Description
Book SynopsisShowcasing the colorful, even raucous, political, social, and unique cultural qualities of Louisiana history, this new collection of essays features the finest and latest scholarship.
- Includes readings featuring recent scholarship that expand on traditional historical accounts
- Includes material on every region of Louisiana
- Covers a wide range of fields, including social, environmental, and economic history
- Detailed, focused material on different areas in Louisiana history, including women's history as well as the state's diverse ethnic populations
Table of ContentsEditors' Preface 1
PART ONE: LOUISIANA'S COLONIAL CONTEXT 3
The Frontier Exchange Economy of the Lower Mississippi Valley before 1783
by Daniel J. Usner 5
The Moral Climate of French Colonial Louisiana, 1699–1763
by Carl A. Brasseaux 25
Oliver Pollock's Plantations: An Early Anglo Landowner on the Lower Mississippi, 1769–1824
by Light T. Cummins 37
PART TWO: WOMEN, RACE, AND CLASS IN EARLY LOUISIANA 49
Desiring Total Tranquility—and Not Getting It: Conflict Involving Free Black Women in Spanish New Orleans
by Kimberly Hanger 52
A Female Planter from West Feliciana Parish: The Letters of Rachel O'Connor
by Sara Brooks Sundberg 63
The Murder of a "Lewd and Abandoned Woman": State of Louisiana v. Abraham Parker
by Judith Kelleher Schafer 78
PART THREE: TRANSFORMATION OF THE LOUISIANA "CREOLE" 93
Early New Orleans Society: A Reappraisal
by Joseph G. Tregle, Jr. 95
In My Father's House: Relationships and Identity in an Interracial New Orleans Creole Family, 1845–1875
by Justin Nystrom 108
PART FOUR: VIOLENT LOUISIANA 127
"I Would Rather Be Among the Comanches": The Military Occupation of Southwest Louisiana, 1865
by Michael G. Wade 129
From the Barrel of a Gun: The Politics of Murder in Grant Parish
by Joel M. Sipress 142
Feuding Is Our Means of Societal Regulation: Elusive Stability in Southeastern Louisiana's Piney Woods, 1877–1910
by Samuel Hyde, Jr. 154
An Inhospitable Land: Anti-Italian Sentiment and Violence in Louisiana, 1891–1924
by Alan G. Gauthreaux 164
PART FIVE: PROGRESSIVES AND RACE 177
When Plessy Met Ferguson
by Keith Weldon Medley 180
The Rest of the Story: Kate Gordon and the Opposition to the Nineteenth Amendment in the South
by Elna C. Green 188
In Pursuit of Louisiana Progressives
by Samuel C. Shepherd 197
PART SIX: MODERN LOUISIANA POLITICS 209
"What he did and what he promised to do . . .": Huey Long and the Horizons of Louisiana Politics
by Jerry P. Sanson 212
Huey Long: A Political Contradiction
by Glen Jeansonne 220
"When I Took the Oath of Office, I Took No Vow of Poverty": Race, Corruption, and Democracy in Louisiana, 1928–2000
by Anthony J. Badger 232
The Politics of Poverty and History: Racial Inequality and the Long Prelude to Katrina
by Kent B. Germany 248
PART SEVEN: TRANSITIONS IN RACE RELATIONS 257
Racial Repression in World War Two: The New Iberia Incident
by Adam Fairclough 259
Transitional Generations: African American Workers, Industrialization, and Education in the Northern Louisiana Lumber and Paper Industries, 1930–1950
by Lesley-Anne Reed 270
PART EIGHT: CULTURE AND ENVIRONMENT IN MODERN LOUISIANA 289
Making the "Birthplace of Jazz": Tourism and Musical Heritage Marketing in New Orleans
by J. Mark Souther 291
Commercialization of Cajun Cuisine
by Marcelle Bienvenu, Carl A. Brasseaux, and Ryan A. Brasseaux 314
Who Destroyed the Marsh?: Oil Field Canals, Coastal Ecology, and the Debate over Louisiana’s Shrinking Wetlands
by Tyler Priest and Jason P. Theriot 331
