Archaeology
Archaeology of the New Orleans Area
In New Orleans archaeological explorations span 2,500 years of history
Archaeology
Archaeology Index
Archaeology
Marie Thérèse Coincoin
Coincoin, a formerly enslaved woman freed in colonial Natchitoches, is an icon of American slavery and Louisiana’s Creole culture.
Archaeology
Poverty Point Culture
This entry covers prehistoric Poverty Point culture during the Late Archaic period, 2000–800 BCE.
Archaeology
Evans Culture
This entry covers the prehistoric Evans culture during the Middle Archaic Period, 6000–2000 BCE.
Architecture
Architecture IndexArchitecture
St. Emma Plantation
St. Emma Plantation was the site of a Civil War skirmish known as the Battle of Kock's Plantation.
Architecture
Touro Synagogue
Touro Synagogue was designed by Emile Weil in 1907.
Architecture
Pontalba Buildings
Baroness Pontalba's buildings on Jackson Square changed the haphazard design into a viable public area.
Architecture
Cabildo
The Cabildo, one of three eighteenth-century structures that anchor New Orleans's Jackson Square, stands as a visual monument to Spanish rule in Louisiana.
Art
Art IndexArt
Elemore Morgan Jr.
Elemore Morgan, Jr. was an internationally recognized landscape painter and longtime advocate of the visual and performing arts in Louisiana.
Art
Art and Letters
The journal "Art and Letters" played a significant role in the development of the late-nineteenth-century New Orleans arts community.
Art
C. C. Lockwood
For more than half a century, photographer C. C. Lockwood has documented Louisiana’s natural features, landscapes, flora, and fauna.
Art
Allison "Tootie" Montana
Allison "Tootie" Montana was Big Chief of the Yellow Pocahontas Mardi Gras Indian tribe in New Orleans.
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
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.
Business & Industry
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.
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
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
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
Grabow Riot (Massacre)
Labor union meeting results in death and arrest of timber workers.
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.
Folklife
Folklife IndexFolklife
Louisiana Folktales
Louisiana’s folktales have been influenced by Indigenous peoples and the many cultural and ethnic groups that have immigrated to the state.
Folklife
Blues Music
Of the 119 musicians inducted into the national Blues Hall of Fame, roughly twenty percent are from Louisiana.
Folklife
Lagniappe
"Lagniappe" is a vernacular word used in New Orleans to refer to a complimentary giveaway in a retail environment.
Folklife
Bras Coupé
A self-emancipated maroon who lived in the swamps surrounding New Orleans during the 1830s, Bras Coupé has developed a powerful folkloric following.
Foodways
Foodways IndexFoodways
Boudin
Boudin is a Cajun sausage made of meat and rice typically consumed with the filling removed from the casing and often squeezed directly into the mouth.
Foodways
Gumbo
Gumbo is a thick soup that could be considered the signature dish of South Louisiana.
Foodways
Jambalaya
A rice-based mixture of meats and/or seafood along with vegetables, herbs, and spices, jambalaya is a representative dish of South Louisiana.
Foodways
Pralines
The praline, a confection made of sugar and nuts, is a representative dish of the Franco- and Afro-Creole Atlantic diasporas.
Geography
Geography IndexGeography
Coastal Master Plan
In response to decades of warnings about land loss, Louisiana released its first Coastal Master Plan in 2007.
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
Neutral Strip
The Neutral Strip existed outside the governance of either the United States or Spain until 1821.
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.
Government, Politics & Law
Government, Politics & Law IndexGovernment, Politics & Law
George Foster Shepley
General George Shepley became the military governor of federally-occupied Louisiana in June 1862 and served until March 1864.
Government, Politics & Law
William B. Hyman
William B. Hyman served as the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1865 to 1868.
Government, Politics & Law
Anti-Longism
Huey P. Long was one of the most colorful and controversial politicians in Louisiana history. Admiration of his leadership was strong, but so was contempt; the contempt ultimately resulted in his death at the hand of a disgruntled citizen.
Government, Politics & Law
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, sieur de Bienville
Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne, sieur de Bienville was a Canadian naval officer who, with his brother Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, explored the lower Mississippi River Valley in 1699 and established the first permanent French settlement in Louisiana.
History
History IndexHistory
Marie Tranchepain
Marie Tranchepain was the first Mother Superior of New Orleans’s Ursulines and an early female diarist.
History
Citizens’ Councils
Citizens’ Councils were a loose network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the South that organized to preserve segregation.
History
Oretha Castle Haley
Oretha Castle Haley defied rigid southern gender and racial constructs to become one of Louisiana's leading civil rights, women's rights, and human rights activists.
History
Pentagon Barracks
Built in 1819 as a fortification against the Spanish and slave insurrections, today the Pentagon Barracks house a museum, apartments, and the lieutenant governor's office.
Literature
Literature IndexLiterature
Sarah Morgan Dawson
Sarah Morgan Dawson kept a dairy of her experiences during the Civil War in Louisiana.
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.
Literature
Tony Kushner
Playwright Tony Kushner, one-time resident of Lake Charles, is the author of prizewinning drama "Angels in America."
Literature
Dorothy Dix
Dorothy Dix, the pseudonym of Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, was a writer and immensely popular advice columnist in the early twentieth century.
Music
Music IndexMusic
Louis James
Louis James was a New Orleans traditional jazz string bass player, clarinetist, and multi-instrumentalist.
Music
Andrew Morgan
Andrew Morgan was a New Orleans traditional jazz clarinetist, saxophonist and audience favorite at Preservation Hall.
Music
James Booker
James Carroll Booker III was a distinctive New Orleans pianist who mixed gospel, boogie-woogie, blues, traditional and modern jazz, and classical music into a unique and breathtaking sound.
Music
Percy Humphrey
New Orleans traditional jazz trumpeter Percy Humphrey led the Eureka Brass Band and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, continuing to play until the age of ninety.
Peoples of Louisiana
Peoples of Louisiana IndexPeoples of Louisiana
Anglo-Americans
While Louisiana began as a French colony and its dominant culture remained Creole French well into the nineteenth century, Anglo-Americans began to form a significant minority in region the late colonial period.
Peoples of Louisiana
Ishak Indigenous People
The Ishak are an Indigenous people who have lived in southwest Louisiana and southeastern Texas since precolonial times.
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.
Peoples of Louisiana
Vietnamese
Vietnamese Americans are one of the newest major ethnic groups in Louisiana
Religion & Spirituality
Religion & Spirituality IndexReligion & Spirituality
Spiritualism
Spiritualism, a practice centered on communicating with the spirits of the dead, influenced several religious groups in Louisiana.
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. 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.
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.
Science & Technology
Science & Technology IndexScience & 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
Coastal Restoration
For a state experiencing land loss at an alarming rate, coastal restoration has become an urgent need.
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.
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
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
John Franks
John Franks dominated the sport of horse racing for over twenty years and became one of the leading stable owners and breeders in the country.
Sports & Recreation
Buddy Friedrichs
New Orleans sailing champion Buddy Friedrichs won a gold medal in the 1968 Summer Olympics in the Dragon Class.
Sports & Recreation
Ben Abadie
Ben Abadie, head coach of Tulane's baseball program in the 1950s, is best known for his "field of dreams" training program.
