Tulane University's
Louisiana Research Collection

In 1971, Mrs. B. Stanley Nelson (Mary Hutson) of New Orleans donated some of her father's papers to Tulane University.  Charles W. Hutson (1840-1936) had been a literature professor, author, and artist at Louisiana State University during Reconstruction, who later settled in New Orleans. LaRC Manuscripts Collection 563 is made up of Charles Hutson's draft typescript translation from French into English of the bulk of J. F. Lelièvre's 1838 work, Nouveau jardinier de la Louisiane, plus handwritten notes and newspaper clippings. The only dated item in the collection is a newspaper clipping from 1921. The text describes plant species most successfully grown in Louisiana in the early 19th century, covering both ornamental and edible plants. Having access to the books of the Louisiana Research Collection, preliminary research quickly turned up the original 1838 book in French, as well as an elegant, different translation of it into English, published in the 21st cent...

The Louisiana Research Collection is well known for its older, deep archives and monographs.  But the collections continuously grow over time, up to and including the present year, representing publications which are creative literary works, as well as works resulting from research in various disciplines.   The following is a selection of 2016 imprints which are already cataloged and accessible in the Schiro Reading Room (many of these also have circulating copies in the main Howard-Tilton stacks).  More books are on order and in process at all times.   To discover details about these and other new books in LaRC, you can search the Classic Catalog . Afton Villa : the birth and rebirth of a nineteenth-century Louisiana garden / Call Number: SB466.U7 A388 2016 The amazing crawfish boat / Call Number: SH380.92.U55 L38 2016 Bloody Mary's guide to hauntings, horrors, and dancing with the dead : true stories from the voodoo queen of Ne...

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...

Woodward, Angus. Down at the end of the river : stories / by Angus Woodward. Donaldsonville, LA : Margaret Media, Inc., c2008. Howard-Tilton Stacks PS3623.O683 D69 2008 Jones Hall Louisiana Research Collection PS3623.O683 D69 2008 LACOLL In this collection of short stories, Angus Woodward colorfully describes the circumstances, surroundings, and relationships of assorted fictional individuals living in southern Louisiana in recent years.  One story, "That German Girl" is set immediately post-Katrina.  Others, like "Qatar Is an Emirate" stretch back in time into the 1990s.  A few are almost timeless, especially "Guttering Out," a small and surreal slice of French Quarter street life. The grouping of stories does not have a single point of view or tone, but together they present the elusiveness of close personal relationships and are linked by the common Louisiana setting.   Each story actually is short, begins with a strong sente...

LaFlaur, Mark Gregory, 1958- Elysian Fields / Mark LaFlaur. Kew Gardens, NY : Mid-City Books, [2013] Howard-Tilton Stacks PS3613.A3755 E46 2013 Jones Hall Louisiana Research Collection PS3613.A3755 E46 2013 LACOLL Reviewers of Mark LaFlaur 's award-winning first novel, Elysian Fields , often comment that the writing is reminiscent of various great twentieth-century Southern authors. Certainly the characters, places, subject matter, dialog, and colorful description come out of this rich tradition.  But, other than having New Orleans in common, how could Walker Percy and John Kennedy Toole possibly intersect?   Elysian Fields is not so philosophical or so hilarious.  But, although the author's preliminary disclaimer states that "any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely imaginary or coincidental," he does happen to mention the 55 Elysian Fields bus, the McKenzies bakery shop near Gentilly Blvd., Dillard Univ...

Browsing the library catalog or the stacks, works by and about Southern author Walker Percy are plentiful, both in the main Howard-Tilton stacks and in Special Collections.    A number of his works have multiple copies in various locations within the library.    Walker Percy’s prevalent descriptive style and subdued mood appear in his famous mid-twentieth century New Orleans novel, The Moviegoer , winner of the 1962 National Book Award for Fiction. But lesser known are his works classified as nonfiction.      Called “Walker Percy’s Weirdest Book” by Tom Bartlett in the Chronicle of Higher Education (May 10, 2010), Lost in the Cosmos is very unlike The Moviegoer.    However, categorizing this book as nonfiction is also imperfect, because the reader who persists through the first three-fourths of it is treated to a small, beautifully written science fiction story about space travel, astronaut couples, and children born in space...

