Tulane University's
Louisiana Research Collection

Now is the time to begin considering your end-of-year charitable donations. When you do, we hope you will include Tulane University Special Collections. TUSC’s special projects are made possible by donations, grants, and other private funding. Making an online donation to LaRC by credit card is simple, fast, and secure. Visit our online giving page [URL?]to learn how your donation can help preserve our cultural heritage. Canal Street after a snow storm in 1895.

Tulane University Special Collections is delighted to welcome Cate Peebles as TUSC’s first Archival Processing Manager. Cate will lead an effort to establish an archival processing program that efficiently manages collections from acquisition to public access, including processing and supervising the processing of collections, drafting policies and workflows, and conducting surveys and assessments to help prioritize the work of the Collection Management Team and guide its work into the future. Cate holds a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Pittsburgh, an MFA from the New School in New York City, and a Bachelors in English from Reed College. She joins us from the Yale Center for British Art where, as the Museum Archivist, she processed large, complex archival collections and oversaw the preservation of born-digital records related to art. Cate began at the Yale Center for British Art as a National Digital Stewardship Resident with the Library of Congress...

Tulane University Libraries is producing an ongoing video series, Collection Connection , on the library’s YouTube channel . Each episode focuses on a different TUSC collection available online within the Tulane University Digital Library, such as the Carnival Collection , the Tulane University Archives Historical Collection , and the Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps Collection . Begun at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic when travel halted, the Tulane University campus closed, and staff began working from home, the series promotes collections that patrons can easily access online. It also allowed library staff then working from home to produce creative library outreach projects for patron use using minimal resources.   The videos are a collaboration between two library departments, Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) and Digital Scholarship and Initiatives (DSI). Alan Velasquez, the library’s Unit Coordinator for Digital Scholarship & Initiatives, is the series’ video edi...

Jillian Cuellar has been selected as a member of the latest cohort of the Association of Research Libraries Leadership Fellows .  The Fellows program was launched in 2004 to prepare future senior library and archival leaders.  Many past participants have gone on to senior roles in ARL and other research libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural memory institutions. This is the first time a candidate from Tulane University has been selected for this program.   Jillian Cuellar is the director of Special Collections at Tulane University Libraries. She provides leadership and vision for the division, and oversees staff, collections, and operations. As a member of the library’s senior management group, she collaborates with a team to advance the library’s mission and meet its strategic goals. Jillian is an active member of the Society of American Archivists (SAA); most recently she served as co-chair of the 2020 Program Committee and completed seven years of service as ...

Bill Monroe (left), interviewing President Jimmy Carter for the NBC News program “Meet the Press,” 1977. Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) has acquired the correspondence, speeches, writings, photographs, and other personal and professional papers of William Blanc (Bill) Monroe Jr. (July 17, 1920 - February 17, 2011). Born in New Orleans, Monroe graduated from Tulane University in 1942, served in the United States Army Air Force in Europe during World War II, and became an American television journalist for NBC News. Early in his career, Monroe served as the first news director for NBC affiliate WDSU-TV in New Orleans where he helped pioneer standards for broadcast journalism. Among the prominent issues he covered were the Emmett Till case (1955) and the desegregation of New Orleans schools by Ruby Bridges (1960). Monroe's team at WDSU-TV won a George Foster Peabody Award in 1959. An advocate for greater press access to courtrooms and legislative chambers and a leader in...

The personal stories of famous musicians, politicians, industry executives, and community leaders regarding renowned “Queen of Gospel” Mahalia Jackson are now available online thanks to funding provided by a 2019 Recordings at Risk grant from the Council on Library and Information Resources. The Laurraine Goreau Interviews and Recordings feature Mahalia Jackson, her family members, and others who worked with and knew Jackson, including entertainers Ella Fitzgerald, John Hammond, Della Reese, and Dinah Shore; Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) co-founder Reverend Ralph Abernathy; television host Ed Sullivan; gospel stars J. Robert Bradley, Thomas A. Dorsey, Sallie Martin, and Albertina Walker; and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Studs Turkel. These interviews were conducted by Jackson’s biographer and New Orleans States-Item journalist Laurraine Goreau as part of her research for her 1975 authorized biography of Jackson, Just Mahalia, Baby: The Mahalia Jackson Story. “I’m as...

