Archaeology
Tchefuncte Site
An archaeological site on the north shore of Lake Pontchartrain helps researchers understand Tchefuncte culture from 600 to 200 BCE
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
Evans Culture
This entry covers the prehistoric Evans culture during the Middle Archaic Period, 6000–2000 BCE.
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.
Architecture
Architecture IndexArchitecture
Charles and James Dakin
Louisiana architects Charles Dakin and James Dakin designed the Old State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, as well as the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, among other projects.
Architecture
Slidell
Surveyed and platted in 1883 for the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, Slidell was named for John Slidell, Confederate ambassador to France and U.S. congressman.
Architecture
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. Louis Cathedral
Since 1850, the St. Louis Cathedral’s impressive three-steeple facade has become the city’s most recognizable building.
Art
Art IndexArt
Michael P. Smith
The subjects of New Orleans photographer Michael P. Smith's works include the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, individual musicians, brass bands, jazz funerals, social aid and pleasure club parades, and spiritual churches.
Art
Frances Benjamin Johnston
Frances Benjamin Johnston's seven-decade career as a photographer began in Washington, D.C. during the presidency of Benjamin Harrison, and concluded in New Orleans, months before Dwight Eisenhower's election to the same office.
Art
Federal Art Project
The Federal Art Project was a Depression-era effort to bring art and artists into the everyday lives of Americans while simultaneously extending work relief to artists.
Art
A. J. Meek
An acclaimed scholar and photographer, A.J. Meek has been documenting life in Louisiana since 1977.
Business & Industry
Business & Industry IndexBusiness & Industry
Salt Mining
Louisiana is home to 128 identified salt domes, including the coastal dome now known as Avery Island.
Business & Industry
Shreve Town Company
The Shreve Town Company was a for-profit business venture that led to the establishment of what is today known as Shreveport, the largest city in northwest Louisiana.
Business & Industry
New Orleans Tribune
America’s first Black daily newspaper, the New Orleans Tribune served as an organizing tool for Black activists as they campaigned for rights for men of African descent with an emphasis on building solidarity with the formerly enslaved.
Business & Industry
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.
Disasters
Disasters IndexDisasters
Hurricane Audrey
Hurricane Audrey, the first named storm of the 1957 season, took residents by surprise with an earlier-than-expected landfall and claimed more than four hundred lives.
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
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.
Disasters
Hurricane Gustav
Hurricane Gustav was the first major storm to test New Orleans’s rehabbed defenses after Hurricane Katrina.
Folklife
Folklife IndexFolklife
Jazz Funerals and Second Line Parades
New Orleans Jazz Funerals are public burial services for prominent community members; traditionally African American males. After the funeral service, a procession of musicians, funeral directors, family, and friends moves from the site of the funeral to the cemetery while marching to the beat of a brass band.
Folklife
Leather Britches Smith
The legendary outlaw Charles “Leather Britches” Smith is best known for his armed defense of his fellow union members during the Grabow Riot of 1912.
Folklife
Mardi Gras Indians
Mardi Gras Indians have become recognizable symbols of New Orleans's unique local culture, yet remain closely tied to their specific communities and traditions.
Folklife
Baby Dolls
The Baby Dolls were one of the first women's street masking groups in the United States. The practice continues today as a living legacy.
Foodways
Foodways IndexFoodways
Zwolle Tamales
Zwolle tamales, a popular food from northwest Louisiana’s Sabine Parish, trace their origin to the region’s Indigenous cultures.
Foodways
Bread Pudding
Stale loaves of bread get a sweet rebirth in this popular baked dessert.
Foodways
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
Red Beans and Rice
Traditionally served on Mondays in New Orleans, red beans and rice is an economical dish that has become a staple throughout Louisiana and the Gulf Coast.
Geography
Geography IndexGeography
Red River Raft
The Great Raft was a thousand-year-old logjam in the Red River that prevented transportation downriver to New Orleans.
Geography
Florida Parishes of Louisiana
A portion of Louisiana was once the western extremity of colonial Florida
Geography
Slidell
Surveyed and platted in 1883 for the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, Slidell was named for John Slidell, Confederate ambassador to France and U.S. congressman.
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.
Government, Politics & Law
Government, Politics & Law IndexGovernment, Politics & Law
Sam Houston Jones
Louisiana Governor Sam Jones promised an honest government following the corruption scandals surrounding the Long administrations.
Government, Politics & Law
Dave Treen Sr.
Dave Treen served as governor of Louisiana from 1980 to 1984, losing his bid for a second term to Edwin Edwards in 1983.
