VOLUME XXXIII The Historic New Orleans NUMBER 4

Collection Quarterly FALL 2016

Shop online at www.hnoc.org/shop

PURCHASE POWER: New Orleans, Shopping Destination EVENT CALENDAR EXHIBITIONS & TOURS

All exhibitions are free unless noted otherwise.

CURRENT CONCERTS IN THE COURTYARD Money, Money, Money! Currency Holdings The fall concert series features Walter “Wolfman” from The Historic New Orleans Collection Washington and the Roadmasters (September), the Through October 29, 2016 Tumbling Wheels (October), and Colin Lake Band Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street (November). Admission includes three complimentary drinks. The Seignouret-Brulatour House: Fridays, September 16, October 21, A New Chapter and November 18, 5:30–8 p.m. Through June 2018 533 Royal Street 533 Royal Street $10; free for THNOC members Themed tours of the Louisiana History DIANE GENRE BOOK SIGNING Galleries Diane Genre, a contributor to the new release Re-envisioning Japan: Meiji Fine Art Textiles First Friday of every month, through 2016 (5 Continents Editions, 2016), will talk about her collection of antique Japanese textiles and 10 and 11 a.m., 2 and 3 p.m. sign copies of the book. 50¢ Saturday, October 8, 2–4 p.m. PERMANENT 533 Royal Street Free Louisiana History Galleries 533 Royal Street CURRENCY COLLECTING IN THE 21ST CENTURY Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Join THNOC Curator/Historian Erin M. Greenwald for a discussion about the history of Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. currency and currency collecting in Louisiana. Greenwald will speak with collector Randy Haynie, who has spent more than 50 years amassing one of the largest currency collections The Williams Residence Tour in the state, and longtime dealer Stephen Cohen, of the venerable French Quarter antiques Architecture and Courtyard Tour shop James H. Cohen and Sons. This event is presented in conjunction with the exhibition 533 Royal Street Money, Money, Money! Currency Holdings from The Historic New Orleans Collection. Tuesday–Saturday, 10 and 11 a.m., 2 and 3 p.m. Saturday, October 15, 10 a.m.–noon Sunday, 11 a.m., 2 and 3 p.m. $5 admission; free for THNOC members Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street Groups of eight or more should call Free; for reservations, email [email protected]. (504) 598-7145 or visit www.hnoc.org to make reservations. PEGGY SCOTT LABORDE BOOK SIGNING Educational tours for school groups are Join us for an afternoon with WYES-TV personality Peggy Scott Laborde as she signs her available free of charge; please contact new book, The Fair Grounds through the Lens: Photographs and Memories of Horse Racing Daphne L. Derven, curator of education, at in New Orleans (Pelican, 2016). (504) 598-7154 or [email protected]. Saturday, November 5, 2–4 p.m. 533 Royal Street UPCOMING Free Goods of Every Description: Shopping in New Orleans, 1825–1925 MIGNON FAGET TRUNK SHOW AND THNOC MEMBER September 23, 2016–April 9, 2017 APPRECIATION DAY Williams Gallery, 533 Royal Street Just in time for the holiday season, members can take 20 percent off all items available in The Shop at The Collection, while enjoying a look at special selections from jewelry Clarence John Laughlin and His designer Mignon Faget. Not a member? You can sign up in the shop. Contemporaries: A Picture and a Thousand Words Saturday, December 10, 9:30 a.m.–4 p.m. November 15, 2016–March 25, 2017 533 Royal Street Williams Research Center, 410 Chartres Street

Holiday Home and Courtyard Tour GENERAL HOURS December 1–30; closed December 24–25 533 Royal Street 400 and 410 Chartres Street Tuesday–Saturday, 10 and 11 a.m., 2 and 3 p.m. Williams Gallery, Louisiana History Galleries, Williams Research Center, Boyd Cruise Sunday, 11 a.m., 2 and 3 p.m. Shop, and Tours Gallery, and Laura Simon Nelson $5 admission; free for THNOC members Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Galleries Sunday, 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday, 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. ON THE COVER

A. B. Griswold & Co. advertisement from Jewell’s Crescent City Illustrated New Orleans, 1874 1951.41.23

CONTENTS

ON VIEW/ 2 A new exhibition traces the evolution of retail in New Orleans. Off-Site

PROGRAMS/ 5 Study tours take THNOC members around the world.

