Geography
Bayou Teche
Before railroads and highways, Bayou Teche served as an important transportation route deep into the fertile interior of south-central Louisiana.
Government, Politics & Law
Government, Politics & Law IndexGovernment, Politics & Law
E. Howard McCaleb
E. Howard McCaleb served as the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court for one year, from 1971 to 1972.
Government, Politics & Law
Louisiana Constitution of 1868
Following the Civil War, Black and white Republicans produced the Louisiana Constitution of 1868, which many regarded as one of the most progressive legal documents produced in the South during Reconstruction.
Government, Politics & Law
Bourbon Louisiana
The policies and ambitions of Bourbon Democrats dominated Louisiana's political and social life in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Government, Politics & Law
Murphy J. Foster
Democrat Murphy J. Foster was an attorney, a Louisiana state senator, state governor, and US senator.
History
History IndexHistory
Reconstruction
The post-Civil War period in US history is known as the Reconstruction era, when the former Confederacy was brought back into the Union.
History
Murphy J. Foster
Democrat Murphy J. Foster was an attorney, a Louisiana state senator, state governor, and US senator.
History
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.
History
Avery Island
Located in Iberia Parish, Avery Island, the largest of five salt domes along the Louisiana coast, is the home of the McIlhenny Company, maker of Tabasco brand products for more than 140 years.
Literature
Literature IndexLiterature
The Double Dealer
A New Orleans-based literary journal, The Double Dealer was published over a period of five and a half years, between January 1921 and May 1926.
Literature
Darrell Bourque
Dr. Darrell Bourque was appointed poet laureate of Louisiana by Governor Kathleen Blanco in 2007.
Literature
Elmore Leonard Jr.
Louisiana author Elmore Leonard, Jr. writes crime fiction and westerns.
Literature
Caroline Dormon
Caroline Dormon made monumental contributions to the conservation of Louisiana's natural and cultural resources. A passion for native plants and old-growth forests, coupled with a strong feeling of kinship with Native Americans, shaped Dormon's life and work.
Music
Music IndexMusic
Bounce
With a steadfast regional following and hyperlocal lyrics in its earliest days, bounce music’s upbeat, danceable, participatory style now attracts an international audience.
Music
Frank Moliere
Frank "Little Daddy" Moliere was a traditional jazz piano player and singer from New Orleans.
Music
Jelly Roll Morton
Jelly Roll Morton was the first important composer and arranger of New Orleans jazz, as well as an agile pianist, a compelling singer, and one of the early jazz world's most flamboyant characters.
Music
Birdman
Bryan "Baby" Williams, more widely known by the stage name Birdman, is a Grammy-nominated rapper, record-label executive and co-founder of the famed New Orleans recording company Cash Money Records.
Peoples of Louisiana
Peoples of Louisiana IndexPeoples of Louisiana
Caddo Nation
Caddo people began to inhabit the Red River valley approximately 2,500 years ago.
Peoples of Louisiana
Irish in New Orleans
The influence of Irish immigrants in New Orleans can still be seen in the Irish Channel neighborhood, St. Patrick's Day celebrations and churches such as St. Alphonsus.
Peoples of Louisiana
Climate Migration
Climate migration occurs when people move away from home due to extreme environmental conditions worsened or caused by climate change, such as hurricanes, coastal erosion, sea level rise, flooding, and fires.
Peoples of Louisiana
Free People of Color
Free people of color constituted a diverse segment of Louisiana’s population and included people that were born free or enslaved, were of African or mixed racial ancestry, and were French- or English-speaking
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
Ascension of Our Lord Catholic Church Cemetery
This Catholic cemetery in Donaldsonville was laid out in a grid plan shortly after the church parish was founded in 1772.
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.
Religion & Spirituality
Jimmy Swaggart
Called the "King of Honky Tonk Heaven" by Newsweek in 1982, Ferriday's Jimmy Swaggart was America's most popular televangelist in the 1980s.
Science & Technology
Science & Technology IndexScience & Technology
Coastal Restoration
For a state experiencing land loss at an alarming rate, coastal restoration has become an urgent need.
Science & 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
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.
Science & Technology
Coastal Land Loss
The gradual loss of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands is a slow-moving disaster largely set in motion by a series of human interventions in natural processes.
Sports & Recreation
Sports & Recreation IndexSports & Recreation
New Orleans Saints
When it was aired, the New Orleans Saints Super Bowl victory in 2010 was the most-watched television broadcast in history, drawing more than 153 million viewers.
Sports & Recreation
George Strickland
New Orleanian George Strickland spent twenty-one years as a major league baseball player.
Sports & Recreation
Leon Barmore
Before his retirement in 2002, basketball coach Leon Barmore led the Lady Techsters from Louisiana Tech University to nine Final Four appearances.
Sports & Recreation
Ralph Dupas
Ralph Dupas emerged from humble beginnings in New Orleans to become a world champion boxer
