Posts

New Orleans performance arts

Image
Ewing Poteet (1911-1984) was a musician and an avid supporter of the performance arts in New Orleans.  In 1960, he donated his collection of concert and theatrical programs to Tulane University.  This collection is held in the Louisiana Research Collection as Manuscripts Collection 314.   These programs date predominantly from the late 1940s and the 1950s, and represent productions of a wide variety of sponsoring organizations and performance venues. Sponsors of these events include: New Orleans Friends of Music, New Orleans Philharmonic-Symphony Society, Civic Theatre, New Orleans Opera Guild, Women’s Guild of New Orleans, New Orleans Opera House Association, Crescent City Concerts Association, Gallery Circle Theatre, New Orleans Community Theatre, Theatre Jefferson, Community Children’s Theatre, NORD, National Catholic Music Educators Association, First Baptist Church, New Orleans Summer “Pop” Concerts, American Guild of Organists, Saint Louis Cathedral, a...

Wartime letters, Memorial Day

Image
Members of the Landrum and Eldredge families lived in Florida, Alabama, Louisiana, South Carolina and Texas in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Hulse and Eldredge families lived in New Orleans in the twentieth century. Dr. C. A. Landrum (1838-1909) was a physician and dentist who operated drug stores in DeFuniak Springs and Milton, Fla. His wife was Mary Landrum. Their son, Lt. C. A. Landrum (d. 1964), served in World War I. LaRC Manuscripts Collection 303, Landrum and Eldredge families papers, 1826-1960, contains personal, professional, and military papers of the Landrum and Eldredge and allied families in the southern United States. Included are handwritten and typed family correspondence, later-era notes and typed transcriptions of letters, genealogical information, speeches, certificates, leather-bound diaries, legal papers, real estate papers, financial documents, school papers, a drawing, photocopies of eighteenth-century maps, photographs, telegrams, inv...

Multilingual post cards

Image
As a young woman, Rita Marie Boudousquié (1886-1960) of southern Louisiana received and preserved hundreds of post cards with quick personal notes or holiday greetings from friends and family.    In 1917, she married Robustiano Bernard Ferro (1884-1965), a Cuban-born veterinarian.   Over the years, they lived in New Orleans, Lafayette, Wiggins, Kansas City, and Omaha, returning to New Orleans.    As the couple had no children, Dr. Ferro donated his wife’s early-century post card collection to Tulane University in 1965.    LaRC Manuscripts Collection 276 is the Rita Boudousquié Ferro post card collection, 1905-1937. These post card messages are in handwritten French and/or English.  Printed Spanish-language words appear on post cards from Cuba.   The brief notes sent greetings to Miss Boudousquié on mailed picture post cards depicting scenes in New Orleans, such as streets, buildings, parks and cemeteries, as well as other Louisiana...

LaRC books-- Elysian Fields

Image
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...

Discoveries in Jones Hall-- 1929 reports from the Cotton Belt

Image
New Orleans journalist A. J. Mann A. J. Mann (born 1888 or 1889) was a reporter specializing in the New Orleans cotton trade and cotton and ramie growing in the Southern States. He worked at a desk in the Cotton Exchange for the New Orleans daily states, and later sent writings on the cotton trade, Southern weather, and agricultural growing conditions to New York for publication in the Wall Street journal. He and his wife, Barbara, lived for many years on Eleonore St. in uptown New Orleans, from the 1920s through the 1960s. He identified himself as the manager of the New Orleans Cotton News Bureau. LaRC Manuscripts Collection 268 (A. J. Mann papers, 1917-1952) consists of his professional and collected papers, donated in 1967. Included are typed letters received, as well as outgoing carbons of his responses, a post card, partially printed personal tax documents covering 1926 and 1927, statistical charts about cotton production and acreage, photographs, journal...

2015 LHA annual meeting in Lafayette

Image
LaRC Public Services Librarian Sean Benjamin giving his presentation at the first session of the Louisiana Historical Association annual meeting, March 5, 2015.  The 57th annual meeting of the Louisiana Historical Association is being held March 5-7, 2015, at the Ramada Lafayette Conference Center in Lafayette, Louisiana.  LaRC Department Head, Leon Miller, chaired a lively and successful session, "Archival Innovation in Access, Reference, and Teaching."  Presentations were given by Sally K. Reeves of the Office of the Clerk of Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans; Trish Nugent and Elizabeth Kelly of Loyola University; and Sean Benjamin of Tulane University's Louisiana Research Collection. Sean's talk described "Too Much of a Good Thing: Managing Archival Reference Overload."  The audience responded warmly to hearing of the advances and challenges in providing access services to the public, and the discussion went past the scheduled tim...

1953 post card offer

Image
LaRC Manuscripts Collection 219 is the Jacob Streiffer post card collection, 1900-1960s.  This collection, arranged into small envelopes in one box, by general subject, consists of printed post cards collected by Jacob Streiffer (1902-1969) of New Orleans, who lived at homes on St. Roch Ave. in Gentilly, and later Decatur St. . Most of these post cards date from the early twentieth century and depict street and garden scenes, including of Audubon Park and City Park, the French Quarter, monuments, cemeteries, Carnival, riverfront and other New Orleans views, and African Americans. The post cards in this collection are predominantly drawings or photographs printed in color and unmailed, but a few of the later cards have handwritten or printed messages and were sent through the mail to Jacob Streiffer or his wife. Caption:  a post card mailed to Mrs. J. Streiffer, March 9, 1953, announces a special offer at the Gentilly Meat Market, 5321 Franklin Ave., New Orleans, ...