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
Coles Creek Culture
Once covering most of Louisiana, the Coles Creek culture is known for its distinctive ceremonial mound sites.
Archaeology
Plaquemine Culture
This entry covers the Plaquemine culture in the Lower Mississippi River Valley during the Mississippi period, 1200 to 1700 CE
Archaeology
Troyville Culture
Dating to the Late Woodland Period, from 400 to 700 CE, the Troyville Culture is named for an archaeological site in Catahoula Parish.
Architecture
Architecture IndexArchitecture
Hotel Bentley
For the first sixty years of its existence, the Hotel Bentley was the social hub of Alexandria.
Architecture
Camp Moore
Camp Moore in Louisiana served as the training location for more than 20,000 Confederate soldiers during the Civil War.
Architecture
Shadows-on-the-Teche Plantation
Until artist Weeks Hall donated Shadows-on-the-Teche to the National Trust for Historic Preservation in 1958, the New Iberia property had been in the Weeks family since the original Spanish land grant in 1792.
Architecture
Curtis and Davis Architects
The architectural firm Curtis and Davis designed the Superdome, Rivergate, and other notable buildings in New Orleans and throughout the state.
Art
Art IndexArt
E. J. Bellocq
Photographer E. J. Bellocq gained fame after his death for his portraits of prostitutes in Storyville.
Art
Robert S. Brantley
Robert S. Brantley's photography is informed by a study of architectural history and a background in journalism.
Art
Will Henry Stevens
Will Henry Stevens was a pioneering advocate of abstract art in the South and a faculty member at Newcomb College in New Orleans for 25 years.
Art
Marie Adrien Persac
Painter, photographer, surveyor, lithographer, and inventor Marie Adrien Persac was the most important delineator of plantatino scenes in nineteenth-century Louisiana.
Business & Industry
Business & Industry IndexBusiness & 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
Liberty Theatre
The historic theater in Eunice entertained generations as a movie theater, vaudeville house, and home of Rendez-vous des Cajuns.
Business & Industry
NASA Michoud Assembly Facility
NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans is one of the largest manufacturing sites in the world.
Business & Industry
Coastal Restoration
For a state experiencing land loss at an alarming rate, coastal restoration has become an urgent need.
Disasters
Disasters IndexDisasters
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
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.
Disasters
Hurricane Ike
Hurricane Ike’s size and timing was a sobering reminder that Louisiana was underprepared for another storm on the scale of Hurricane Katrina.
Disasters
Steamboat Princess Disaster
On February 27, 1859, the Steamboat Princess exploded on the Mississippi River killing between 70 and 200 passengers and crew.
Folklife
Folklife IndexFolklife
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
Blues Music
Of the 119 musicians inducted into the national Blues Hall of Fame, roughly twenty percent are from Louisiana.
Folklife
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
Herbert Singleton
Self-taught artist Herbert Singleton created dramatic scenes of the rough New Orleans environment into which he was born, using found objects such as salvaged doors, driftwood, and discarded furniture.
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
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
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
Muffuletta Sandwich
The muffuletta–a mammoth sandwich of round sesame bread layered with Genoa salami, ham, mortadella, cheese, and olive salad–is a signature dish of New Orleans.
Geography
Geography IndexGeography
Florida Parishes of Louisiana
A portion of Louisiana was once the western extremity of colonial Florida
Geography
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.
Geography
Natchitoches Settlement
The Natchitoches settlement, founded in 1714, is the oldest in the Louisiana Territory.
Geography
Red River Raft
The Great Raft was a thousand-year-old logjam in the Red River that prevented transportation downriver to New Orleans.
Government, Politics & Law
Government, Politics & Law IndexGovernment, Politics & Law
Manuel Juan de Salcedo
Manual Juan de Salcedo, the last Spanish governor of Louisiana, served from July 14, 1801, until the transfer of Louisiana to the French on November 30, 1803.
Government, Politics & Law
Sieur de Sauvole
French explorer and commander Sieur de Sauvole served as the acting governor of Louisiana from May 2, 1699, until his death on August 22, 1701.
Government, Politics & Law
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.
Government, Politics & Law
George Eustis
George Eustis served as the Chief Justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1846 to 1853.
History
History IndexHistory
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
Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana
The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is the largest of four federally recognized tribal governments in Louisiana.
History
St. Francis Chapel of Point Coupee
The original St. Francis Chapel of Point Coupee, was one of the first parish churches in Louisiana.
History
Father Paul Du Ru
A Jesuit priest was the first to establish Catholic missions among the Indigenous peoples of the Gulf South.
Literature
Literature IndexLiterature
Jericho Brown
A Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, Jericho Brown’s poems explore the complexities of sexuality, Black masculinity, family, religion, and place.
Literature
Marcus Christian
Marcus Christian was a Louisiana writer, folklorist, and historian, known as the author of poems which satirize Jim Crow laws.
Literature
George Washington Cable
The writings of George Washington Cable explored the Creole culture and generated national attention.
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
Orleans Theatre
The Théâtre d’Orléans , established in 1815, was located on Orleans Avenue between Royal and Bourbon streets in the French Quarter of New Orleans.
Music
Andrew Jefferson
Andrew Jefferson was a New Orleans traditional jazz and brass band drummer and vocalist.
Music
Brownie Ford
Brownie Ford was a Louisiana cowboy musician with an extensive repertoire of cowboy songs, frontier ballads, sentimental parlor ditties, and early country and western songs.
Music
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.
Peoples of Louisiana
Peoples of Louisiana IndexPeoples of Louisiana
Vietnamese
Vietnamese Americans are one of the newest major ethnic groups in Louisiana
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
Natchez Indians
The Natchez are an American Indian group that lived along the Lower Mississippi River during the rise of European colonialism.
Peoples 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.
Religion & Spirituality
Religion & Spirituality IndexReligion & Spirituality
Henriette Delille
Henriette Delille was a free Afro-Creole woman who founded sodalities, or religious sororities, for women of African descent that dedicated themselves to the care of the poor, the enslaved, and free people of color.
Religion & Spirituality
Judaism in Louisiana
Jewish people have greatly contributed to Louisiana’s culture and economy as philanthropists, civic and educational leaders, business owners, and art patrons.
Religion & Spirituality
Wesley Chapel
One of the first Black Protestant churches in Louisiana, Wesley Chapel played pivotal roles in social and political movements, from teaching freed Black women to read after the Civil War to engaging in the civil rights movement.
Religion & Spirituality
St. Mark's Community Center
St. Mark's Community Center, a settlement house run by Methodist deaconesses, opened its doors in New Orleans in 1909 and continues to operate today.
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 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
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.
Sports & Recreation
Sports & Recreation IndexSports & Recreation
Ron Guidry
Louisiana native Ron Guidry's performance with the New York Yankees in the 1978 season stands decades later as one of the greatest pitching achievements in modern baseball history.
Sports & Recreation
Rolland Romero
Rolland Romero was the youngest member of the 1932 US Olympic team and the world-record holder in his event at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany.
Sports & Recreation
J. D. Mooney
Jockey J. D. Mooney was the son of a riverboat captain and horse breeder from New Orleans.
Sports & Recreation
Kent DesOrmeaux
In 1989, jockey Kent Desormeaux's 598 first place finishes set the record for most wins in a single season.
