Dr. Jeannette K. Laguaite

LaRC’s Manuscripts Collection 866 is made up of the personal and professional papers of Jeannette K. Laguaite of New Orleans.  Dr. Laguaite (1912-2005) was an audiologist, teacher of speech therapy, and an academic administrator at Tulane University School of Medicine during the mid-twentieth century.   Early in her long professional career she taught kindergarten in the New Orleans Public Schools, and also worked as a speech correctionist with children and adults.   During World War II, she served as a Civilian Defense nurse's aide in New Orleans.  She completed her Ph.D. degree in 1952, and then concentrated on scholarly study, teaching, and administration of audiology and speech therapy programs at Tulane University.   Her interests included psychosomatic medicine, particularly clinical hypnosis therapy in speech rehabilitation.   The collection includes thank-you notes from people expressing gratitude for their ability to regain their speech due to her help.   Dr. Laguaite travelled extensively, attending numerous international scholarly conferences, continuing to live in New Orleans throughout her life.

Included in the collection are correspondence, photographs, certificates of appreciation, greeting cards and other items of social ephemera, numerous mimeographed and photocopied Christmas letters sent to friends which detail her activities and travels during the year, awards, keepsakes, World War II era Red Cross patches, church newsletters and programs, her 1952 Ph.D. diploma from Louisiana State University, graduation programs, conference certificates and memorabilia, a scrapbook of her parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary, reprints of her scholarly articles, newspaper clippings and other printed items.   If all of our self-archiving donors will write and keep a copy of their conversational Christmas communications, future researchers will have an easier time doing biographical research, and will gain a sense of the person’s personality.   

Caption: Dr. Laguaite presenting a scholarly paper in Italy in 1962.  Images of items in the Louisiana Research Collection may not be re-published without permission.

Posted by Susanna Powers