William Brumfield, November 1979, Andronikov Monastery, Moscow, at work on photography for Gold in Azure. Ten years ago, the Louisiana Research Collection at Tulane University launched an archival collection of material related to the work of William Craft Brumfield, author, photographer, Professor of Slavic Studies, and Sizeler Professor of Jewish Studies at Tulane university. Now the archive has been substantially expanded by Brumfield’s donation of correspondence related to a number of his book projects. Arriving at Tulane for the 1981 fall semester after an assistant professorship at Harvard University, Brumfield was in fact returning to his alma mater (BA in Russian, 1966). Since coming to Tulane, Brumfield has published a series of books and created publicly accessible visual resources (including archival sites at the National Gallery of Art and the Library of Congress) that have carried Tulane University's name around the world. More information on Professor Brumfi...

Special Collections is honored to have been selected by Parkway Partners as the permanent home for its records. In response to massive budget cuts to the City of New Orleans Department of Parks and Parkways, in 1982 Flo Schornstein, the department’s director, created Parkway Partners as a volunteer support group. The 501(c)(3) organization was dedicated to improving the quality of life in New Orleans through the preservation, maintenance, and beautification of neutral grounds, green spaces, playgrounds, parks, community gardens, and the urban forest. As a public/private partnership with the City’s Department of Parks and Parkways, it became a national model for similar public/private partnerships throughout the country. Parkway Partners began work with an “adopt a neutral ground” program. Its projects eventually grew to include a “2nd Saturday” workshop on gardening; “Tree Troopers,” a program to educate New Orleanians on trees and the city’s urban forest; seed libraries that off...

The Association of Southeastern Research Libraries (ASERL) is pleased to share our first-ever collaborative online exhibit, “ Enslaved People in the Southeas t .” The exhibit commemorates the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first Africans sold into bondage in the English Colonies.  The exhibit includes materials from 33 ASERL member libraries and three libraries that are members of the HBCU Library Alliance, including auction records and other bills of sale, plantation records, materials from the abolitionist movement, and photographs and other items from the Jim Crow South. Photograph of Sarah Gudger taken between 1936 and 1938 on the occasion of her interview for the WPA Slave Narrative Project. Materials contributed by Tulane University Libraries include an 1814 William C.C. Claiborne document , an 1863 order by General G. F. Shepley requiring free access to all formerly enslaved persons on Louisiana plantations, an 1842 deed recording the sale of two enslave...

Arthur Hardy, a premiere authority on Mardi Gras in New Orleans, has donated to Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) Carnival ball invitations and programs for more than eighty krewes. Ranging from Achaeans to Zeus, the donation is a major addition to TUSC's Carnival collection. Tulane University Special Collections preserves one of the world’s largest Carnival collections with materials documenting more than 300 krewes. “Arthur’s donation is a tremendous help in making our collection more complete,” said Leon Miller, curator of the Louisiana Research Collection. “In particular, the donation’s focus on smaller krewes,  neighborhood krewes, and krewes that were only briefly in existence will be invaluable in helping scholars extend Carnival research to broad facets of New Orleans society and culture.” Included in Hardy’s donation are programs and invitations from fifteen LGBTQ krewes. “Materials from these krewes are becoming increasingly difficult to obtain,” said Har...

