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Louisiana Culture from the Colonial ERA to Katrina by John Lowe (Editor)
In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson acquired 828,000 square miles of French territory in what became known as the Louisiana Purchase. Although today Louisiana makes up only a small portion of this immense territory, this exceptional state embraces a larger-than-life history and a cultural blend unlike any other in the nation. Louisiana Culture from the Colonial Era to Katrina, a collection of fourteen essays compiled and edited by John Lowe, captures all of the flavor and richness of the state's heritage, illuminating how Louisiana, despite its differences from the rest of the United States, is a microcosm of key national concerns -- including regionalism, race, politics, immigration, global connections, folklore, musical traditions, ethnicity, and hybridity. Divided into five parts, the volume opens with an examination of Louisiana's origins, with pieces on Native Americans, French and German explorers, and slavery. Two very different but complementary essays follow with investigations into the ongoing attempts to define Creoles and creolization. No collection on Louisiana would be complete without attention to its remarkable literary traditions, and several contributors offer tantalizing readings of some of the Pelican State's most distinguished writers -- a dazzling array of artists any state would be proud to claim. The volume also includes pieces on a couple of eccentric mythologies distinct to Louisiana and explorations of Louisiana's unique musical heritage. Throughout, the international slate of contributors explores the idea of place, particularly the concept of Louisiana as the center of the Caribbean wheel, where Cajuns, Creoles, Cubans, Haitians, Jamaicans, and others are part of a New World configuration, connected by their linguistic identity, landscape and climate, religion, and French and Spanish heritage. A poignant conclusion considers the devastating impact of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and what the storms mean for Louisiana's cultural future. A rich portrait of Louisiana culture, this volume stands as a reminder of why that culture must be preserved.
ISBN: 9780807133378
Publication Date: 2008-12-15
The Louisiana Populist Movement, 1881-1900 by Donna A. Barnes
The Populist movement of the late nineteenth century represents one of the largest third-party challenges in American history. Throughout the South widespread drops in crop prices led to agrarian revolt, which contributed to the movement's popularity. Yet, in the largely rural state of Louisiana, despite the political group's focus on empowering distressed farmers, this challenge proved far less successful. In Donna A. Barnes's The Louisiana Populist Movement the question of ineffectuality makes an intriguing political case study of the Pelican State and Populism. Emerging in the 1890s as the political wing of the Southern Farmers' Alliance, the Populists, or People's Party, garnered the support of millions of rural southerners. But the affiliated Louisiana party struggled to spread beyond a limited number of parishes in the northern and central part of the state. According to Barnes, the movement's relatively poor mobilization record provides an excellent opportunity to explore factors that impede social growth. Most scholars, she contends, often focus on the emergence and rise of successful political organizations and overlook the valuable observations to be found within less successful movements, such as Louisiana Populism. In her evaluation, Barnes points to racial division as the factor that undermined the Populist cause in Louisiana. The Democratic Party saw the agenda of the Populist movement as a threat to white supremacy and thus, when paired with the 1898 state constitution that disfranchised poor rural whites and most blacks, predestined the People's Party to poor public reception. Based on an array of archival research, Barnes's study offers the definitive source for the history of the Louisiana Populist Movement as well as a multidimensional theoretical analysis of the factors behind the movement's failure.
ISBN: 9780807137277
Publication Date: 2011-05-18
Louisiana Governors by Walter Greaves Cowan; Jack B. McGuire
Walter Greaves Cowan and Jack B. McGuire, veteran authorities on the Louisiana political scene, trace the history of the state's leaders from the French and Spanish colonial eras to the present day. Using a variety of sources, including personal interviews with the recent governors, they describe unforgettable personalities. Such early figures as Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville and Jean Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville set the tone for later colonial governors. They had their troubles, fending off protesting Indians and other French and Spanish leaders vying for power. Following the Louisiana Purchase, American politics took control. The Whigs, Know Nothings, Republicans, and Democrats have all waxed and waned through times of slavery, secession, suffrage, and segregation. The early twentieth century saw the rise of Huey P. Long, who established himself as a virtual dictator. An assassin's bullet ended Long's life in 1935, but his followers managed to hold on to the governorship until 1940. In 1948 his brother, Earl Long, brought the family back into power. Over the years, two governors were impeached but were not removed from office, and two governors were jailed in federal prison. The experiences, decisions, and conflicts of Louisiana governors have reflected and influenced the history of the state, often in dramatic and fascinating ways.
ISBN: 9781934110904
Publication Date: 2008-08-15
Our Minds on Freedom by Shannon Frystak
Traditionally, literature on the civil rights movement has highlighted the leadership of ministerial men and young black revolutionaries like the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Stokely Carmichael, and Malcolm X. Though recent studies have begun to explore female participation in the struggle for racial justice, women have generally been relegated to the margins of civil rights history. In Our Minds on Freedom, Shannon Frystak explores the organizational and leadership roles female civil rights activists in Louisiana assumed from the 1920s to the 1960s, highlighting a diverse group of courageous women who fought alongside their brothers and fathers, uncles and cousins, to achieve a more racially just Louisiana. From the Depression through World War II and the postwar years, Frystak shows, black women joined and led local unions and civil rights organizations, agitating for voting rights and equal treatment in the public arena, in employment, and in admission to Louisiana's institutions of higher learning. At the same time, black women and white women began to find common ground in organizations such as the YWCA, the NAACP, and the National Urban League. Frystak explores how women of both races worked together to organize the 1953 Baton Rouge bus boycott, which served as inspiration for the more famous Montgomery bus boycott two years later;in the day-to-day struggle to alter the system of unequal education throughout the state; and in the fight to integrate New Orleans schools after the 1954 Brown decision. In the early 1960s, a new generation of female activists joined their older female counterparts to work with organizations such as the NAACP, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and a number of local grassroots civil rights organizations. Frystak vividly describes the very real dangers they faced canvassing for voter registration in Louisiana's rural areas, teaching in Freedom Schools, and hosting out-of-town civil rights workers in their homes. As Frystak shows, the civil rights movement allowed women to step out of their socially prescribed roles as wives, mothers, and daughters and become significant actors, indeed leaders, in a social movement structure largely dominated by men. Our Minds on Freedom is a welcome addition to the literature of the civil rights movement and will intrigue those interested in African American history, women's history, Louisiana, or the U.S. South.
ISBN: 9780807134931
Publication Date: 2009-12-01