Tulane University's
Louisiana Research Collection

The Schiro Reading Room will be closed Saturday, February 14 – Tuesday, February 17, 2015.     For weekend hours of the main Howard-Tilton Memorial Library building, see the hours listing on the library web site .     Lundi Gras and Mardi Gras are Tulane University holidays. To learn about New Orleans Carnival celebrations of the past, please visit the online Carnival Collection , featuring images of more than 5,500 original float and costume designs held in the Louisiana Research Collection.     The digitized collection ensures preservation of these colorful creative images, and provides open access across the world.     Have a happy and safe Mardi Gras! Caption: Krewe of Proteus 1892, costume 33, as preserved in the online Carnival Collection, Louisiana Digital Library and the Tulane Digital Library.   For more about the 1892 Proteus parade costume designs, see Storehouse , featuring Leon Miller's descriptive narration....

Mary Elizabeth Sanders Family Memorabilia, 1862-1957 (Manuscripts Collection 275) is primarily about the political career of Mary's grandfather, Jared Young Sanders, governor of Louisiana from 1908 to 1912.  But Mary Sanders, like many or most individuals and families in Louisiana, preserved Carnival ephemera along with other personal mementos.  This will be found especially among the more influential citizens' papers, as they were often participants or royalty in the parades and balls, at some point in their lives. A rich source for research on New Orleans Carnival, the Louisiana Research Collection holds the massive physical  Carnival Collection, 1857-     (Manuscripts Collection 900), large selections of which have been digitized in the Louisiana Digital Library, and accessed freely online .    But additionally, LaRC's archival collections widely contain Carnival keepsakes from the nineteenth through twenty-first centuries.   Searching th...

LaRC’s annual Carnival exhibit is now on display in the Special Collections gallery, Jones Hall Room 201. “Floats, Costumes, and the Vegetable Kingdom: The original designs for the wonderfully odd 1892 Proteus parade.” Using the theme “A Dream of the Vegetable Kingdom,” in 1892 the Krewe of Proteus created floats and costumes based on corn, watermelon, and even English peas. Intended as working drawings for float builders and costumiers, the designs are also stunningly beautiful works of art. The designs are by Carlotta Bonnecaze, the first woman and first creole to design floats for a Carnival krewe. Carnival historian Henri Schindler calls her work “astonishing” and argues that in this 1892 parade, she used subtle layers of color to achieve her most beautifully painted designs. “A Dream of the Vegetable Kingdom” is also a rare instance of LaRC preserving both the complete set of eighteen float designs and the complete set of 101 costume designs for the same par...

LaRC's digital Carnival Collection was given a highly favorable review in the August 2012 issue of Choice Reviews Online.   D. M. Braquet, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, writes that the resource is "highly recommended, all users."   49-6769   Humanities \ Performing Arts \ General The Carnival Collection .  Internet Resource. Reviewed in 2012aug CHOICE.  http://larc.tulane.edu/exhibits/carnival [Visited May'12] The Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC) at Tulane University preserves one of the most spectacular collections of New Orleans carnival-related materials and has now made a good portion accessible to the world.  The Carnival Collection  boasts more than 5,000 digital images of the original watercolor float and costume designs from artists of the golden age of carnival in New Orleans, which spanned the years from the late 1800s to the early 20th century. Designers represented include Jennie Wilde, B. A. Wikstrom, and Charles Bri...

LaRC intern Kathryn Rumer LaRC intern Kathryn Rumer recently completed her MLIS from the LSU SLIS program . Kathryn made significant contributions to the Louisiana Research Collection since she began volunteering with us two years ago, and during her time as our first Pie Dufour Carnival intern. Kathryn was very involved with the creation of LaRC’s online Carnival collection . This included creating metadata for approximately 6,000 float and costume designs, digitizing the costume designs, and uploading the digital images and the metadata to the LOUIS Digital Library to create the online Carnival Collection. She also completely reboxed the Carnival ephemera collection, and created an Archon finding aid for the Carnival collection. The Carnival Collection’s finding aid currently has 281 Krewes listed as well as complete and accurate inventory lists of float and costume designs, float bulletins, and photographs. We hope to release this finding aid to the public within the next year. ...

