The Louisiana Division is a reference division of the New Orleans Public Library which collects resources relating to the study of Louisiana and its citizens and to the city of New Orleans and New Orleanians.
Other areas of concentration are the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, and the South. Included within the Division's collections are books by or about Louisianians; city, regional, and state documents; manuscripts, maps, newspapers, periodicals, microfilms, photographs, slides, motion pictures, sound recordings, video tapes, postcards, and ephemera of every sort.
Governing Periods:
Founded in 1835, the Louisiana Historical Society is the oldest historical organization in the state. The State of Louisiana first chartered it in 1836, and has rechartered it several times since then. For a number of decades during the 19th century, the society was the official custodian of the colonial records of Louisiana, including the French Superior Council records and the Spanish Judicial Records of the Illustrious Cabildo (local governing body).
Today, the Society remains dedicated to the writing, promotion and understanding of Louisiana history. It has sponsored eight public lectures each year for almost a century.
The only resource of its kind, 64 Parishes' encyclopedia tool makes accurate, engaging, scholarly information about Louisiana's culture and history available to everyone.
A project of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities (LEH), 64 Parishes compiles peer reviewed, in-depth entries, written by the top scholars in their fields and is building a permanent digital archive of scholarship on Louisiana. 64 Parishes also brings together cultural and historical materials from most of Louisiana's major archives and special collections.
This searchable database provides information about the African slave names, genders, ages, occupations, illnesses, family relationships, ethnicity, and places of origin of slaves brought to Louisiana during the 18th and 19th centuries.
The LOUISiana Digital Library (LDL) is an online library of Louisiana institutions that provides over 144,000 digital materials. Its purpose is to make unique historical treasures from the Louisiana institution's archives, libraries, museums, and other repositories in the state electronically accessible to Louisiana residents and to students, researchers, and the general public in other states and countries.