In honor of the 150th anniversary of Lafcadio Hearn’s arrival in the United States, Special Collections is hosting a screening of “Kwaidan,” the critically acclaimed horror film directed by Masaki Kobayashi based on four of Lafcadio Hearn’s ghost stories. Special Collections will also have on display books from its Hearn collection, and free pizza! October 25 from 6:30 to 10:00 p.m. in Jones Hall, Room 102. https://www.facebook.com/events/391951208363432/

On October 11, 1886, Josephine Louise Newcomb wrote to the Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund donating $100,000 for use in establishing the H. Sophie Newcomb Memorial College. In celebration of this day, 133 years ago, Susan Tucker and Beth Willinger, editors, are launching a website to recognize the importance of Josephine Louise Newcomb’s letter writing and contribution to women’s higher education. The Letters of Josephine Louise Newcomb The website provides direct access to more than 130 of her letters (transcribed here for the first time) and indirect access to 350 more, thus encouraging others to interpret her life and contributions more fully and with greater fidelity to her own vision. Many of the letters are from the Louisiana Research Collection’s McConnell family papers (LaRC1156) and Schmidt Family Papers (LaRC-207). Happy Reading!

Tulane University Special Collections announces a new exhibit: Captive Voices: Hearing, Seeing and Imagining Angola Prison September 17, 2019 – November 29, 2019. In coordination with the Tulane University Reading Project and One Book New Orleans’ 2019 selection, Vengeance , by Tulane Professor of English Zachary Lazar, this exhibit uses materials from the Tulane University Special Collections and Lazar’s personal archives to reveal often hidden aspects of the Louisiana State Penitentiary. The exhibit includes drawings from the Curtis and Davis architectural firm of the prison’s 1954 rebuilding, construction photographs by noted architectural photographer Frank Lotz Miller documenting the inmate construction crew, prison-related ephemera created by various political and social welfare organizations, selections of the inmate produced Angolite magazine, a multi-media display showcasing the music of former inmate Robert Pete Williams, and manuscripts, artifacts, and other inmate creat...

Photograph of Monte M. Lemann inscribed "to Edgar B. Stern, outstanding citizen and my dear friend." LaRC preserves Stern's papers. Thomas B. Lemann of New Orleans has donated the papers of his father, noted attorney Monte Lemann, to the Tulane University Louisiana Research Collection. Montefiore Mordecai Lemann (1884 - 1959) was a nationally prominent New Orleans attorney who, among his many significant accomplishments, helped modernize Louisiana law, supported good government initiatives, and promoted legal aid. Lemann was born in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, the son of Bernard and Harriet Friedheim Lemann. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Tulane University in 1902 and a second BA from Harvard in 1903. He then graduated with honors from Harvard Law School in 1906 while also receiving a law degree from Tulane University in 1907. Lemann returned to New Orleans to join the law firm of Saunders and Gurley. In 1909 he made partner (with the firm becoming Hall, Mo...

Ward Reception Room, Military Hospital, Havana Cuba George Alfred Hero, III, of Belle Chasse, Louisiana, has donated a scrapbook of  Roger Post Ames. Ames (1870- 1914) was a New Orleans physician and yellow fever expert. A graduate of the Tulane Medical Department (1890), Ames served as an ambulance student at Charity Hospital and assistant house surgeon at Hotel Dieu. He was associated with the United State Public Health Service in New Orleans and served as a surgeon during the Spanish-American War. Ames believed that yellow fever was not contagious and that the disease was transmitted by mosquitoes. He served as a contract surgeon with Major Walter Reed during the famous yellow fever experiments in Cuba at Camp Lazar, where he contracted the disease during his service. Dr. Ames was 44 years old when he died on November 15, 1914, at Port Barrios, Guatemala. The scrapbook documents his travels to Hawaii, the Philippines, China, Japan, and Cuba. Most of the images are commercial...

