Tulane University's
Louisiana Research Collection

LaRC’s Marie Lydia Standish papers, 1894-1953, is a rich sampler of keepsakes of a unique life.  Marie Lydia Standish (originally named Lydia Winship) was a poet, musician, dramatist, “ diseuse ,” and lifelong advocate of all things French.   In her youth in New Orleans, she was named the 1897 Queen of the Twelfth Night Revellers.  She was a self-archivist and held on to her cherished memories of Carnival and her later fame, in a scrapbook (LaRC Manuscripts Collection 555, v. 1). The Lord of Misrule presents most cordial greeting to his loyal Queen of 1897 and asks that she will grace his Court of Revelers with her presence at their ball on Twelfth Night. R.S.V.P. P.O. Box 716 A thousand salutations, O! most beauteous Lydia Winship, May your shadow never grow less. Greeting from FREYA:-                  FREYA the Valkyrie; Enchantress of Men; Priestess of the Ra...

Welcome, visitors from Baltimore, San Francisco, and everywhere worldwide, to Super Bowl week and Mardi Gras festivities in New Orleans.   If you travel uptown, consider a stop at the Schiro Reading Room in Jones Hall at Tulane, to receive your free collectible souvenir LaRC bookmark featuring the Carnival Collection, and to view the new Carnival exhibit in the Special Collections Gallery. Even though this was not the Saints' best year, we offer a few notable links about the Super Bowl and Superdome. New Wave :   Rich Eisen kicks off flurry of Super Bowl activity on campus , Ryan Rivet. Architecture Research :   Exhibit Highlights Superdome , Keli Rylance of Southeastern Architectural Archive. Baltimore Sun .   Katrina still haunts Super Bowl celebration .  Jean Marbella, quoting LaRC Archival Collections Catalog Librarian, Susanna Powers, and others living in New Orleans. Posted by Susanna Powers    

"Throw thee something, mister! Shakespeare on Parade at LaRC" Shakespeare-inspired Mardi Gras ball invitations, call out and admittance cards, dance cards and parade bulletins dating from 1870 to 1932 will be on view through March 30 at the Louisiana Research Collection in Jones Hall, Room 200. The exhibition is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM, and Saturday mornings from 9:00 AM to 1:00 PM. “Welcome Merry Shrovetide: Shakespeare on Parade,” will include Shakespearian designs from Comus, Consus, Disciples of Thespis, Elves of Oberon, Falstaffians, Phunny Phorty Phellows, and Twelth Night Revellers . Shakespeare's works and characters, from A Mid-Summer’s Night’s Dream to Falstaff to The Merry Wives of Windsor and more, have long-inspired Carnival krewes with their themes of misrule and merriment, pleasure and masquerading. The exhibit will also feature Rex ducal medals and souvenir pins of Amphictyons, Argonauts, Athenians, Atl...

The Schiro Reading Room (Jones Hall 202) will be closed Saturday, January 19 through Monday, January 21, 2013, in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr., national holiday.    For hours of the main Howard-Tilton Memorial Library building, see the Library News @ Tulane blog. The MLK Week for Peace is coordinated by a coalition of staff and students from four New Orleans universities-- Dillard, Loyola, Tulane, and Xavier. Posted by Susanna Powers

The American Historical Association is holding its 127th annual meeting in New Orleans, January 3-6, 2013.   Sessions are located across several hotels, the New Orleans Marriott, the Sheraton New Orleans, the Hotel Monteleone, and the Roosevelt New Orleans.  More than 1,500 scholars will participate in the meeting.  In addition, 52 specialized societies and organizations are meeting in conjunction with the AHA. Please note that on Sunday, Jan. 6, at 11:00 am, Director of Special Collections, Bruce Boyd Raeburn will serve as chair and commenter for a session titled, "Beyond Bordellos: Race, Sex and Jazz in Turn-of-the-Century New Orleans." We hope that many of the AHA conference attendees will visit the Schiro Reading Room while in New Orleans. Captions: top, a conference attendee getting coffee at the Sheraton; bottom, the panel of historians discussing "Trash and Treasure: The Significance of Used Goods in America, 1880-1950."  Included here at the M...

The Schiro Reading Room, 202 Jones Hall, will be closed  Saturday December 22, 2012, through Tuesday January 1, 2013.  We plan to resume normal reading room hours on Wednesday, January 2, 2013. For holiday break hours of the main Howard-Tilton Memorial Library building,  see the Library News @ Tulane blog.  Have a safe and happy holiday season! Captions: " 'Junior Variety Performers' first Christmas Show-- 1948, sponsored by Exchange Club of New Orleans," and "Entire Cast."    Both photographs of the event feature young John Kennedy Toole with other performers in the festive production.   The originals are in a family scrapbook in the John Kennedy Toole Papers, LaRC Manuscripts Collection 740, v. 1.     Images from LaRC's archival collections may not be re-published without permission. Posted by Susanna Powers.

San Jose State University has awarded Eira Tansey a Master’s Degree in Library and Information Science. Eira joined LaRC in July of 2008. After a series of increasingly responsible duties, she now oversees LaRC’s archival program, where she manages almost three linear miles of archival documents. In addition, Eira has led several special projects, including supervising the digitization of more than 5,600 Carnival designs; working with our university’s Technology Services Department to implement Archon as our online database for archival inventories; and liaising with outsourcers to place guides to eighty percent of our holdings online, a project that she completed two years ahead of schedule. An active contributor to the archival profession, Eira presented papers at the 2010 Southern Archives Conference in Birmingham and the 2011 Louisiana Archives and Manuscripts Association in New Orleans; presented a poster session at the 2011 Society of American Archivists meeting in Chi...