Tulane University's
Louisiana Research Collection

Continuing our series of blog posts highlighting Saints ephemera, I bring you Sir Saint posing with the Jax Beer logo. Sir Saint is also known as Iron Jaw, Big Chin, and Stanley Saint. The mascot logo has been around since 1967. Jax Beer was originally brewed in Jacksonville, at the Jax Brewing Company, beginning in 1913. The naming rights to Jax Beer were sold to New Orleans' Jackson Brewing Company in 1956. The Jackson Brewing Company was formed in 1890. It was the only New Orleans brewery to survive Prohibition. The Jackson Brewing Company's headquarters were across the street from Jackson Square. The company closed in 1974, and the Pearl Brewing Company (San Antonio, Texas) purchased the brand. The San Antonio brewery closed in 2001, after its parent company, Pabst Brewing Company, moved production to a site in Fort Worth. Jax beer signs can still be seen around Louisiana. Although we do not have a date on this sticker, I suspect it was made sometime between 1967 and 197...

It's been an incredible 24 hours in New Orleans. The Saints won the NFC Championship last night, going into overtime to win against the Minnesota Vikings with a final score of 31-28. I made my way home via St Charles last night, and women, men, children, and dogs were all leaning out of their cars screaming, crying, cheering, and howling. There were impromptu second lines, fire works going off, and strangers hugging each other. This is the first time the Saints go to the Super Bowl, and the mood of the city is off the charts. The Louisiana Research Collection preserves an extensive collection of pamphlets, brochures, flyers, posters, programs and other small printed items about Louisiana in our vertical files . Still recovering from the excitement of last night, this morning I searched through it and dug up some interesting Saints ephemera. I'm not going to show it all off right now, so you'll have to stay tuned for more. But trust me - there's some fun stuf...

The Tulane Special Collections library is pleased to announce a new exhibition in honor of the 300th birthday of Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784), a giant of English literature and criticism. The exhibit consists of rare first editions of Johnson’s works: for instance, his Dictionary of the English Language (the first for English), Prayers and Meditations, and his variorum edition of Shakespeare’s works. The exhibit also contains a rare first edition of Boswell’s famous Life of Johnson and first editions of other notable eighteenth-century writers, such as Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) and Laurence Sterne (Tristram Shandy). These materials are further illuminated by pages from an early print dictionary in Latin, Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans, and medieval manuscript prayerbooks. All items are drawn from Special Collections, Tulane University. The exhibit is co-curated by Professors Dwight Codr and Michael P. Kuczynski, with the assistance of Samantha Bruner, an MA...

The June 15, 1902, issue of the New Orleans French newspaper, L’Abeille , included an article written by Marie Drivon Girard (1814-1913), in which she painfully laments the volcanic eruption of Mt. Pelee which devastated the Island of Martinique in the Lesser Antilles. At the age of eighty-eight, she recalled her childhood home in Sainte-Lucie, and was torn by the sense of loss caused by the news of the destructive event. New Orleanians of today are also compassionately linked to those in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, who are suffering the widespread devastation of this week’s earthquake . French Quarter resident M. D. Girard became a prominent and admired teacher of the French language to the New Orleans community. She authored Histoire des Etats-Unis suivie de L’Histoire de la Louisiane , published in 1881. A biographical memoir, Madame Girard , was written by Grace King in 1922. Our Manuscripts Collection 638 consists mostly of Madame Girard’s French handwritten correspondence and family...