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Originally published in 1941, Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees is the definitive guide to the important plantation homes of the Pelican State, as well as the socially and historically prominent families who lived in them. Volume I of the two-volume, boxed set describes structures in several diverse sections of the state, from traditional, Spanish-moss-hung plantations in south Louisiana to the African-inspired structures on the rounds of Melrose Plantation in Natchitoches Parish. The first volume features many rare photographs of historically significant townhomes, plantations, and outbuildings--many no longer extant--and provides detailed genealogical and anecdotal informatio...
Along the fertile banks of the Mississippi River across from New Orleans, planter Camille Zeringue transformed a mediocre colonial plantation into a thriving gem of antebellum sugar production, complete with a columned mansion known as Seven Oaks. Under the moss-strewn oaks, the privileged master nurtured his own family, but enslaved many others. Excelling at agriculture, business, an ambitious canal enterprise, and local politics, Zeringue ascended to the very pinnacle of southern society. But his empire soon came crashing down. After the ravages of the Civil War and a nasty battle with a railroad company the family eventually lost the great estate. Seven Oaks ultimately ended up in the han...
While New Orleans is recognized the world over for the French Quarter and Mardi Gras, Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans, is not as well known. However, Metairie does have a rich history all its own. What was once described two centuries ago as "a tongue of land to lend pasturage" has become the second largest unincorporated city in the nation. The explorer La Salle noticed the river bend that is now Metairie when he descended and ascended the Mississippi River in the Spring of 1682. Almost simultaneously with the founding of New Orleans in 1718, John Law's Company of the West began granting land to European investors and to a handful of Canadians struggling to survive along the Gulf Coast. The settlers helped feed the city, provided it with critical building materials, and enhanced its value as a port. As with many colonial frontiers throughout the history of the world, missionaries stood in the vanguard of Metairie's evolution. French and Spanish friars, then European priests, and finally native clergy provided leadership and stability as a progressive community began to emerge from the marsh and swamp.
The fourth volume of the acclaimed series captures in more than 400 photographs and text the distinctive architecture of the six creole faubourgs, or neighborhoods, of the modern city of New Orleans. As in all books in the series, emphasis is placed on historic documentation, with a goal of preserving important structures. Twelve distinct architectural types germane to the faubourgs are defined, identified, and analyzed. Also included is a chapter on the craftsmanship of the many free persons of color who contributed significantly to the city's architecture. Researched by The Friends of the Cabildo, one of the nation's leading preservation organizations, the oversize volume was compiled by Roulhac Toledano, Sally Evans, and Mary Louise Christovich, all of New Orleans. A history of the faubourgs by Samuel Wilson, Jr. is featured as well. The books photographs, both color and black and white, were the work of Betsy Swanson, photographer for the first three volumes of the series.
A history of nineteenth-century New Orleans and the people who made it a vital, if unexpected, part of an emerging operatic world. New Orleans and the Creation of Transatlantic Opera, 1819–1859 explores the thriving operatic life of New Orleans in the first half of the nineteenth century, drawing out the transatlantic connections that animated it. By focusing on a variety of individuals, their extended webs of human contacts, and the materials that they moved along with them, this book pieces together what it took to bring opera to New Orleans and the ways in which the city’s operatic life shaped contemporary perceptions of global interconnection. The early chapters explore the process o...
William Kauffman Scarborough has produced a work of incomparable scope and depth, offering the challenge to see afresh one of the most powerful groups in American history—the wealthiest southern planters who owned 250 or more slaves in the census years of 1850 and 1860. The identification and tabulation in every slaveholding state of these lords of economic, social, and political influence reveals a highly learned class of men who set the tone for southern society while also involving themselves in the wider world of capitalism. Scarborough examines the demographics of elite families, the educational philosophy and religiosity of the nabobs, gender relations in the Big House, slave management methods, responses to secession, and adjustment to the travails of Reconstruction and an alien postwar world.