Search results for ""louisiana state university press""

Tracks down the many lives of this protean cocktail. The drink, named by French propagandists during World War I, was said to pack a punch as powerful as that nation's celebrated 75mm cannon. At the end of the century, the French 75 surfaced at Arnaud's Restaurant and became as entrenched in New Orleans as the famed second line.

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Creole Son is the compelling memoir of a single white mother searching to understand why her adopted biracial son grew from a happy child into a troubled young adult who struggled with addiction for decades. The answers, E. Kay Trimberger finds, lie in both nature and nurture. When five- ­day- ­old Marco is flown from Louisiana to California and placed in Trimberger's arms, she assumes her values and example will be the determining influences upon her new son's life. Twenty- ­six years later, when she helps him make contact with his Cajun and Creole biological relatives, she discovers that many of his cognitive and psychological strengths and difficulties mirror theirs. Using her training as a sociologist, Trimberger explores behavioral genetics research on adoptive families. To her relief as well as distress, she learns that both biological heritage and the environment- and their interaction- shape adult outcomes. Trimberger shares deeply personal reflections about raising Marco in Berkeley in the 1980s and 1990s, with its easy access to drugs and a culture that condoned their use. She examines her own ignorance about substance abuse, and also a failed experiment in an alternative family lifestyle. In an afterword, Marc Trimberger contributes his perspective, noting a better understanding of his life journey gained through his mother's research. By telling her story, Trimberger provides knowledge and support to all parents- biological and adoptive- with troubled offspring. She ends by suggesting a new adoption model, one that creates an extended, integrated family of both biological and adoptive kin.

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Captives and Voyagers traces the departures, voyages, and landings of enslaved and free blacks who left their homelands in the eighteenth century for British colonies and examines how displacement and resettlement shaped migrant society and, in turn, Britain's Atlantic empire. Alexander X. Byrd focuses on the two largest and most significant streams of black dislocation: the forced migration of Africans from the Biafran interior of present-day southeastern Nigeria to Jamaica as part of the British slave trade and the journeys of free blacks from Great Britain and British North America to Sierra Leone in West Africa. By paying particular attention to the social and cultural effects of transatlantic migration on the groups themselves and focusing as well on their place in the British Empire, Byrd illuminates the meaning and experience of slavery and liberty for people whose movements were similarly beset by extreme violence and catastrophe.

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Richard M. Weaver believed that ""rhetoric at its truest seeks to perfect men by showing them better versions of themselves."" Language is Sermonic offers eight of Weaver's best essays on the nature of traditional rhetoric and its role in shaping society. Arguing throughout the book against society's reverence for relativism, and the consequential disregard for real values, this philosophical idealist uses his southern background and classical education as a backdrop for his scrutiny of our misuse of language.Weaver argues that rhetoric in its highest form involves making and persuasively presenting choice among goods. He condemns such supposedly value-free stances as cultural relativism, semantic positivism, scientism, and radical egalitarianism. Eschewing such peripheral aspect s of rhetoric as memorization and delivery, aspects too often now presented as the whole, Weaver deals instead with the substance of rhetoric. Ideas and the words used to express them, these are Weaver's subjects.Anyone concerned about language, its use and abuse in contemporary society, will find Language is Sermonic provocative and rewarding. The editors' critical interpretation of all of Weaver's writing, as well as Ralph Eubanks' brief appreciation of Weaver, make this a book no student of language and ideas should be without.Richard M. Weaver was one of the most stimulating and controversial rhetorical theorists of our time. He taught for many years at the University of Chicago and was the author of several books, including Visions of Order, Ideas Have Consequences, The Ethics of Rhetoric, and Life Without Prejudice and Other Essays.

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Norman Mailer at 100 celebrates the author's centenary in 2023 and the seventy-fifth anniversary of the publication of his bestselling debut novel, The Naked and the Dead, by illustrating how Mailer remains a provocative presence in American letters. Novelist and Mailer scholar Robert J. Begiebing lays out how this polymath author's work makes vital contributions to the larger American literary landscape, encompassing the debates of the nation's founders, the traditions of Western Romanticism, and the juggernaut of twentieth-century modernism. The book includes six critical essays, two creative dialogues featuring Walt Whitman and Ernest Hemingway, and Begiebing's own interview with Mailer from 1983. Each piece pairs Mailer with a critical interlocutor whose work offers telling revelations about his ideas and art, among them Ralph Waldo Emerson, Carl Jung, Kate Millett, and Joan Didion. By encouraging a reconsideration of his career from its beginnings to his final books in the early twenty-first century, Norman Mailer at 100 forges a new path toward appreciating the author's achievements that underscores the extent to which his work can help us confront the challenges of today.

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Penelope Lemon is back for more madcap mom adventures in Inman Majors's hilariously unruly Operation Dimwit. It's summertime, and son Theo is away at camp. Feeling frisky, free, and tired of living vicariously through nighttime trysts with erotic novels, Penelope can begin phase two of her postdivorce life. First on the agenda is a date with the mysterious Fitzwilliam Darcy, who lives in a mansion with his snobbish cat, Algernon, and who spends his spare time painting massive nude portraits. Meanwhile, back at the trailer-park office, Penelope's boss, Missy, has become obsessed with getting rid of Dimwit, the backwoods interloper who may be stealing personal items from female residents. A sting operation to catch him in the act is planned, something so kooky and ill-advised that only a legendary goofball such as Missy could set it into motion. Throw in a bully trainer at Penelope's new gym, plus an infestation of skunks that requires the services of a wildlife expert and homespun mystic known as the Critter Catcher, and it becomes clear that Penelope's two weeks off from parenting won't be as relaxing and incident-free as she hoped. Building on the comedic hijinks of Penelope Lemon: Game On!, Operation Dimwit is a warmhearted look at the challenges of being a single working mom trying to stay afloat in the middle class after a divorce. Zany, stylish, and uproariously funny, this southern comedy will have readers laughing out loud at familiar absurdities of life in the twenty-first-century USA.

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Paul E. Hoffman's Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, 1860- 1919 is a highly detailed analysis of LSU's beginnings and early development, starting well before it first opened its doors in Pineville, Louisiana, in 1860. Hoffman reveals how political and ideological contests in areas of governance, curriculum, finances, discipline (the ""military feature""), and student life influenced the early identity and development of the school, shaping and laying the groundwork for the university we recognize today.The institution's first name- the Louisiana State Seminary of Learning and Military Academy- reflected its contested character: part imitation of the Virginia Military, part true military academy, and part classical college. The school was renamed Louisiana State University in 1870 after graduating its first class. When the land-grant university created at New Orleans in 1874 merged with LSU in 1877, the school became Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College. The new disagreements about the character of the institution did not resolve until 1919.At the turn of the twentieth century, new challenges led to the establishment of a law school, the admittance of women for the first time, the organization of the institution into distinct colleges, and demands to emphasize on-campus agricultural instruction. Hoffman shows that President Thomas D. Boyd, faced with flat, inadequate state funding for the university as a whole, moderated those demands until 1918. Then the wartime emphasis on agricultural production, various federal programs that encouraged enrollment in LSU's College of Agriculture, and a critical shortage of space on the downtown campus worked together to prompt the purchase of Gartness Plantation, the site of the current campus, but without any funds or immediate plans for its development. Hoffman's study ends in the spring of 1919. By then, the school had largely resumed its prewar rhythms in academic and extracurricular areas. The ROTC program, begun in 1917, was again in place, transforming LSU into the ""Ole War Skule"" of living memory. With most of its struggles over its identity resolved, LSU was poised to resume the growth that World War I had interrupted and that, with the development of the ""new"" campus, would characterize the school during the next twenty years of its history. This first fully documented history of LSU in its early years contributes to a broader understanding of the growth of both LSU itself and American higher education, showing how fiscal realities and contested ideas about higher education during the post- Civil War era shaped university development.

