Archaeology of the New Orleans Area

Alma Plantation

Alma Plantation is a working sugar plantation whose layout and structures provide details about a historic Louisiana vernacular architecture.

Camp Ruston

Camp Ruston was one of the largest prisoner of war camps in the United States during World War II.

Madewood Plantation

Greek Revival Madewood Plantation was one of Henry Howard's first commissions and helped launch his successful architectural practice.

Emile Weil

Known for the vast range of buildings he designed, Emile Weil played an important role in Louisiana';s architecture in the first third of the twentieth century.

Alexander Stolin

A native of the Ukraine, artist Alexander Stolin maintains a home and studio in Madisonville, Louisiana.

Ulrick Jean-Pierre

Ulrick Jean-Pierre, a New Orleans resident since the early 1990s, creates lush historical paintings of his native Haiti many infused with representations of the centuries-old connections between Haiti and his adopted city.

George P.A. Healy

George A.P. Healy spent several seasons painting portraits in New Orleans during the 1840s and 1850s.

David Rae Morris

David Rae Morris is an art photographer and photojournalist who maintains a home and studio in New Orleans.

New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

Founded in 1970, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, known as Jazz Fest, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year to experience the music, cuisine, and cultural heritage of Louisiana.

John Lomax

John Avery Lomax was a folklorist and musicologist who, with his son Alan Lomax, made the first recording of the Louisiana blues guitarist Huddie Ledbetter (Lead Belly) at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

Lagniappe

"Lagniappe" is a vernacular word used in New Orleans to refer to a complimentary giveaway in a retail environment.

1873 Comus Parade

Mardi Gras of 1873 provided the occasion for a bold display of political commentary and costume artistrly by the Mystick Krewe of Comus.

Avery Island

Located in Iberia Parish, Avery Island, the largest of five salt domes along the Louisiana coast, is the home of the McIlhenny Company, maker of Tabasco brand products for more than 140 years.

Po-Boy Sandwich

The so-called poor boy (po-boy) sandwich originated from the Martin Brothers' French Market Restaurant and Coffee Stand in New Orleans during the 1929 streetcar strike.

Crawfish Boils

Crawfish boils are a springtime ritual in Louisiana.

Gumbo

Gumbo is a thick soup that can be considered the signature dish of south Louisiana.

Mandeville

Mandeville was founded in 1834, occupying part of what was formerly the sugar plantation of Bernard de Marigny de Mandeville in Louisiana.

Fontainebleau State Park

The Fountainebleau 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.

Natchitoches Settlement

The Natchitoches settlement, founded in 1714, is the oldest in the Louisiana Territory.

Slidell

Surveyed and platted in 1883 for the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, Slidell was named for John Slidell, Confederate ambassador to France and U.S. congressman.

George Mathews

George Mathews served as the presiding judge of the Supreme Court of Louisiana from 1813 to 1836.

Mike Foster Jr.

Murphy J. "Mike" Foster Jr., the 53rd governor of Louisiana, served from 1996 to 2004.

Edwin T. Merrick

Edwin T. Merrick served as the chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court from 1855 to 1865.

Richard W. Leche

In 1936 Richard Leche won the battle to succeed Huey P. Long as governor of Louisiana and leader of the Long faction.

The Governors of Louisiana

This is a complete list of the governors of Louisiana, their terms, and links to biographical entries.

Women in Colonial Louisiana

Women constituted a valuable asset in colonial Louisiana.

Emy-Lou Biedenharn

Emy-Lou Biedenharn was a noted opera singer and philanthropist from Monroe.

New Deal in Louisiana

Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal brought jobs and resources to Louisiana during the Great Depression.

New Orleans in Literature

New Orleans has been the subject of literature from the colonial period to the present day.

William Faulkner

Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner lived in New Orleans and wrote some of his earliest works there.

Dorothy Dix

Dorothy Dix, the pseudonym of Elizabeth Meriwether Gilmer, was a writer and immensely popular advice columnist in the early twentieth century.

Caroline Dormon

Caroline Dormon made monumental contributions to the conservation of Louisiana's natural and cultural resources. A passion for native plants and old-growth forests, coupled with a strong feeling of kinship with Native Americans, shaped Dormon's life and work.

Rockabilly

Rockabilly is a genre of music that derived from early rock 'n' roll, with a country-music flavor.

Bunk Johnson

Bunk Johnson was a trumpeter and one of the leaders of the New Orleans jazz revival in the 1930s.

Albert Fernandez Walters

Albert Vincent “Fernandez” Walters was a traditional jazz musician from New Orleans who performed with the Young Tuxedo Brass Band and at Preservation Hall.

Peter Bocage

Peter Bocage was a jazz musician active in brass bands and second line parades in the early twentieth century.

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.

All Saints Day

All Saints Day or All Hallows Day is a Catholic tradition honoring the saints and also deceased family members each November 1.

Pete Herman

Pete Herman, world champion bantamweight boxer, owned and operated a popular French Quarter bar until his death in 1973.

Connie Ryan

Louisianan and major league baseball player Connie Ryan played for the New York Giants.

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.

Bob Pettit

When Louisiana's Bob Pettit retired from the National Basketball Association in 1965, he was widely regarded as an all-time great and had earned two Most Valuable Player awards.