Government, Politics & Law
Prohibition
Louisiana reluctantly became subject to prohibition, the effort to eliminate alcoholic drinks, as a result of the 1920 federal law commonly known as the Volstead Act.
Government, Politics & Law
Andre Bienvenu Roman
Sugar planter and politician André Roman, a member of the Whig Party, served as governor of Louisiana from 1831 until 1835 and again from 1839 to 1843.
History
History IndexHistory
Baton Rouge Bus Boycott
The Baton Rouge Bus Boycott of June 1953 lasted eight days and became a model for organizers of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott.
History
Kathleen Blanco
Kathleen Blanco, Louisiana's first woman governor, served during Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Blanco faced extreme criticism of her handling of the disaster.
History
Taensa Tribe
One of Louisiana's pre-contact indigenous groups
History
Great Flood of 1927
The Flood of 1927 inundated nearly 26,000 square miles in 170 counties and parishes in seven states, driving an estimated 931,159 people from their homes.
Literature
Literature IndexLiterature
A Streetcar Named Desire
In 1947 playwright Tennessee Williams premiered A Streetcar Named Desire, a critically acclaimed theatrical work that won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948.
Literature
New Orleans Women's Book Clubs
In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, women’s book clubs became increasingly popular in New Orleans.
Literature
John Kennedy Toole
New Orleans author John Kennedy Toole is known for his posthumously published novel "A Confederacy of Dunces," which won the Pulitzer Prize in 1981.
Literature
Frances Parkinson Keyes
Francis Parkinson Keyes first visited New Orleans during Mardi Gras in 1940 when she was 55 years old. Enthralled with the city, Keyes rented a grand home in the French Quarter and set many novels there, including "Dinner at Antoine's," published in 1948. Keyes died in her home in New Orleans on July 3, 1970.
Music
Music IndexMusic
Rhythm and Blues Music
The rhythm and blues (R&B) music heritage in Louisiana includes a wide variety of styles, beginning in the 1940s and continuing until today.
Music
Bobby Rush
A dynamic singer, songwriter, and harmonica player from Claiborne Parish, Rush mixes funk, soul, and blues music and won Grammy Awards in his eighties.
Music
Creole George Guesnon
“Creole” George Guesnon was a traditional jazz banjo player and vocalist from New Orleans, known as a stunningly innovative performer and composer who recorded nearly 100 of his own compositions for the Icon record label.
Music
Isleño Décimas
The traditional songs of the Spanish-speaking Isleños of St. Bernard Parish are known as décimas, traditionally a ten-verse satiric composition set to music.
Peoples of Louisiana
Peoples of Louisiana IndexPeoples of Louisiana
Chitimacha Tribe of Louisiana
The Chitimacha Tribe is the only federally recognized tribe in Louisiana to still occupy part of its ancestral territory.
Peoples of Louisiana
Italians
Between 1880 and 1914, New Orleans was a principal port of entry for Italians migrating to the United States.
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
Tunica-Biloxi Tribe
The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe is one of only four American Indian groups in Louisiana recognized by the federal government.
Religion & Spirituality
Religion & Spirituality IndexReligion & Spirituality
Cercle Harmonique
Members of the Cercle Harmonique held séances and received messages from the spirit world in support of Black rights and social equality.
Religion & Spirituality
Spiritualism
Spiritualism, a practice centered on communicating with the spirits of the dead, influenced several religious groups in Louisiana.
Religion & Spirituality
Cypress Grove Cemetery
The Cypress Grove Cemetery in New Orleans has a monumental entrance gate suggesting a triumphal passage from one world to the next.
Religion & Spirituality
Marie Tranchepain
Marie Tranchepain was the first Mother Superior of New Orleans’s Ursulines and an early female diarist.
Science & Technology
Science & Technology IndexScience & Technology
World War II Industrialization in Louisiana
The United States’ entry into World War II spurred Louisiana’s recovery from the economic doldrums of the Great Depression.
Science & Technology
Coastal Restoration
For a state experiencing land loss at an alarming rate, coastal restoration has become an urgent need.
Science & Technology
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.
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
Joe Brown
Boxer Joe Brown made his professional debut at age seventeen at the Victory Arena in New Orleans.
Sports & Recreation
Craig Perret
Louisiana jockey Craig Perret won two Triple Crown races and numerous horse racing awards.
Sports & Recreation
Robert Parish
Shreveport native Robert Parish was the calm, collected, confident center on the Boston Celtics NBA championship teams in the 1980s.
Sports & Recreation
Tony Canzoneri
Louisiana' Tony Canzoneri secured his place among the boxing elite when he became the second fighter in history to win world championships in three different weight classes.