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A sweeping historiographical collection, Reinterpreting Southern Histories updates and expands upon the iconic volumes Writing Southern History and Interpreting Southern History, both published by Louisiana State University Press. With nineteen original essays co-written by some of the most prominent historians working in southern history today, this volume boldly explores the current state, methods, innovations, and prospects of the richly diverse and transforming field of southern history. Two scholars at different stages of their careers coauthor each essay, working collaboratively to provide broad knowledge of the most recent historiography and an expansive vision for historiographical contexts. This innovative approach provides an intellectual connection with the earlier volumes while reflecting cutting-edge scholarship in the field. Underlying each essay is the cultural turn of the 1980s and 1990s, which introduced the use of language and cultural symbols and the influence of gender studies, postcolonial studies, and memory studies. The essays also rely less on framing the South as a distinct region and more on contextualizing it within national and global conversations. Reinterpreting Southern Histories, like the two classic volumes that preceded it, serves as both a comprehensive analysis of the current historiography of the South and a reinterpretation of that history, reaching new conclusions for enduring questions and establishing the parameters of future debates.

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The release of the song "Hound Dog" in 1953 marked a turning point in American popular culture, and throughout its history, the hit ballad bridged divides of race, gender, and generational conflict. Ben Wynne's A Hound Dog Tale discusses the stars who made this rock 'n' roll standard famous, from Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton to Elvis Presley, along with an eclectic cast of characters, including singers, songwriters, musicians, record producers and managers, famous television hosts, several lawyers, and even a gangster or two.Wynne's examination of this American classic reveals how "Hound Dog" reflected the values and issues of 1950s American society, and sheds light on the lesser-known elements of the song's creation and legacy. A Hound Dog Tale will capture the imagination of anyone who has ever tapped a foot to the growl of a blues riff or the bark of a rock 'n' roll guitar.

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Over 170 years after his death, Edgar Allan Poe remains a figure of enduring fascination and speculation for readers, scholars, and devotees of the weird and macabre. In Fallen Angel, acclaimed novelist and poet Robert Morgan offers a new biography of this gifted, complicated author.Focusing on Poe's personal relationships, Morgan chronicles how several women influenced his life and art. Eliza Poe, his mother, died before he turned three, but she haunted him ever after. The loss of Elmira Royster Shelton, his first and last love, devastated him and inspired much of his poetry. Morgan shows that Poe, known for his gothic and supernatural writing, was also a poet of the natural world who helped invent the detective story, science fiction, analytical criticism, and symbolist aesthetics. Though he died at age forty, Poe left behind works of great originality and vision that Fallen Angel explores with depth and feeling.

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Frank Lloyd Wright and Ralph Waldo Emerson: Transforming the American Mind is an interdisciplinary volume of literary and cultural scholarship that examines the link between two pivotal intellectual and artistic figures. It probes the degree to which the transcendentalist author influenced the architect's campaign against dominant strains of American thought. Inspired by Emerson's writings on the need to align exterior expression with interior self, Wright believed that architecture was not first and foremost a matter of accommodating spatial needs, but a tool to restore intellectual and artistic freedom, too often lost in the process of modernization.Ayad Rahmani shows that Emerson's writings provide an avenue for interpreting Wright's complex approach to country and architecture. The two thinkers cohered around a common concern for a nation derailed by nefarious forces that jeopardized the country's original promise. In Emerson's condemnations of slavery and inequality, Wright found inspiration for seeking redress against the humiliations suffered by the modern worker, be it at the hands of an industrial manager or an office boss. His designs sought to challenge dehumanizing labor practices and open minds to the beauty and science of agriculture and the natural world. Emerson's example helped Wright develop architecture that aimed less at accommodating a culture of clients and more at raising national historical awareness while also arguing for humane and equitable policies.Frank Lloyd Wright and Ralph Waldo Emerson presents a new approach to two vital thinkers whose impact on American society remains relevant to this day.

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The fraught relationship between Abraham Lincoln and George McClellan is well known, so much so that many scholars rarely question the standard narrative casting the two as foils, with the Great Emancipator inevitably coming out on top over his supposedly feckless commander. In Conflict of Command, acclaimed Civil War historian George C. Rable rethinks that stance, providing a new understanding of the interaction between the president and his leading wartime general by reinterpreting the political aspects of their partnership.Rable pays considerable attention to Lincoln's cabinet, Congress, and newspaper editorials, revealing the role each played in shaping the dealings between the two men. While he surveys McClellan's military campaigns as commander of the Army of the Potomac, Rable focuses on the political fallout of the fighting rather than the tactical details. This broadly conceived approach highlights the army officers and enlisted men who emerged as citizen-soldiers and political actors.Most accounts of the Lincoln-McClellan feud solely examine one of the two individuals, and the vast majority adopt a steadfast pro-Lincoln position. Taking a more neutral view, Rable deftly shows how the relationship between the two developed in a political context and ultimately failed spectacularly, profoundly altering the course of the Civil War itself.

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Landscape Fascinations and Provocations reflects and builds on the work of Robert B. Riley (1931–2019), emphasizing his ongoing importance for landscape studies and landscape architecture. The title of the volume represents an attempt to distill Riley's attitude and approach. The book's core consists of fourteen essays—six seminal pieces by Riley alternating with eight new pieces by other authors, each relating to Riley's work in a different way.Riley's singular and important voice survives in his writing: lean, straightforward, erudite, clever, wryly observant, provocative, accessible, and dense. His writings reflect his love of landscapes, his wariness of jargon, and his awareness of academicians' and designers' potential hubris. His essays reveal a lifetime of curious probing and reflection, of serious and critical readings of geographers, anthropologists, psychologists, novelists, and journalists—as well as designers—on landscapes, their design and experience. His subjects include specific North American cultural landscapes; landscapes in literature, memory, and contemporary media; physical landscapes and technology; and the garden, nature, and meaning. Reflecting Riley's eclectic, wide-ranging curiosity and influence, authors of the new essays—Brenda J. Brown, M. Elen Deming, Rosa E. Ficek, Lewis D. Hopkins, Rachel Leibowitz, Achva Benzinberg Stein, Linnaea Tillett, and Vera Vicenzotti—include a cultural anthropologist, a regional planner, a historic preservationist, and a lighting designer as well as landscape architects. The book concludes with short reminiscences, assessments, and appreciations from some of the people who knew Riley (luminaries such as Michael Van Valkenburgh, Randy Hester, John Jakle, and Terry Harkness) and felt his influence as teacher, colleague, editor, mentor, and/or friend. Landscape Fascinations and Provocations demonstrates the ways in which Riley's work continues to provoke others in his field to think and act in directions both new and unexpected.

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No political leader is more closely identified with Louisiana State University than the flamboyant governor and U.S. senator Huey P. Long, who devoted his last years to turning a small, undistinguished state school into an academic and football powerhouse. From 1931, when Long declared himself the "official thief" for LSU, to his death in 1935, the school's budget mushroomed, its physical plant burgeoned, its faculty flourished, and its enrollment tripled. Along with improving LSU's academic reputation, Long believed the school's football program and band were crucial to its success. Taking an intense interest in the team, Long delivered pregame and halftime pep talks, devised plays, stalked the sidelines during games, and fired two coaches. He poured money into a larger, flashier band, supervised the hiring of two directors, and, with the second one, wrote a new fight song, "Touchdown for LSU." While he rarely meddled in academic affairs, Long insisted that no faculty member criticize him publicly. When students or faculty from "his school" opposed him, retribution was swift. Long's support for LSU did not come without consequences. His unrelenting involvement almost cost the university its accreditation. And after his death, several of his allies—including his handpicked university president—went to prison in a scandal that almost destroyed LSU.Rollicking and revealing, Robert Mann's Kingfish U is the definitive story of Long's embrace of LSU.

