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Showing posts from March, 2016

Watkins and Orton families papers, 1886-1971.

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LaRC Manuscripts Collection 185, originally part of a larger 1967 donation by descendant, Dorothy Inbusch of Milwaukee, is made up of personal papers of the Watkins and Orton families of New Orleans and Milwaukee.  Included are handwritten and typed correspondence, certificates including an 1890 German-language birth certificate for John Orton Watkins, financial documents, drawings, poetry, scrapbooks, family and travel photographs, biographical and genealogical information, medical notes and a prescription by Dr. William H. Watkins, a 1902 memorial resolution by the Orleans Parish Medical Society following the death of Dr. Watkins, invitations and other items of social ephemera, New Orleans Carnival newspaper clippings, and other printed items. This collection's numerous family photographs include formal posed studio portraits made in New Orleans, Milwaukee, and Vienna, as well as many less formal, almost candid shots.  It seems that twins run in the family.  A family

LaRC books-- Glass house

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Glass house : a novel / by Christine Wiltz. Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, 1994. PS 3573 .I4784 G57 1994 LACOLL There are also copies in the main Howard-Tilton stacks and Vorhoff Library (Special Collections); call number varies slightly in different locations, so please check the library catalog.   It's also available from amazon.com and elsewhere in paperback, hardcover, and electronic editions. This serious novel of the 1990s is important as an emotional snapshot of an earlier era in race relations in New Orleans.  Although poverty, gun violence, and remnants of racism continue to plague the city in the 21st century, this novel captures the painful tenacity of mid-century views surrounding an inherited long-term domestic worker and her family, and their relationship to her semi-privileged but challenged employer. The strength of Christine Wiltz's descriptive writing is her ability to portray most of the characters very sympathetically, even