Another mention of the Louisiana Research Collection's Carnival holdings appeared late last week: "Exhibits celebrate the art of Carnival krewes" in Tulane University's online newsletter, New Wave. We hope you will enjoy the collection now and year-round.

The February 2012 print issue of Offbeat , as well as its current online version, feature a description of LaRC's digitized collection of float and costume design artwork. The article is "Mardi Gras History on Parade" by Kellyn Lappinga. Additional information about the physical and digitized Carnival Collection is available in our blog: LaRC's Carnival Collection in the news! Mistick Krewe of Comus 1910 float designs Krewe of Proteus Exhibit See the online, freely accessible LOUISiana Digital Library for collections of images created and contributed by Tulane University and other Louisiana institutions. Please visit our reading room to see the physical collections, and to visit the current gallery exhibit in Jones Hall. Posted by Susanna Powers

LaRC is pleased to present a special exhibit showcasing Krewe of Proteus float and costume designs from the “Golden Age of Carnival.” The Krewe of Proteus began in response to the growing popularity of parade organizations and float riding. Several Comus members and other carnival supporters came together, forming the Krewe of Proteus in 1881, and presenting the first parade in 1882.The Greek, shape-shifting sea god, Proteus, was chosen as the symbol for the new Krewe. Proteus was the first parade organization to have Creole membership and a Creole captain. Proteus has reliably paraded over the years, with the only exceptions being a few weather interruptions, World War I and II, and the 1992 to 2000 parading hiatus disrupting the parade schedules. Proteus made his 1882 parade debut with the theme of “Ancient Egyptian Mythology,” which was designed by famed carnival artist Charles Briton and was considered one of the most impressive parades of its time. The parade featured Egypti...

LaRC has created a new souvenir bookmark featuring artwork in the Carnival Collection. This graceful composite image, which is also used as the collection's online banner, is derived from artist Bror Anders Wikstrom's "the throne of Saturn", a float design from the 1905 Krewe of Proteus parade in New Orleans. The banners and also many of the library’s digitization projects result from a collaboration between the Louisiana Research Collection and the Web Services Department. We hope you will make a personal visit to the Special Collections Reading Room soon. From your computer, you may browse the large and growing number of digitized images from our Carnival Collection artwork by visiting the freely accessible LOUISiana Digital Library . Posted by Susanna Powers

LaRC is receiving much attention this week for our exquisite Carnival collection. This week, articles highlighting our Carnival holdings ran in both Tulane's New Wave and the Times-Picayune . Tulane University’s Louisiana Research Collection preserves possibly the largest collection of New Orleans Carnival paper and ephemera, such as invitations, dance cards, call out cards, printed float plates and bulletins, and original float and costume designs. Perhaps most notable among our Carnival collection are the more than five thousand original designs for Carnival floats and costumes we preserve. Many of these are from the “Golden Age” of Carnival and feature the work of noted designers such as Jennie Wilde, B. A. Wikstrom, and Charles Briton. LaRC also preserves the works of more contemporary designers, including Patricia Hardin, Olga Peters, and designer and noted Carnival historian Henri Schindler. We are in the process of putting our entire Carnival design collection online ...

Our friend Mary LeBlanc has recently decided to retire from her volunteer service to the Louisiana Research Collection. In October 1973, Mary started working as a Howard-Tilton Memorial Library staff member in Special Collections, continuing for all those years through 2005. Since then, she kindly volunteered her time to process newly-acquired Carnival ephemera for inclusion in LaRC’s very deep and multi-faceted Carnival Collection. Over her career in the library, she worked closely with Bill Meneray, Lee Miller, and a very long list of co-workers. Mary’s sociable manner and love of New Orleans will be fondly remembered. In fact, we look forward to her visits! Carole Hampshire, a long-time Special Collections colleague and good friend of Mary’s, said, “…there are many wonderful things that can be said about Mary—enough to fill her own manuscript collection! Mary deserves her own krewe, along with her own tiara and doubloon, which will be hot collector’s items. We will miss her tr...