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Mardi Gras Indians explores how sacred and secular expressions of Carnival throughout the African diaspora came together in a gumbo-sized melting pot to birth one of the most unique traditions celebrating African culture, Indigenous peoples, and Black Americans. Williams ties together the fragments of the ancient traditions with the expressed experiences of the contemporary. From the sangamentos of the Kongolese and the calumets of the various tribes of the lower Mississippi River valley to one-on-one interviews with today's Black masking tribe members, this book highlights the spirit of resistance and rebellion upon which this culture was built.

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For decades, the Louisiana political scene has been a source of interest and intrigue for scholars and casual observers alike. In recent years, the state's political, economic, and environmental challenges have drawn sustained attention from regional and national media. Observers have typically focused on Louisiana's distinctive political culture, including jungle primaries, colorful candidates, and tolerance for scandal. However, recent shifts have eroded the state's unique political character, aligning it with national political trends of partisan realignment, political polarization, and outside influence in state and local elections.The Party Is Over brings together top scholars, journalists, and policy analysts to investigate these recent shifts in institutions, politics, and policy and situate them in the context of national politics. Both accessible and thorough, the volume offers an informed and reliable foundation for those new to Louisiana's political culture and for long-time observers seeking new insights into recent developments. Contributors recognize the challenges posed by the new politics and point toward opportunities to leverage the state's cultural and economic strengths to build a better Louisiana.

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Every year on March 19, Roman Catholic churches and households in and around New Orleans celebrate St. Joseph's Day. As centerpieces of these celebrations, the elaborate tiered displays of foods, prayers, and offerings known as St. Joseph Altars represent a centuries-old tradition established in south Louisiana by immigrants from Sicily. In Celebrating with St. Joseph Altars, Sandra Scalise Juneau expertly documents the stories, recipes, and religious symbolism of this rich tradition passed down through multiple generations. While the altars have adapted over time to local ingredients and tastes, most of the customary dishes still follow cooking and baking methods that remain relatively unchanged from over a century ago.Juneau traces the history and symbols associated with the St. Joseph Altar from its Sicilian origins to its establishment among Louisiana's celebrations, then its later embrace by multicultural communities across the United States. She also provides a guide for preparing an altar, complete with recommended timelines and suggestions for physical setup. She offers over sixty carefully selected recipes centered on delectable breads, fish, pasta, and spring vegetables. Pastries receive special attention, with detailed instructions for carving the intricate fig cake designs known as cuccidati. Celebrating with St. Joseph Altars chronicles a cultural tradition that continues to draw families and communities together in a generous spirit of hospitality.

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Historians have long viewed President John Tyler as one of the nation's least effective heads of state. In President without a Party- the first full ­-scale biography of Tyler in more than fifty years and the first new academic study of him in eight decades- Christopher J. Leahy explores the life of the tenth chief executive of the United States. Born in the Virginia Tidewater into an elite family sympathetic to the ideals of the American Revolution, Tyler, like his father, worked as an attorney before entering politics. Leahy uses a wealth of primary source materials to chart Tyler's early political path, from his election to the Virginia legislature in 1811, through his stints as a congressman and senator, to his vice ­-presidential nomination on the Whig ticket for the campaign of 1840. When William Henry Harrison died unexpectedly a mere month after assuming the presidency, Tyler became the first vice president to become president because of the death of the incumbent. Leahy traces Tyler's ascent to the highest office in the land and unpacks the fraught dynamics between Tyler and his fellow Whigs, who ultimately banished the beleaguered president from their ranks and stymied his election bid three years later. Leahy also examines the president's personal life, especially his relationships with his wives and children. In the end, Leahy suggests, politics fulfilled Tyler the most, often to the detriment of his family. Such was true even after his presidency, when Virginians elected him to the Confederate Congress in 1861, and northerners and Unionists branded him a ""traitor president."" The most complete accounting of Tyler's life and career, Leahy's biography makes an original contribution to the fields of politics, family life, and slavery in the antebellum South. Moving beyond the standard, often shortsighted studies that describe Tyler as simply a defender of the Old South's dominant ideology of states' rights and strict construction of the Constitution, Leahy offers a nuanced portrayal of a president who favored a middle- ­of- ­the ­-road, bipartisan approach to the nation's problems. This strategy did not make Tyler popular with either the Whigs or the opposition Democrats while he was in office, or with historians and biographers ever since. Moreover, his most significant achievement as president- the annexation of Texas- exacerbated sectional tensions and put the United States on the road to civil war.

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No Straight Path tells the stories of ten successful female historians who came of age in an era when it was unusual for women to pursue careers in academia, especially in the field of history. These first-person accounts illuminate the experiences women of the post- World War II generation encountered when they chose to enter this male-dominated professional world. None of the contributors took a straight path into the profession; most first opted instead for the more conventional pursuits of college, public-school teaching, marriage, and motherhood. Despite these commonalities, their stories are individually unique: one rose from poverty in Arkansas to attend graduate school at Rutgers before earning the chairmanship of the history department at the University of Memphis; another pursued an archaeology degree, studied social work, and served as a college administrator before becoming a history professor at Tulane University; a third was a lobbyist who attended seminary, then taught high school, entered the history graduate program at Indiana University, and helped develop two honors colleges before entering academia; and yet another grew up in segregated Memphis and then worked in public schools in New Jersey before earning a graduate degree in history at the University of Memphis, where she now teaches. The experiences of the other historians featured in this collection are equally varied and distinctive. Several themes emerge in their collective stories. Most assumed they would become teachers, nurses, secretaries, or society ladies- the only ""respectable"" choices available to women at the time. The obligations of marriage and family, they believed, would far outweigh their careers outside the home. Upon making the unusual decision, at the time, to move beyond high-school teaching and attend graduate school, few grasped the extent to which men dominated the field of history or that they would be perceived by many as little more than objects of sexual desire. The work/home balance proved problematic for them throughout their careers, as they struggled to combine the needs and demands of their families with the expectations of the profession. These women had no road maps to follow. The giants who preceded them- Gerda Lerner, Anne Firor Scott, Linda K. Kerber, Joan Wallach Scott, A. Elizabeth Taylor, and others- had breached the gates but only with great drive and determination. Few of the contributors to No Straight Path expected to undertake such heroics or to rise to that level of accomplishment. They may have had modest expectations when entering the field, but with the help of female scholars past and present, they kept climbing and reached a level of success within the profession that holds great promise for the women who follow.

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In Lincoln's Mercenaries, renowned Civil War historian William Marvel considers whether poor northern men bore the highest burden of military service during the American Civil War. Examining data on median family wealth from the 1860 United States Census, Marvel reveals the economic conditions of the earliest volunteers from each northern state during the seven major recruitment and conscription periods of the war. The results consistently support the conclusion that the majority of these soldiers came from the poorer half of their respective states' population, especially during the first year of fighting.Marvel further suggests that the largely forgotten economic depression of 1860 and 1861 contributed in part to the disproportionate participation in the war of men from chronically impoverished occupations. During this fiscal downturn, thousands lost their jobs, leaving them susceptible to the modest emoluments of military pay and community support for soldiers' families. From newspaper accounts and individual contemporary testimony, he concludes that these early recruits, whom historians have generally regarded as the most patriotic of Lincoln's soldiers, were motivated just as much by money as those who enlisted later for exorbitant bounties, and that those generous bounties were made necessary partly because war production and labor shortages improved economic conditions on the home front.A fascinating, comprehensive study, Lincoln's Mercenaries illustrates how an array of social and economic factors drove poor northern men to rely on military wages to support themselves and their families during the war.

