Archaeology
Watson Brake Archaeological Site
Watson Brake is a prehistoric Evans culture site in Ouachita Parish dating to 3500–2800 BCE.
Archaeology
Archaeology Index
Archaeology
Plaquemine Culture
This entry covers the Plaquemine culture in the Lower Mississippi River Valley during the Mississippi period, 1200 to 1700 CE
Archaeology
Poverty Point
Poverty Point in Louisiana, one of the most significant archaeological sites in in the world, dates to 3,500 years and represents the largest, most complex settlement of its kind in North America.
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
Old State Capitol
Designed by architect James H. Dakin, Louisiana's Old State Capitol in Baton Rouge is among the state’s most distinctive architectural landmarks.
Architecture
Plaquemine Lock
The Bayou Plaquemine Lock once allowed ships to pass from the Mississippi River through the bayou to Louisiana's interior.
Architecture
Lighthouses
Installed in the 1800s, Louisiana's lighthouses were not only among the state's most visually dynamic buildings, but also provided a vital service for commercial mariners.
Architecture
Jean-Hyacinthe Laclotte
Jean-Hyacinthe Laclotte is best remembered for his painting of the 1815 Battle of New Orleans.
Art
Art IndexArt
John McCrady
One of the best-known twentieth-century southern artists, John McCrady studied and worked in New Orleans, where he established an influential art school.
Art
George Ohr
George Ohr was known for his eccentric personality and the wild and exaggerated pottery that he sold at his studio on the Mississippi Gulf Coast.
Art
Victor Pierson
Few details are known about the life of British-born hunting, landscape, and portrait painter Victor Pierson, who appears on the New Orleans city directories in the late nineteenth century.
Art
Paul Ninas
Paul Ninas, often described as the "Dean of Modern Art" in New Orleans, lived and worked in the city from 1932 until his death in 1964.
Business & Industry
Business & Industry IndexBusiness & Industry
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.
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
NASA Michoud Assembly Facility
NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans is one of the largest manufacturing sites in the world.
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.
Disasters
Disasters IndexDisasters
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
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.
Disasters
Hurricane Katrina
Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in Louisiana and the subsequent levee failures resulted in one of the worst disasters in United States history.
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.
Folklife
Folklife IndexFolklife
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
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.
Folklife
Marc Savoy
Marc Savoy is a Cajun folklorist, musician, and master accordion maker in Eunice.
Folklife
Congo Square
Congo Square, now Armstrong Park in New Orleans’s Tremé neighborhood, served as a gathering ground for Africans in the early years of the city.
Foodways
Foodways IndexFoodways
Calas
Fried rice cakes known as calas were once ubiquitous among New Orleans street vendors.
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.
Foodways
Filé
Filé, also known as filé powder or gumbo filé, is a seasoning and thickening agent made from dried and finely ground sassafras leaves.
Foodways
Gumbo
Gumbo is a thick soup that could be considered the signature dish of South Louisiana.
Geography
Geography IndexGeography
Bayou Teche
Before railroads and highways, Bayou Teche served as an important transportation route deep into the fertile interior of south-central Louisiana.
Geography
Neutral Strip
The Neutral Strip existed outside the governance of either the United States or Spain until 1821.
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.
Government, Politics & Law
Government, Politics & Law IndexGovernment, Politics & Law
L’Union
The South’s first Black newspaper, L’Union was an abolitionist journal that promoted full citizenship rights for men of African descent.
Government, Politics & Law
Joe B. Hamiter
Joe Busbey Hamiter served as the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court for five months in 1970.
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
Home Rule Charters
A home rule charter allows local governments to exercise all powers not explicitly denied by state law or constitution.
History
History IndexHistory
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
History
Battle of Baton Rouge (1779)
Spanish colonial capture of British forts on the Mississippi River during the American Revolutionary War provided significant strategic and symbolic victories.
History
Lakefront Airport
In order to accommodate seaplanes as well as land-based craft, New Orleans's Lakefront Airport was built on land dredged from Lake Pontchartrain to create a site that projects into the lake.
History
Cajun Dance Halls
Cajun dance halls–salles de danse– are live music venues where dancing, courtship, and community building transpire.
Literature
Literature IndexLiterature
Rebecca Wells
Rebecca Wells is a novelist, actress, and playwright from central Louisiana.
Literature
Creole Literature
Few other movements in the American literary scene evoke exotic images rivaling those conjured by Louisiana's Creole writers.
Literature
New Orleans in Literature
New Orleans has been the subject of literature from the colonial period to the present day.
Literature
Tim Gautreaux
Tim Gautreaux writes critically acclaimed novels and short fiction about Louisiana and Acadian culture.
Music
Music IndexMusic
New Orleans Philharmonic Symphony
Founded in 1936, the New Orleans Philharmonic Symphony permanently suspended operations in 1991.
Music
Louis Moreau Gottschalk
Often cited as the first American composer to gain international recognition, Louis Moreau Gottschalk wrote more than three hundred compositions and earned acclaim as a piano virtuoso.
Music
Mia X
A ground-breaking female rapper
Music
BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet
Formed during the Cajun revival of the 1970s, BeauSoleil and its founder, fiddler Michael Doucet, are among Louisiana's most prominent ambassadors of Cajun music and culture.
Peoples of Louisiana
Peoples of Louisiana IndexPeoples of Louisiana
Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana
The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is the largest of four federally recognized tribal governments in Louisiana.
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
Vietnamese
Vietnamese Americans are one of the newest major ethnic groups in Louisiana
Peoples of Louisiana
Isleños
Louisiana's Isleños descend from Canary Islanders who immigrated to the southeastern part of the state in the late 1700s, when Spain ruled the colony.
Religion & Spirituality
Religion & Spirituality IndexReligion & Spirituality
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.
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
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
Cercle Harmonique
Members of the Cercle Harmonique held séances and received messages from the spirit world in support of Black rights and social equality.
Science & Technology
Science & Technology IndexScience & 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
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
Coastal Restoration
For a state experiencing land loss at an alarming rate, coastal restoration has become an urgent need.
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 Dumars
Despite growing up in a region where football was king, Shreveport native Joe Dumars enjoyed a successful career as a player and executive in the NBA.
Sports & Recreation
Joe Brown
Boxer Joe Brown made his professional debut at age seventeen at the Victory Arena in New Orleans.
Sports & Recreation
Robby Albarado
Louisiana jockey Robby Albarado is one of the most successful riders in US horse racing history.
Sports & Recreation
Whitey Esneault
For nearly fifty years, legendary boxing trainer Whitey Esnault trained both neighborhood children and world champions in his French Quarter gym.