In her Pecan Candy trilogy, Rhodesia Jackson narrates the life-changing experiences of young Peggy Lavizzo of Orleans Avenue, as she falls in love and marries architect Clint Johnston.    Although both native New Orleanian African-Americans, the two characters are very different in socio-economic background and circumstances, age, family, skin color, education, life experience, religion, and point of view. Pecan candy & huck-a-bucks / by Rhodesia Jackson.   2 nd ed.   New Orleans, LA : Orgena Enterprises, c1995.     PS 3560 .A24197 P4 1995 LACOLL (also in a Kindle ed. From amazon.com) Sweeter than candy / Rhodesia Jackson.   1 st ed.   New Orleans, LA : Orgena, c1997.   PS 3560 .A24197 S92 1997 LACOLL Three times sweeter, love, home & family / Rhodesia Jackson.   1 st ed.   New Orleans, LA : Orgena Enterprises Ltd., c2000. [pre-order process in LaRC]     Yes, there’s candy-ma...

August is Katrina Month in New Orleans.    August 29, 2014, will mark the ninth anniversary of the storm, the flood, and one of the worst disasters in American history. Creative and informative writing on Katrina continues to be published and collected by the library, and especially by the Louisiana Research Collection.    Recently-retired Tulane University president Scott Cowen has written a scholarly memoir of his presidency which strongly focuses on the disaster and continuing recovery of the university and the city.    Copies are held in the main Howard-Tilton stacks as well as in LaRC:                 Cowen, Scott S.   The inevitable city : the resurgence of New Orleans and the future of urban America / Scott Cowen, with Betsy Seifter ; foreword by Walter Isaacson.   First edition.   New York, NY : Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Howard-Tilton Stacks ...

Cornelia Dean Genella Sansum (1868-1960) and her her husband, Samuel Sansum (1858-1945), a lawyer, lived at 1636 Constantinople Street in New Orleans during the twentieth century. Mrs. Sansum's mother was Mary Louise Kennedy (1836-1899). Cornelia and Samuel Sansum were married in 1902.  Mrs. Sansum donated her rather small amount of personal papers to the library in 1950, and they are held in the Louisiana Research Collection as Manuscripts Collection 586.   This collection consists of handwritten correspondence, affectionate birthday greetings from Sam to Cornelia, a business card, a calling card, advertisements, their marriage announcement, a reception invitation, Samuel Sansum's 1918 certificate of naturalization, and Cornelia Sansum's small prebound datebook into which she wrote birth, death, and marriage dates of some of her relatives. Names represented include members of the Sansum, Genella, and Kennedy families of Louisiana and Mississippi. In t...

August 29, 2012, is the seventh anniversary of Hurricane Katrina in southern Louisiana and the Gulf Coast, a time for remembering, paying respects, and learning. The Louisiana Research Collection holds a variety of scientific, historical, visual, and literary publications about the disaster and its effects on the land and people of the region, especially New Orleans.    Hundreds of Katrina books have also been added to the Howard-Tilton Memorial Library main stacks.     Excerpts from three of these literary works published since 2010 appear below. *** from A howling in the wires : an anthology of writing from postdiluvian New Orleans / edited by Sam Jasper and Mark Folse.   New Orleans, LA : Gallatin and Toulouse Press, c2010.  F 379 .N553 A235 2010 cop.3 LACOLL, p. 98-99. Still-traumatic stress Ray “Moose” Jackson here we are again back at the bar, my friend or walking down the jazzclubs who remembers? those first days co...

Paul Conrad (b. 1840) was a New Orleans businessman who served as a Confederate soldier. He had been shot in the left shoulder in battle during the Civil War, but remained active in the Louisiana Field Artillery into the 1870s.   As a rule, in the post-war South, Confederate veterans were held in especially high regard, and Louisiana Governor S. B. Packard commissioned Conrad as Captain in his "Governor's Life Guard." Paul Conrad became an employee of the Louisiana State Lottery Company in 1870, becoming its president in 1890. Subsequently, the United States Congress banned the interstate transportation of lottery tickets and lottery advertisements. As a result, the company remained in Louisiana until its charter expired; Conrad moved its operations to Honduras where it was shut down in 1907. LaRC Manuscripts Collection 463 consists of personal and business papers of Paul Conrad, with numerous artifacts of the 19 th century Louisiana lottery. Included are handwr...