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Penelope Lemon is a recent divorcée, closet Metallica fan, and accidental subversive to all the expectations of suburban motherhood. After ending her marriage with James, a woodsy intellectual who favours silky kimonos too short for his knobby knees, Penelope finds herself, at forty, living with her randy mother in her childhood home. Broke and desperate for work, she waitresses at Coonskins, a frontier-themed restaurant where the decor is heavy on stuffed mammals and discarded peanut shells.Despite the pitfalls of balancing parental duties, jobs, and the vagaries of middle-age life, Penelope pushes through one obstacle after another, trying to regain her independence. Whether fumbling through the world of online dating; coping with a bullying situation involving her son, Theo, something of a gastric wonder on the school bus; or wrestling with the discovery of nude photos from her carefree college days that are not quite as ""artistic"" as she remembers, Penelope gradually emerges as a modern-day heroine who navigates the assorted inanities of life with verve and humor.Audacious and laugh-out-loud funny, Inman Majors's new novel holds up a fun-house mirror to the relatable challenges of being a single parent in the digital age. All those who live by the beat of their own drum gain a coconspirator, an accomplice, and a champion in the unstoppable Penelope Lemon.

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Leaving the crowded, tourist-driven French Quarter by crossing Esplanade Avenue, visitors and residents entering the Faubourg Marigny travel through rows of vibrantly colored Greek revival and Creole-style homes. For decades, this stunning architectural display marked an entry into a more authentic New Orleans. In the first complete history of this celebrated neighborhood, Scott S. Ellis chronicles the incomparable vitality of life in the Marigny, describes its architectural and social evolution across two centuries, and shows how many of New Orleans's most dramatic events unfolded in this eclectic suburb.Founded in 1805, the Faubourg Marigny benefited from waves of refugees and immigrants settling on its borders. Émigrés from Saint-Domingue, Germany, Ireland, and Italy, in addition to a large community of the city's antebellum free people of color, would come to call Marigny home and contribute to its rich legacy. Shaped as well by epidemics and political upheaval, the young enclave hosted a post- Civil War influx of newly freed slaves seeking affordable housing and suffered grievous losses after deadly outbreaks of yellow fever. In the twentieth century, the district grew into a working-class neighborhood of creolized residents that eventually gave way to a burgeoning gay community, which, in turn, led to an era of ""supergentrification"" following Hurricane Katrina. Now, as with many historic communities in the heart of a growing metropolis, tensions between tradition and revitalization, informality and regulation, diversity and limited access contour the Marigny into an ever more kaleidoscopic picture of both past and present.Equally informative and entertaining, this nuanced history reinforces the cultural value of the Marigny and the importance of preserving this alluring neighborhood.

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Building upon the work of late twentieth-century scholars in the field of feminist studies, Megan Taylor Shockley provides an in-depth look at feminism in the modern U.S. South. Shockley challenges the monolithic view of the region as a conservative bastion and argues that feminist advocates have provided crucial social progressive force, particularly in Virginia, between 1970 and 2010. An innovative study, Creating a Progressive Commonwealth illustrates how feminists in the state challenged the traditional patriarchal system and engaged directly with the legislature through grassroots educational efforts on three major initiatives: passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, protection of abortion rights, and pursuit of legal and social rights for survivors of domestic and sexual violence.Shockley suggests that advocates for gender equality fundamentally changed Virginia, improving the state's support for women both personally and professionally as well as fostering an environment more conducive to additional progressive reform. In sharing the stories of these activists, the author discusses their initial choices to participate in the movement, the challenges they faced in promoting a progressive agenda, as well as their successes and failures. Throughout, Shockley emphasises the need for scholars to look beyond the history of state legislatures in order to fully understand the nature of southern progressivism and feminism.Using both archival sources and oral histories, Creating a Progressive Commonwealth examines the individual women and their motivations as they battled recalcitrant legislators and conservative citizens to achieve social reforms.

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Tracing the intersecting lives of a Confederate plantation owner and a free black Union soldier, Barbara L. Bellows' Two Charlestonians at War offers a poignant allegory of the fraught, interdependent relationship between wartime enemies in the Civil War South. Through the eyes of these very different soldiers, Bellows brings a remarkable, new perspective to the oft-told saga of the Civil War. Recounted in alternating chapters, the lives of Charleston natives born a mile a part, Captain Thomas Pinckney and Sergeant Joseph Humphries Barquet, illuminate one another's motives for joining the war as well as the experiences that shaped their worldviews. Pinckney, a rice planter and scion of one of America's founding families, joined the Confederacy in hope of reclaiming an idealized agrarian past; and Barquet, a free man of color and brick mason, fought with the Union to claim his rights as an American citizen. Their circumstances set the two men on seemingly divergent paths that nonetheless crossed on the embattled coast of South Carolina. Born free in 1823, Barquet grew up among Charleston's tight-knit community of the ""colored elite."" During his twenties, he joined the northward exodus of free blacks leaving the city and began his nomadic career as a tireless campaigner for black rights and abolition. In 1863, at age forty, he enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry- the renowned ""Glory"" regiment of northern black men. His varied challenges and struggles, including his later frustrated attempts to play a role in postwar Republican politics in Illinois, provide a panoramic view of the free black experience in nineteenth-century America.In contrast to the questing Barquet, Thomas Pinckney remained deeply connected to the rice fields and maritime forests of South Carolina. He greeted the arrival of war by establishing a home guard to protect his family's Santee River plantations that would later integrate into the 4th South Carolina Cavalry. After the war, Pinckney distanced himself from the racist violence of Reconstruction politics and focused on the daunting task of restoring his ruined plantations with newly freed laborers. The two Charlestonians' chance encounter on Morris Island, where in 1864 Sergeant Barquet stood guard over the captured Captain Pinckney, inspired Bellows' compelling narrative. Her extensive research adds rich detail to our knowledge of the dynamics between whites and free blacks during this tumultuous era. Two Charlestonians at War gives readers an intimate depiction of the ideological distance that might separate American citizens even as their shared history unites them.

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In Claude before Time and Space, her final collection, Pulitzer Prize- winning poet Claudia Emerson quietly but fiercely explores the themes of mortality and time.In the first section of this book, The Wheel, Emerson uses a rural southern setting in poems that reflect on memory, the self, and relationships. In section two, Bird Ephemera, she explores historical figures- from an early naturalist and writer who raised her children in poverty to a small-town doctor. The collection concludes with a series of poems named after the poet's father. This illuminating body of work displays a master poet at the height of her craft.