FROM THE DIRECTOR RESEARCH/ 6 A 2015 Woest Fellow focuses on the legal In mid-June The Collection was honored to acquire the photographic archive of and financial systems underpinning slavery. Harold F. Baquet, who documented African American life and New Orleans politics and culture for decades. We are grateful to his widow, Cheron Brylski, for making THNOC AT 50/ 8 possible this landmark accession; Baquet’s large archive, consisting of thousands of Themed tours of the Louisiana History negatives, slides, and photographs, marks our first major collection by an African Galleries put old artifacts in a new light. American photographer. A preview of the Baquet archive can be found on pages 20–21, and we look forward to processing the collection and making it available to researchers COMMUNITY/ 12 as soon as possible. On the Job The summer also provided us with another successful New Orleans Antiques Forum, Staff News which seems to grow in popularity and enthusiasm among participants every year. In Memoriam In celebration of our golden anniversary, docents continued their series of monthly Become a Member themed tours of the Louisiana History Galleries—admission: 50 cents, for 50 years— On the Scene and I look forward to seeing what spotlights they shine on our artifacts this fall. Despite our gains and celebrations over the summer, The Collection suffered a Focus on Philanthropy tremendous loss with the death of Mimi Calhoun, our longtime friend and colleague. Donors Facilities manager for many years, Mimi saw her work expand as we did, growing from our first location on Royal Street to include the research center and galleries on ACQUISITIONS/ 20 Chartres Street and additional properties in the French Quarter. She was always up to Acquisition Spotlight: The Harold F. the challenge, and she served The Collection as steadfastly as she did her many friends Baquet Archive here. —PRISCILLA LAWRENCE Recent Additions ON VIEW

Retail on the Rise In Goods of Every Description, THNOC explores the history of shopping in New Orleans.

A

As a major metropolis from the late 18th century to today, New Orleans has always had a strong tradition of retail activity fueled by international goods and wares. At the center of a crisscrossing network of global trade routes, the city was a cosmopolitan shopping destination in the 19th and early 20th centuries, with shopwindows displaying treasures from around the world. Swaths of textiles, crates of ceramics, parlor suites, elaborate silver services, and dressed mannequins all provided the burgeoning consumer class with models B of style. New Orleans’s retail activity was complemented by related industries. In the early 19th century, several silversmiths and goldsmiths, or orfèvres, practiced in the French Quarter. Some of these craftsmen made regular trips across the Atlantic to acquire merchandise and EXHIBITION study the latest trends to reproduce for their local customers. European styles and wares Goods of Every Description: Shopping in also came to the city through china importers on Chartres and Canal Streets, who filled New Orleans, 1825–1925 their windows with colorful transfer-printed earthenware and sleek porcelain dishes that September 23, 2016–April 9, 2017 had just arrived on ships from New York; Staffordshire, England; and Le Havre, France. Williams Gallery, 533 Royal Street By the mid-19th century, the first blocks of Royal Street were designated “Furniture Free Row.” Store after store offered parlor suites, beds, dining sets, carpets, curtains, mirrors, and miscellaneous “fancy goods” in the latest Victorian styles, which were largely revivals of A. Postcard depicting interior of E. Offner’s earlier rococo, Gothic, and Elizabethan styles. ca. 1910 Retailers such as Prudent Mallard, William gift of Charles L. Mackie, 1981.317 McCracken, and Henry Siebrecht received B. M. Waldhorn trade card constant shipments of furniture from manufactur- ca. 1895 ers in New York, Boston, Cincinnati, and France 56-12-L to fill their warehouses. They employed craftsmen C. Baby cup to assemble, upholster, and install new furniture, between 1853 and 1861; coin silver curtains, and wallpaper for their customers in the by Adolphe Himmel (New Orleans) Hyde & Goodrich, retailer (New Orleans) city and up the river, but very few of their goods 1978.175.17 were actually made in New Orleans. C