LaRC has recently placed online the diary of Simon M. Bott, private in the 120th infantry regiment of Ohio (E Company). Bott was a Union soldier whose regiment was in Louisiana from 1863-1865. He was mustered out of the army while in New Orleans on June 5, 1865. Private Bott was age 29 when he enlisted in Plain Township, Wayne County, Ohio, August 15, 1862, in Company E, 120th Ohio volunteer Infantry. Under Sherman he took part in the battle of Chickasaw Bayou. Mr. Bott also participated in the battles of Arkansas Post, Thompsons Hill, Port Gibson, Champion Hills, Black River Bridge, siege of Vicksburg, siege of Jackson, Brandon. He was on the City Belle during the Red River expedition when it fell to the Confederacy and was burned. Interesting diary entries include a brief mention of an injured friend in a lone entry on April 4th 1864, dated accounts of marching from Alexandria to Morganza (May 12th to the 21st), the burial of a C. Bandanston on Aug 11, 1864, and Bott’s ...

L-R, Althea Topek, Lori Schexnayder, Andrew Mullins Andrew Mullins , formerly with the Louisiana Research Collection (LaRC), is now coordinating archival processing and supervising student workers for the Special Collections Division, which includes LaRC, the Hogan Jazz Archive, Rare Books, and the Southeastern Architectural Archive. On October 26, Andrew gave two presentations at the annual meeting of the Louisiana Archives and Manuscripts Association (LAMA) in Ruston, Louisiana. For the panel "LBBTQ Archives in New Orleans" he discussed LaRC's LGBTQ holdings. Leon Miller also participated in the panel by talking about the creation of the LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana, for which he was a founding board member. For the panel "Supporting Scientific Research in Louisiana Historical Archives" Andrew discussed how archives can support STEM research. Courtney Kearney , Scholarly Engagement Librarian at Tulane's Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, also ...

Please remember LaRC in your end-of-year giving. When the Louisiana Research Collection agrees to preserve something, we make a commitment to preserve it permanently. "Permanently" means "forever," and forever is expensive. We therefore depend on gifts to support many of our special projects. Because they provide reliable ongoing support, our greatest need is for endowed funds and positions. Named funds offer a tremendous opportunity to honor someone in a permanent and prestigious manner. For more information, please contact Leon Miller, Louisiana Research Collection, lmiller@tulane.edu , 504-314-7833. You can also give to the Louisiana Research Collection easily and conveniently by credit card at larc.tulane.edu/giving . To learn more about LaRC and how you can help, visit our website or view our new online brochure . Thank you, and may the Spirit of the Season remain with you and those you love throughout the coming year.

Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, c. 1980 by Murph Douwis LaRC's more recent acquisitions document a wide range of New Orleans issues, including Carnival, yellow fever, the French Quarter, the environment, women activists, and historic preservation. If you have Louisiana materials that warrant permanent preservation, please contact Leon Miller, 504-314-7833, lmiller@tulane.edu. Louis Bernard donated four binders of photographs documenting the French Quarter and the LGBTQ community in New Orleans in the late 1980s. Many are particularly notable for recording the interiors of bars and restaurants in the French Quarter. They were taken and compiled for The Rooster, a New Orleans gay publication that was published between 1986 and 1990. Joseph Maurice Bonin , Kaplan, Louisiana, has donated an extensive scholarly annotated bibliography of books pertaining to Acadians, Cajuns, and Franco-Americans in Louisiana. Jennifer Fugita , Westminster, Colorado, has donated scrapbo...

Riddell's plan for refrigeration, 1846. The Louisiana Research Collection’s newest online collection is the papers of John Leonard Riddell . Riddell (February 20, 1807 – October 7, 1865) was a science lecturer, botanist, geologist, medical doctor, chemist, microscopist, numismatist, politician, and history’s first science fiction author. Riddell was born in Leyden, Massachusetts, February 20, 1807. In 1835 he was appointed professor of chemistry and botany at Cincinnati Medical College and published his "Synopsis of the Flora of the Western States." He received his medical degree in 1836 from Cincinnati Medical College. From 1836 until his death in 1865, he was Professor of Chemistry at the Medical College of Louisiana (now Tulane University) in New Orleans. While there, he invented the first practical binocular microscope. In 1850, he undertook one of the earliest and most extensive American microscopic investigations of cholera. While he continued working at the Med...