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Mardi Gras festivities don't end after the parades roll through the streets; rather, a large part of the celebration continues unseen by the general public. Retreating to theaters, convention centers, and banquet halls, krewes spend the post-parade evening at lavish balls, where members cultivate a sense of fraternity and reinforce the organization's shared values through pageantry and dance. In New Orleans Carnival Balls, Jennifer Atkins draws back the curtain on the origin of these exclusive soirees, bringing to light unique traditions unseen by outsiders.The oldest Carnival organizations- the Mistick Krewe of Comus, Twelfth Night Revelers, Krewe of Proteus, Knights of Momus, and Rex- emerged in the mid-nineteenth century. These old-line krewes ruled Mardi Gras from the Civil War until World War I, and the traditions of their private balls reflected a need for group solidarity amidst a world in flux. For these organizations, Carnival balls became magical realms where krewesmen reinforced their elite identity through sculpted tableaux vivants performances, mock coronations, and romantic ballroom dancing. This world was full of possibilities: krewesmen became gods, kings, and knights, while their daughters became queens and maids. As the old-line krewes cultivated a sense of brotherhood, they used costume and movement to reaffirm their group identity, and the crux of these performances relied on a specific mode of expression- dancing.Using the concept of dance as a lens for examining Carnival balls, Atkins delves deeper into the historical context and distinctive rituals of Mardi Gras in New Orleans. Beyond presenting readers with a new means of thinking about Carnival traditions, Atkins's work situates dance as a vital piece of historical inquiry and a mode of study that sheds new light on the hidden practices of some of the best-known krewes in the Big Easy.

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Taking an archaeological perspective on the past, Jeffrey S. Girard traces native human habitation in northwest Louisiana from the end of the last Ice Age, through the formation of the Caddo culture in the tenth century BCE, to the early nineteenth century. Employing the results of recent scientific investigations, The Caddos and Their Ancestors depicts a distinct and dynamic population spanning from precolonial times to the dawn of the modern era.Girard grounds his research in the material evidence that defined Caddo culture long before the appearance of Europeans in the late seventeenth century. Reliance solely on documented observations by explorers and missionaries- which often reflect a Native American population with a static past- propagates an incomplete account of history. By using specific archaeological techniques, Girard reveals how the Caddos altered their lives to cope with ever-changing physical and social environments across thousands of years. This illuminating approach contextualizes the remnants of houses, mounds, burials, tools, ornaments, and food found at Native American sites in northwest Louisiana. Through ample descriptions and illustrations of these archaeological finds, Girard deepens understanding of the social organization, technology, settlement, art, and worldviews of this resilient society. This long-overdue examination of an often-overlooked cultural force provides a thorough yet concise history of the 14,000 years the Caddo people and their predecessors survived and thrived in what is now Louisiana.

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Five times each week over the past several decades, sports fans in New Orleans began their mornings by reading local sportswriter Peter Finney. Finney's newspaper columns -- entertaining, informative, and inspiring -- connected New Orleans readers to the world of sports, for nearly 70 years. From a career total of 15,000 articles, this book offers a prime selection of the very best of Finney's writing as well as an introduction from Peter Finney, Jr. Beginning his writing career as a college freshman at Loyola University, Finney added his distinctly poetic voice to the sports pages of the States-Item (1945--80) and the Times-Picayune (1980--2013). This impressive time span placed the reporter on the sidelines of the most iconic moments in Louisiana sports history. This collection includes Finney's account of Billy Cannon's 89-yard punt return against Ole Miss in 1959; Tom Dempsey's 1970 NFL-record 63-yard field goal; and the Saints' 31--17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in the 2010 Super Bowl. His interviews and profiles covered nearly every major sports figure of his time: Ted Williams, Jesse Owens, Joe DiMaggio, Muhammad Ali, Joe Namath, Jack Nicklaus, Tiger Woods, Arnold Palmer, Billy Cannon, Pete Maravich, Lee Trevino, Rusty Staub, Archie, Peyton, and Eli Manning, Eddie Robinson, Doug Williams, Dale Brown, Billy Martin, Brett Favre, Nick Saban, Shaquille O'Neal, Mike Ditka, Sean Payton, Drew Brees, Sugar Ray Leonard, Skip Bertman, Les Miles, and Tom Benson, among many others.The riveting moments and fascinating characters portrayed in this volume will delight both hardcore sports enthusiasts and casual fans, in stories told with Finney's characteristic grace, humility, and wit.

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A two-hundred-year-old institution, the Poydras Home -- originally the Poydras Asylum -- stands as an exemplar of woman-led charitable organizations. In a thorough and engaging narrative, Pamela Tyler offers the first complete history of this remarkable New Orleans establishment from its founding as an orphanage for young girls to its present-day operation as a retirement community and assisted-living facility. Throughout, Tyler paints a vivid picture of the many women who faced down the challenges of war, disease, natural disaster, social unrest, and restrictive gender ideals to realize the mission of the Poydras Home.Drawing on previously unreleased archival material, Tyler documents how the institution's benefactor, Julien Poydras, used his immense wealth to support a haven for impoverished girls, and how the dedicated women of the Poydras board pursued that ambition through more than just residential services. Tyler reveals that the majority of the Poydras ""orphans"" had one living parent, and it was dire poverty and a dearth of social services in New Orleans that drove single parents, usually mothers, to place their daughters in the asylum. Further research demonstrates that the Poydras went beyond simply providing a shelter for the children of distressed parents; volunteer managers worked to shape their charges' character through an emphasis on morals, education, and the fundamentals of housewifery. Following the institution from its antebellum origins to Reconstruction, through the Progressive era, and into the obsolescence of children's homes in the mid-twentieth century, Tyler highlights the impacts of both national affairs and daily life on the charity. This rich history winds through the last fifty years as the Poydras Home boldly and successfully changed its mission to provide care for elderly men and women. The result of years of research, New Orleans Women and the Poydras Home is a sweeping social history that recognizes the determination of women caregivers and the thousands of lives they benefited.

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In Surveying the Early Republic, Robert D. Bush contextualises the firsthand account of Andrew Ellicott, the United States Boundary Commissioner appointed by President George Washington in 1796. Ellicott and his Spanish counterparts established the boundary line between the United States and Spanish territory in North America after the United States and Spain signed the Treaty of San Lorenzo, opening the door to navigation of the Mississippi River and the export of American goods from the Spanish-held port of New Orleans. Over the course of this multiyear surveying project (1796-1800), Ellicott found himself entangled in the politics of these frontier lands, including an insurrection by inhabitants who favoured the United States against the existing Spanish regime. He also reported to his superiors on various rumors, plots, and political intrigues as well as on the secret activities of individuals in the pay of Spain, including U.S. Army General James Wilkinson.Regrettably, the widespread acclaim that followed the publication of Ellicott's journal in 1803, a year prior to the commencement of Lewis and Clark's expedition, faded over time. In this first edited and annotated version of that journal, Bush illuminates the commissioner's day-to-day narrative of events in what later became the Mississippi Territory and thus deepens our understanding of early American expansionism. In addition, Ellicott's accounts of personalities, plots, counter-plots, and Indian affairs depict with unparalleled clarity the tumultuous diplomatic experiences faced by President John Adams's administration as it pushed the bounds of America's frontier. Bush's deft treatment of this valuable primary source provides a critical contribution to the study of the history of early America.

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In Confederate Political Economy, Michael Bonner suggests that the Confederate nation was an expedient corporatist state -- a society that required all sectors of the economy to work for the national interest, as defined by a partnership of industrial leaders and a dominant government. As Bonner shows, the characteristics of the Confederate States' political economy included modern organisational methods that mirrored the economic landscape of other late nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century corporatist governments. Southern leaders, Bonner argues, were slave-owning agricultural capitalists who sought a counterrevolution against northern liberal capitalism. During secession and as the war progressed, they built and reinforced Confederate nationalism through specific centralized government policies. Bolstered by the Confederate constitution, these policies evolved into a political culture that allowed for immense executive powers, facilitated an anti-party ideology, and subordinated individual rights. In addition, the South's lack of industrial capacity forced the Confederacy to pursue a curious manufacturing policy that used both private companies and national ownership to produce munitions. This symbiotic relationship was just one component of the Confederacy's expedient corporatist state: other wartime policies like conscription, the domestic passport system, and management of southern railroads also exhibited unmistakable corporatist characteristics. Bonner's probing research and new comparative analysis expand our understanding of the complex organisation and relationships in Confederate political and economic culture during the Civil War.