2 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly After the Civil War, large plate-glass shopwindows along Canal Street were dedicated to glittering luxuries. Local newspapers reported on the diamond jewelry, marble statues, regulated clocks, patented pistols, and specialty china and silver services that filled the best windows. Retailers competed with each other to have the most impressive objects on view: when one jeweler displayed a miniature fire engine as a prize for a local fair, another made a true-to-life silver and gold model of the mule-drawn streetcars that traveled up and down Canal Street. Silver retailers, including Hyde & Goodrich and their succes- sors A. B. Griswold & Co., E. A. Tyler, and M. Schooler, employed craftsmen to handle custom orders, which they sold alongside the popular silver patterns produced by northern manufacturers. China emporiums up the street were filled with all types of fancy and plain ceramics, available to shoppers at any price point. At the turn of the 20th century, department stores became the anchors of the shop- ping district on Canal Street. Many of these large stores—with departments dedicated to women’s clothing, men’s furnishings, toys, stationery, and “bric-a-brac”—got their start as dry goods stores. Daniel Henry Holmes started his dry goods business on Chartres Street before moving to Canal Street in 1849, and D. H. Holmes became one of the most popular E department stores in the city. Leon Godchaux began selling dry goods from a peddler’s cart in the 1840s, and within two decades he had a thriving furnishings store, Godchaux’s, selling ready-made clothing for men and children. In 1892 Godchaux’s moved into a new D. Women’s fashion display window at D. H. Holmes “skyscraper-style” store near the corner of Canal and Chartres Streets and began expand- 1916; gelatin silver print ing its merchandise to include women’s clothing and household items. A few years later, by Charles L. Franck Photographers S. J. Shwartz, with help from his father-in-law, Isidore Newman, expanded his dry goods The Charles L. Franck Studio Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection, business into a grand, white building—the Maison Blanche, which was purpose-built to 1979.325.1 house an extensive assortment of new goods, laid out in separate departments throughout the store. E. B. T. Walshe advertisement 1870; lithograph At the same time, old furnishings gained value in the antiques stores that were estab- by Marie Adrien Persac, draftsman; lished on Royal Street beginning in 1881. These stores, such as Waldhorn’s, Keil’s, and Benedict Simon, lithographer Manheim’s, carried on the legacy of shopping established by earlier purveyors. To meet 1949.1.28 local demands, they imported antiques from France and the northeast, selling them along- F. Antiques: A Rare Collection from Old side heirloom pieces that had originally been purchased on the shopping thoroughfares of Creole Families old New Orleans. —LYDIA BLACKMORE New Orleans: Boudousquie Print, between 1905 and 1910 88-495-RL

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Fall 2016 3 ON VIEW

OFF-SITE Sharing Jules Cahn’s New Orleans Our quarterly roundup of holdings that have appeared outside The Collection, either on loan to other institutions or reproduced in noteworthy media projects.

Stills from footage of Mardi Gras Day 1970 1970; 16-millimeter film by Jules L. Cahn The Jules Cahn Collection at The Historic New The Morris Museum of Art in Augusta, Orleans Collection, 2000.78.4.17 Georgia, borrowed one painting for its exhibi- tion The World of Rolland Golden, on view through October 30, 2016.

Elysian Fields—Land of the Gods 2006; acrylic on canvas by Rolland Golden acquisition made possible by the Diana Helis Henry Art Fund of The Helis Foundation; joint ownership with the New Orleans Museum of Art, the Sydney and Walda Besthoff Fund, 2008.0109.5

THNOC entered into an agreement with Historic Films for licensing of the Jules Cahn Collection. The films will be available for documentarians and researchers to view on the Historic Films website, in low-resolution, watermarked clips. This agreement will allow Cahn’s body of work, which captured on film the street parades, festivals, Mardi Gras Indians, and other cultural treasures of New Orleans from the 1950s through the mid- 1990s, to reach an even wider audience.

New Orleans’s Longue Vue House and Gardens features several THNOC artworks in its current show on silhouettes, Shadow Pictures, on view through October 19, 2016.

