Archaeology
St. Peter Street Cemetery
Thousands of New Orleans’s eighteenth-century residents are interred at the site of the St. Peter Street Cemetery in the French Quarter.
Archaeology
Archaeology Index
Archaeology
Caddo Culture
This entry covers prehistoric Caddo culture during the Late Woodland and Mississippi Periods, 900–1700 CE.
Archaeology
LSU Campus Mounds
The LSU Campus Mounds are two Native American earthworks from the Middle Archaic Period located on the grounds of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
Archaeology
Mississippian Culture
The Mississippian culture spanned from roughly 1050 to 1700 CE
Architecture
Architecture IndexArchitecture
Charles Colbert
Architect Charles Colbert's contributions to the shaping of mid-Twentieth Century architecture in southern Louisiana are profound.
Architecture
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.
Architecture
Linwood Plantation
Albert G. Carter built Linwood Plantation in Louisiana from an inherited Spanish land grant.
Architecture
Grace Episcopal Church
Organized in 1827, Grace Church serves Louisiana's second oldest Episcopal parish.
Art
Art IndexArt
Robert Tannen
Robert Tannen is an artist, urban planner, and activist. Born in New York, Tannen has worked in New Orleans since the 1950s.
Art
Ida Kohlmeyer
Ida Kohlmeyer, a New Orleans painter, sculptor, printmaker, and teacher, is nationally recognized as one of the most influential contemporary artists in the South.
Art
Skylar Fein
Largely self-taught and working primarily in wood sculptures, Skylar Fein graphically combines pop-culture icons and revolutionary texts into artwork with embedded political critiques.
Art
Walker Evans
Walker Evans, recognized as the preeminent photographer of his generation, created many of his iconic images in New Orleans and along Louisiana's River Road.
Business & Industry
Business & Industry IndexBusiness & Industry
Festival International de Louisiane
The festival celebrates southwest Louisiana’s connections to the francophone world.
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 Fourchon
Louisiana’s southernmost port on the Gulf of Mexico plays a critical role in the US energy industry.
Business & Industry
Liberty Theatre
The historic theater in Eunice entertained generations as a movie theater, vaudeville house, and home of Rendez-vous des Cajuns.
Disasters
Disasters IndexDisasters
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
Nutria in Louisiana
Imported in the early twentieth century for their fur, nutria have exploded into an invasive species that contributes to coastal erosion.
Disasters
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.
Disasters
Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill
The 2010 BP spill was one of the worst environmental disasters in US history.
Folklife
Folklife IndexFolklife
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.
Folklife
Blues Music
Of the 119 musicians inducted into the national Blues Hall of Fame, roughly twenty percent are from Louisiana.
Folklife
Mardi Gras in New Orleans
Mardi Gras in New Orleans is celebrated by costumed revelers, krewes, floats and flambeaux, parades, and masked balls.
Folklife
Cajun Dance Halls
Cajun dance halls–salles de danse– are live music venues where dancing, courtship, and community building transpire.
Foodways
Foodways IndexFoodways
Rayne, Frog Capital
Rayne, a city in Acadia Parish, is nicknamed the “Frog Capital of the World” for its history as a former titan in the bullfrog exporting industry.
Foodways
Elmer Candy Company
Elmer Candy Company, the oldest family-owned chocolate company in the United States, is known for its trio of egg-shaped chocolate confections as well as originating the line of CheeWees savory snacks.
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
Okra
Although okra is consumed throughout the South, it is predominantly associated with South Louisiana, where it is used as a thickener for gumbo.
Geography
Geography IndexGeography
Neutral Strip
The Neutral Strip existed outside the governance of either the United States or Spain until 1821.
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
Natchitoches Settlement
The Natchitoches settlement, founded in 1714, is the oldest in the Louisiana Territory.
Geography
Mandeville
Mandeville was founded in 1834, occupying part of what was formerly the sugar plantation of Bernard de Marigny de Mandeville in Louisiana.
Government, Politics & Law
Government, Politics & Law IndexGovernment, Politics & Law
William Charles Cole Claiborne
William Charles Cole Claiborne was the first territorial and state governor of Louisiana in its transitional years from the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 to statehood in 1812.
Government, Politics & Law
Bernardo de Gálvez
Bernardo de Gálvez, the fourth governor of Spanish Louisiana, is best known for leading Louisiana militiamen against the British during the American Revolution.
Government, Politics & Law
Oliver O. Provosty
Oliver O. Provosty served as the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court in 1922.
Government, Politics & Law
Alejandro O'Reilly
This entry provides a biographical overview of Alejandro O'Reilly, the second Spanish governor of Louisiana.
History
History IndexHistory
Louisiana Government in the Modern Era
Louisiana’s government is dominated by Anglo-English traditions, with influences of French and Spanish colonial political cultures surviving today mostly in legal matters and in the language describing its institutions and practices.
History
Bourbon Street
The origins of the notorious adult playground
History
Willie Piazza
Willie Piazza was one of the most successful madams in the Storyville vice district of New Orleans until it was closed in 1917.
History
Jacques Dupré
Jacques Dupré;, a Whig, served as acting governor of Louisiana from January 14, 1830, to January 31, 1831.
Literature
Literature IndexLiterature
Dorothy Dix
Dorothy Dix, the pseudonym of Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, was a writer and immensely popular advice columnist in the early twentieth century.
Literature
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
Lyle Saxon
Lyle Saxon published articles, short stories, books of creative nonfiction, and one novel; he also directed the Louisiana branch of the Federal Writers Project.
Literature
Evelyn Scott
Evelyn Scott began her literary career as a poet but expanded into other literary genres, including short stories, essays, novels, memoir, and drama.
Music
Music IndexMusic
William Francis
William T. Francis was a versatile musician and composer who lived in New Orleans in the late nineteenth century.
Music
Kid Sheik Colar
New Orleans trumpeter Kid Sheik Colar toured extensively with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band in the 1980s.
Music
Nellie Lutcher
Nellie Lutcher was a renowned singer and pianist from Lake Charles.
Music
Dave Oxley
Dave Oxley was a traditional jazz and early rhythm and blues drummer from New Orleans.
Peoples of Louisiana
Peoples of Louisiana IndexPeoples of Louisiana
Filipinos
Louisiana is home to the earliest Filipino American community in the United States.
Peoples of Louisiana
Receiving Communities
A receiving community is a city, town, or neighborhood that accommodates people displaced by a disaster.
Peoples of Louisiana
Taensa Tribe
One of Louisiana's pre-contact indigenous groups
Peoples of Louisiana
Cajuns
Cajuns are the descendants of Acadian exiles from what are now the maritime provinces of Canada–Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island–who migrated to southern Louisiana.
Religion & Spirituality
Religion & Spirituality IndexReligion & Spirituality
Father Paul Du Ru
A Jesuit priest was the first to establish Catholic missions among the Indigenous peoples of the Gulf South.
Religion & 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
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
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
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
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.
Science & 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.
Sports & Recreation
Sports & Recreation IndexSports & Recreation
Bobby Brown
Tulane alumnus Bobby Brown played professional baseball with the New York Yankees and won four world championships.
Sports & Recreation
Linda Tuero
New Orleans's Linda Tuero was a collegiate and professional tennis champion in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Sports & Recreation
Negro Leagues of Louisiana
The Negro Leagues were the network of African-American baseball teams and players from the 1880s to the integration of baseball in 1946–47.
Sports & Recreation
Mel Parnell
New Orleans born Mel Parnell had an All-Star career as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox and was inducted into the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame.