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The separation of white and black schools remained largely unquestioned and unchallenged in North Carolina for the first half of the twentieth century, yet by the end of the 1970s, the Tar Heel State operated the most thoroughly desegregated school system in the nation. In Race and Education in North Carolina, John E. Batchelor, a former North Carolina school superintendent, offers a robust analysis of this sea change and the initiatives that comprised the gradual, and often reluctant, desegregation of the state's public schools.In a state known for relative racial moderation, North Carolina government officials generally steered clear of fiery rhetorical rejections of Brown v. Board of Education, in contrast to the position of leaders in most other parts of the South. Instead, they played for time, staving off influential legislators who wanted to close public schools and provide vouchers to support segregated private schools, instituting policies that would admit a few black students into white schools, and continuing to sanction segregation throughout most of the public education system. Litigation - primarily initiated by the NAACP - and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 created stronger mandates for progress and forced government officials to accelerate the pace of desegregation. Batchelor sheds light on the way local school districts pursued this goal while community leaders, school board members, administrators, and teachers struggled to balance new policy demands with deeply entrenched racial prejudice and widespread support for continued segregation.Drawing from case law, newspapers, interviews with policy makers, civil rights leaders, and attorneys involved in school desegregation, as well as previously unused archival material, Race and Education in North Carolina presents a richly textured history of the legal and political factors that informed, obstructed, and finally cleared the way for desegregation in the North Carolina public education system.

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After more than three decades, the peerless wit and indulgent absurdity of A Confederacy of Dunces continues to attract new readers. Though the manuscript was rejected by many publishers during Toole's lifetime, his mother successfully published the book years after her son's suicide, and it won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. This literary underdog and comic masterpiece has sold more than two million copies in twenty-three languages.The 35th anniversary edition of A Confederacy of Dunces celebrates Toole's novel as well as one of the most memorable protagonists in American literature, Ignatius J. Reilly, whom Walker Percy dubbed ""slob extraordinaire, a mad Oliver Hardy, a fat Don Quixote, a perverse Thomas Aquinas rolled into one."" Set in New Orleans with a wild cast of characters including Ignatius and his mother; Miss Trixie, the octogenarian assistant accountant at Levi Pants; inept, wan Patrolman Mancuso; Darlene, the Bourbon Street stripper with a penchant for poultry; and Jones, the jivecat in space-age dark glasses, the novel serves as an outlandish but believable tribute to a city defined by its parade of eccentric denizens.The genius of A Confederacy of Dunces is reaffirmed as successive generations embrace this extravagant satire. Adulation for Toole's comic epic remains as intense today as thirty-five years ago.

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Food sets the tempo of life in the Bayou State, where people believed in eating locally and seasonally long before it was fashionable. In Hungry for Louisiana: An Omnivore's Journey award-winning journalist Maggie Heyn Richardson takes readers to local farms, meat markets, restaurants, festivals, culinary competitions, and roadside vendors to reveal the love, pride, and cultural importance of Louisiana's traditional and evolving cuisine. Focusing on eight of the state's most emblematic foods-crawfish, jambalaya, snoballs, Creole cream cheese, fileia©, blood boudin, tamales, and oysters-Richardson provides a fresh look at Louisiana's long culinary history. In addition to concluding each chapter with corresponding recipes, these vignettes not only celebrate local foodways but also acknowledge the complicated dynamic between maintaining local traditions and managing agricultural and social change. From exploring the perilous future of oyster farming along the threatened Gulf Coast to highlighting the rich history of the Spanish-Indian tamale in the quirky north Louisiana town of Zwolle, Richardson's charming and thoughtful narrative shows how deeply food informs the identity of Louisiana's residents.

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In the early years of the nineteenth century, the burgeoning cultural pride of white Creoles in New Orleans intersected with America's golden age of print, to explosive effect. Imagining the Creole City reveals the profusion of literary output -- histories and novels, poetry and plays -- that white Creoles used to imagine themselves as a unified community of writers and readers.Rien Fertel argues that Charles Gayarré's English-language histories of Louisiana, which emphasized the state's dual connection to America and to France, provided the foundation of a white Creole print culture predicated on Louisiana's exceptionalism. The writings of authors like Grace King, Adrien Rouquette, and Alfred Mercier consciously fostered an image of Louisiana as a particular social space, and of themselves as the true inheritors of its history and culture. In turn, the forging of this white Creole identity created a close-knit community of cosmopolitan Creole elites, who reviewed each other's books, attended the same salons, crusaded against the popular fiction of George Washington Cable, and worked together to preserve the French language in local and state governmental institutions. Together they reimagined the definition of ""Creole"" and used it as a marker of status and power.By the end of this group's era of cultural prominence, Creole exceptionalism had become a cornerstone in the myth of Louisiana in general and of New Orleans in particular. In defining themselves, the authors in the white Creole print community also fashioned a literary identity that resonates even today.

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In the first collection of published writings of Thomas Affleck (1812-1868), Lake Douglas re-establishes the reputation of a tireless agricultural reformer, entrepreneur, and horticulturist. Affleck's wide range of interests - animal husbandry, agriculture, scientific farming, ornamental horticulture, insects, and hydrology, among others - should afford him a celebrated status in several disciplines; yet until now his immense contributions remained largely unheralded. Steward of the Land remedies this oversight with a broad, annotated selection of Affleck's works, rightfully placing him alongside his better-known contemporaries Andrew Jackson Downing and Frederick Law Olmsted.After immigrating to the United States from Scotland in 1832, Affleck witnessed the burgeoning American expansion and its major advances in agriculture and technology. He worked as a journalist for the influential Western Farmer and Gardener, covering Ohio, Kentucky, and the Mississippi River Valley. Affleck moved to Mississippi in 1842 to manage his new wife's failing plantation; there, he created one of the first commercial nurseries of the South while writing prolifically on numerous agrarian topics for regional periodicals and newspapers. From 1845 to 1865 he edited Affleck's Southern Rural Almanac and Plantation and Garden Calendar, published in New Orleans. Following a postwar move to Brenham, Texas, he published letters and essays about rebuilding that state's livestock herds and rejuvenating its agricultural labor forces.Steward of the Land includes excerpts from dozens of Affleck's articles on subjects ranging from bee keeping to gardening to orchard tending. This valuable single-volume resource reveals Affleck's astonishing breadth of horticultural knowledge and entrepreneurial sagacity, and his role in educating mid-nineteenth-century readers about agricultural products and practices, plant usage, and environmental stewardship. Never before collected or contextualised, Affleck's writings provide a firsthand account of the advancement of agricultural techniques and practices that created a new environmental awareness in America.

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In 1964, as the polarizing Civil Rights Act made its way through the House and Senate, and Congress navigated one of the most tumultuous eras in American history, a Harris Poll put the institution's approval rating at 60 percent. Why then, fifty years later, has the public's approval of Congress eroded to an all-time low of 10 percent? Working Congress: A Guide for Senators, Representatives, and Citizens seeks to isolate the reasons for Congress's staggering decline in public opinion, and to propose remedies to reverse the grave dysfunction in America's most important political institution.Aided by the input of retired members of Congress from both major parties, editor Robert Mann and his fellow contributors identify paralyzing partisan rancor as perhaps the most significant reason for the American public's declining support of its main representative body. The lack of mutual trust within Congress reflects (and creates) the suspicion and animosity of the great majority of Americans. Working Congress argues that members of Congress must find a path to cooperation if they are to function as the representative institution the Founders intended.Trenchant chapters by Mickey Edwards, Ross K. Baker, Frances E. Lee, Brian L. Fife, Susan Herbst, and Mark Kennedy analyse the problems and challenges facing Congress and suggest solutions to counteract partisan gridlock. Though these scholars and former members share a conviction that men and women of good will can and should work together, they do not assume that their solutions will herald a bipartisan utopia. Instead, they recognise that Congress is, and will always be, a work in progress.

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New Roads and Old Rivers captures the natural and cultural vitality of Pointe Coupee Parish, Louisiana, as seen in the stunning photographs of Richard Sexton, with text by Randy Harelson and Brian Costello. Pointe Coupee is one of the oldest settlements in the Mississippi Valley, dating to the 1720s. French for ""a place cut off,"" the name refers to the area's three oxbow lakes, separated from the Mississippi over centuries. Edged by the Mississippi and Atchafalaya rivers, Pointe Coupee remains a land rich in Creole heritage, distinct in geographical beauty, and abounding in historic homes and farms. In 200 color images, Sexton artistically portrays the region's sights: Native American mounds, bayous and lakes, productive agricultural fields and industries, slave cabins and plantation homes, small towns, and family and civic celebrations. Photographs include most of Pointe Coupee's seventy surviving antebellum structures, along with some of its sixty-two massive trees listed on the Live Oak Society register. A timeline of key events situates the parish's history within the wider world. From the Pointe Coupee Coast -- where in the early 1700s explorers, soldiers, missionaries, colonists, and enslaved and free people of color began settling the banks of the Mississippi River- to the Acadiana Trail- US-190, the only four-lane highway in the parish- New Roads and Old Rivers illuminates the history and cultural foundations of the entire state. This arresting portrait of Old Louisiana honors Pointe Coupee generations, past and present.

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In this debut work, Scott Eastman tackles the complex issue of nationalism in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Spanish Atlantic empire. Preaching Spanish Nationalism across the Hispanic Atlantic challenges the idea that nationalism arose from the ashes of confessional society. Rather, the tenets of Roman Catholicism and the ideals of Enlightenment worked together to lay the basis for a ""mixed modernity"" within the territories of the Spanish monarchy. Drawing on sermons, catechisms, political pamphlets, and newspapers, Eastman demonstrates how religion and tradition cohered within burgeoning nationalist discourses in both Spain and Mexico. And though the inclusive notion of Spanish nationalism faded as the revolutions in the Hispanic Atlantic world established new loyalty to postcolonial states, the religious imagery and rhetoric that had served to define Spanish identity survived and resurfaced throughout the course of the long nineteenth century. Preaching Spanish Nationalism across the Hispanic Atlantic skillfully debates the prevailing view that the monolithic Catholic Church -- as the symbol of the ancien régime -- subverted a secular progression toward nationalism and modernity. Eastman deftly contends that the common political and religious culture of the Spanish Atlantic empire ultimately transformed its subjects into citizens of the Hispanic Atlantic world.

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Landscape architect Lake Douglas employs written accounts, archival data, historic photographs, lithographs, maps, and city planning documents -- many of which have never before been published -- to explore public and private outdoor spaces in New Orleans and those who shaped them. The result offers the first in-depth examination of the city's landscape history.Douglas presents this ""beautiful and imposing"" city as a work of art crafted by numerous influences. His survey from the colonial period to the twentieth century finds that geography, climate, and, above all, the multicultural character of its residents have made New Orleans unique in American landscape design history. French and Spanish settlers, Africans and Native Americans, as well as immigrants from Germany, Ireland, Italy, and other parts of the world all participated in creating this community's unique public and private landscapes. Places such as Congo Square, Audubon Park, the river levees, and ""neutral grounds"" -- local residents' own term for medians -- together with ordinary residential gardens are all testaments to the city's international imprint. Douglas identifies five types of public and private designed landscapes in New Orleans: squares, linear open spaces, urban parks, commercial pleasure gardens, and domestic gardens. Discussing their design, function, and content, he shows how specific examples of each contribute to the city's unique character and also fit within the larger context of American landscape design history. Each type has its own complexion and reflects the influence of those who occupied it. Though New Orleanians lived in strata according to language, cultural identity, economics, and race, they found common ground, literally, in their community's landscapes.Douglas's sweeping study, illustrated with over 90 color and black-and-white images, includes an exploration of archival horticultural books, almanacs, and periodicals; information about laborers who actually built landscapes; details of horticultural commerce, services, and marketing materials; and an exhaustive inventory of plants grown in New Orleans for agricultural, medicinal, and ornamental uses.Public Spaces, Private Gardens provides an informative look at two hundred years of the designed landscapes and horticulture of New Orleans and a fresh perspective on one of America's most interesting and historic cities.

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In celebration of Louisiana State University's sesquicentennial, Treasures of LSU trumpets the numerous and diverse riches found throughout the Baton Rouge campus and beyond. The 101 distinguished artworks, architectural gems, research collections, and scientific and cultural artifacts highlighted here represent only a small fraction of the material resources that surround and engage LSU faculty, staff, and students on a daily basis. As LSU chancellor emeritus Paul W. Murrill declares in his foreword, ""All reflect expressions of superb quality. All encourage, in one way or another, the human spirit to soar.""Some of these treasures act as artistic backdrops to everyday campus life. In Unity Ascending, the striking Frank Hayden sculpture, greets all who enter the LSU Student Union. Vibrant Depression-era murals decorate the corridors of Allen Hall. Other treasures reside in out-of-the-way places. The Department of Geology and Geophysics houses the Henry V. Howe Type Collection of shelled microorganisms -- tiny, beautifully varied fossils that frequently aid geologists in determining the ages of rocks and features of ancient environments. The LSU Museum of Natural Science, in Foster Hall, holds one of the largest and most prestigious research collections of bird specimens in the world.An LSU cadet uniform and a hand-spun Acadian quilt from the LSU Textile & Costume Museum; an enchanting silky-camellia specimen from the collections of the LSU Herbarium, founded in 1869; pottery by Walter Anderson and portraits by William Hogarth and Joshua Reynolds from the LSU Museum of Art -- all showcase the immense variety of LSU's assets. Other featured treasures include a historic dogtrot house at the LSU Rural Life Museum, John James Audubon's double elephant folio Birds of America from the E. A. McIlhenny Natural History Collection at Hill Memorial Library, and cherished campus landmarks like the Indian Mounds, the French House, and Mike the Tiger's habitat.Full-page color photographs set off the treasures to stunning effect. Interpretive essays by LSU faculty, staff, and students explain the origins, history, and sometimes myths surrounding each item. Published by LSU Press during its seventy-fifth year of operation, Treasures of LSU is itself a treasure that inspires pleasure and amazement in discovering the wealth and diversity of LSU's resources and affirms the university's numerous cultural contributions to the world community.

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On the evening of February 2, 1864, Confederate Commander John Taylor Wood led 250 sailors in two launches and twelve boats to capture the USS Underwriter, a side-wheel steam gunboat anchored on the Neuse River near New Bern, North Carolina. During the ensuing fifteen-minute battle, nine Union crewmen lost their lives, twenty were wounded, and twenty-six fell into enemy hands. Six Confederates were captured and several wounded as they stripped the vessel, set it ablaze, and blew it up while under fire from Union-held Fort Anderson. The thrilling story of USS Underwriter is one of many involving the numerous shipwrecks that occupy the waters of Civil War history. Many years in the making, W. Craig Gaines's Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks is the definitive account of more than 2,000 of these American Civil War--period sunken ships. From Alabama's USS Althea, a Union steam tug lost while removing a Confederate torpedo in the Blakely River, to Wisconsin's Berlin City, a Union side-wheel steamer stranded in Oshkosh, Gaines provides detailed information about each vessel, including its final location, type, dimensions, tonnage, crew size, armament, origin, registry (Union, Confederate, United States, or other country), casualties, circumstances of loss, salvage operations, and the sources of his findings. Organized alphabetically by geographical location (state, country, or body of water), the book also includes a number of maps providing the approximate locations of many of the wrecks -- ranging from the Americas to Europe, the Arctic Ocean, and the Indian Ocean. Also noted are more than forty shipwrecks whose locations are in question. Since the 1960s, the underwater access afforded by SCUBA gear has allowed divers, historians, treasure hunters, and archaeologists to discover and explore many of the American Civil War-related shipwrecks. In a remarkable feat of historical detective work, Gaines scoured countless sources -- from government and official records to sports diver and treasure-hunting magazines -- and cross-indexes his compilation by each vessel's various names and nicknames throughout its career.An essential reference work for Civil War scholars and buffs, archaeologists, divers, and aficionados of naval history, Encyclopedia of Civil War Shipwrecks revives and preserves for posterity the little-known stories of these intriguing historical artifacts.

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In the early 1970s, two idealistic young people -- Gwen Carpenter Roland and Calvin Voisin -- decided to leave civilization and re-create the vanished simple life of their great-grandparents in the heart of Louisiana's million-acre Atchafalaya River Basin Swamp. Armed with a box of crayons and a book called How to Build Your Home in the Woods, they drew up plans to recycle a slave-built structure into a houseboat. Without power tools or building experience they constructed a floating dwelling complete with a brick fireplace. Towed deep into the sleepy waters of Bloody Bayou, it was their home for eight years. This is the tale of the not-so-simple life they made together -- days spent fishing, trading, making wine, growing food, and growing up -- told by Gwen with grace, economy, and eloquence.Not long after they took up swamp living, Gwen and Calvin met a young photographer named C. C. Lockwood, who shared their ""back to the earth"" values. His photographs of the couple going about their daily routine were published in National Geographic magazine, bringing them unexpected fame. More than a quarter of a century later, after Gwen and Calvin had long since parted, one of Lockwood's photos of them appeared in a National Geographic collector's edition entitled 100 Best Pictures Unpublished -- and kindled the interest of a new generation.With quiet wisdom, Gwen recounts her eight-year voyage of discovery -- about swamp life, wildlife, and herself. A keen observer of both the natural world and the ways of human beings, she transports readers to an unfamiliar and exotic place.

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This book is Volume VIII of A History of the South, a ten-volume series designed to present a thoroughly balanced history of all the complex aspects of the South's culture from 1607 to the present. Like its companion volumes, The South During Reconstruction is written by an outstanding student of Southern history, E. Merton Coulter, who is also one of the editors of the series.The tragic Reconstruction period still casts its long shadow over the South. In his study, Mr. Coulter looks beyond the familiar political and economic patterns into the more fundamental attitudes and activities of the people. In this dismal period of racial and political bitterness, little notice has been taken of the strivings for reorganisation of agriculture under free labor, for industrial and transportation development, for a free-school system and higher education, and for the advance of religious, literary, and other cultural interests. Mr. Coulter's book shows these things to be very real, and they are related to the Radical program, which, conceived both in good and evil, ran its course and finally collapsed.This period forms an important chapter in American history. It is an account of a region, defeated in one of the world's great wars, struggling to rebuild its social and economic structure and to win back for itself a place in the reunited nation.

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From the stately Gothic Revival and Regency-style houses of Savannah to the majestic, multicolumned plantation homes that punctuate rolling farmlands throughout the state, David King Gleason presents a splendid pictorial record of Georgia's fines pre-Civil War residences. The book begins with the town houses of Savannah, which include such landmark residences as the Andrew Low House, built in 1848 in the style of an early Victorian Renaissance villa, and the imposing Gree-Heldrim House, a Gothic Revival mansion that was the most expensive house built in Savannah prior to the Civil War. Wild Heron, located just south of Savannah on the Little Ogeechee River, is the oldest plantation house still standing in Georgia. A one-and-a-half story farmhouse built in the style of a West India cottage, it is being restored to reflect the period of the early 1800s. Farther to the interior, in the area around Augusta, are such homes as Fruitlands, now the clubhouse of the Augusta national Golf Club; Meadow Garden; Ware's Folly; and Montrose, built in 1849 and one of the Loveliest Greek Revival houses in the area. Houses photographed along the Plantation Trail, from Athens to Macon, include the white-columned President's House, home since 1949 to the presidents of the University of Georgia; the Howell Cobb House, in Athens; Whitehall, in Covington; Glan Mary, in Sparta; and the Woodruff House, in Macon. Gleason devotes considerable attention to the homes of the western side of the state, from Chickamauga to Thomasville. The Gordon-Lee House, constructed in 1847, was headquarters fro the Union army during the battle of chickamauga. Other houses in this part of Georgia are valley View, which overlooks the Etowah River, west of Cartersville; the Archibald Howell House, near downtown Marietta; Lovejoy, in Clayton Country; The oaks, in the vicinity of LaGrange; and Greenwood and Pebble Hill, near Thomasville. In all, Gleason captures more than one hundred of Georgia's most beautiful antebellum homes, including many lesser-known houses. In addition to exterior photographs, Antebellum Homes of Georgia contains a number of interior views as well as aerial photographs that show the relationship between the houses and their environs: outbuildings, formal gardens, and recd clay fields that were once white with cotton. Captions provide brief histories of the houses and their owners as weel as notes on construction and outstanding architectural details.

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Throughout the Jim Crow era, southern police departments played a vital role in the maintenance of white supremacy. Police targeted African Americans through an array of actions, including violent interactions, unjust arrests, and the enforcement of segregation laws and customs. Scholars have devoted much attention to law enforcement's use of aggression and brutality as a means of maintaining African American subordination. While these interpretations are vital to the broader understanding of police and minority relations, Black citizens have often come off as powerless in their encounters with law enforcement. Brandon T. Jett's Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South, by contrast, reveals previously unrecognized efforts by African Americans to use, manage, and exploit policing. In the process, Jett exposes a much more complex relationship, suggesting that while violence or the threat of violence shaped police and minority relations, it did not define all interactions. Black residents of southern cities repeatedly complained about violent policing strategies and law enforcement's seeming lack of interest in crimes committed against African Americans. These criticisms notwithstanding, Blacks also voiced a desire for the police to become more involved in their communities to reduce the seemingly intractable problem of crime, much of which resulted from racial discrimination and other structural factors related to Jim Crow. Although the actions of the police were problematic, African Americans nonetheless believed that law enforcement could play a role in reducing crime in their communities. During the first half of the twentieth century, Black citizens repeatedly demanded better policing and engaged in behaviors designed to extract services from law enforcement officers in Black neighborhoods as part of a broader strategy to make their communities safer. By examining the myriad ways in which African Americans influenced the police to serve the interests of the Black community, Jett adds a new layer to our understanding of race relations in the urban South in the Jim Crow era and contributes to current debates around the relationship between the police and minorities in the United States.

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