New York public television station WNET reproduced one photograph for an upcoming re-release of the 2004 documentary series Slavery and the Making of America.

Negro Washerwoman Silhouette of the Robert Young Family of Natchez, Mississippi Silhouette of Henry Clay ca. 1855; photograph 1844; cut paper on sepia with watercolor, mounted on fabric 1844; mixed media by George François Mugnier by Auguste Edouart by Auguste Edouart gift of Allan Phillip Jaffe, 1981.324.1.242 1983.12 1951.45.2

4 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly PROGRAMS

From the Big Easy to the Far East THNOC’s study tours have taken history lovers around the world. WRC Director Alfred E. Lemmon shares a postcard from the most recent trip.

Early one rainy April morning in Tokyo, an adventuresome group from Louisiana, STUDY TOURS California, Florida, Maryland, New York, and North Carolina assembled to begin a visit For information about upcoming to the neighboring town of Kamakura. On arrival, the group ventured up the great hill regional and international trips, visit of Genjiyama for a special visit with antiquarian Yoshihiro Takishita. A visionary pres- www.hnoc.org/programs/tours.html. ervationist, he has devoted his life to the beauty and craftsmanship of the traditional agrarian dwelling known as minka. At a time when many were advocating that they be demolished, he recognized the architectural value of these wooden farmhouses and went on to rescue and repurpose more than 30 of them. Takishita graciously served tea, lectured about his work with minka, and led a tour of the residence, carefully pointing out architectural features and precious antiques. Such out-of-the-way activities were nothing new for most of the Japanese sojourners. Established in 2000, The Collection’s study tours program has developed a devoted group of participants who travel to different parts of the world to learn of New Orleans’s rich international heritage. All the trips are united by the theme of exploring Louisiana’s origins, from Nova Scotia to Alsace-Lorraine to the Cahokia Mounds of Missouri. The stage for this extraor- dinary tour series was set in its inaugural year, when Arnaud d’Hauterives of France’s l’Académie des Beaux-Arts hosted a reception for tour participants at l’Institut de France, one of Paris’s most treasured institutions. The following year, rarely seen draw- ings and documents of 18th-century New Orleans, held in the famed Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain, were displayed especially for the Left to right: Raymond Rathlé, Alfred E. Lemmon, Mike Sullivan, E. Alexandra Stafford, group. And so the list continues: participants have enjoyed visits to the Treaty Room of Susannah Morrison, Karen Sullivan, Bryant France’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Montreal museum and historic site Maison Saint- Blevins, Wendy Hall, Priscilla Lawrence, Betsie Gabriel, homes of Acadian ancestors on Brittany’s Belle-Île, and ancestral homes of New Gambel, Edwin Beckman, Thomas Jayne, Azby Brown, Barbara Beckman, Catherine Whitney, Orleans notables Andrés Almonester y Roxas, Père Antoine, Bernardo de Gálvez, Andrew Rick Ellis, Julie Jardine, Drew Jardine, Whitney Jackson, and Edward Pakenham. They have been welcomed by the descendants of New Steve, Linda Sarpy, John Sarpy, John H. Orleans furniture maker François Seignouret and of Jean-Charles de Pradel, a founding Lawrence, Courtney-Anne Sarpy, and Lou Hoffman. Not pictured: Bonnie and John Boyd resident of New Orleans. and Nemo Glassman. In addition to touring Takishita’s minka, the Japan group explored the 1,200-year-old Yakushiji monastery in Nara with New Orleans native Azby Brown, an architect and designer who highlighted recent restoration work. In Matsue, where writer Lafcadio Hearn lived, the group dined with the city’s mayor, Masataka Matsuura, and visited with Hearn’s great-grandson Bon Koizumi, who poignantly spoke of his forebear’s life in Japan and New Orleans. Throughout the journey, participants found links between New Orleans and Japan, from broad interests such as botany, seafood, and craftsmanship to surpris- ingly specific connections, such as the concept of lagniappe. Both the Japanese and New Orleanians have a word meaning “a little something extra”—in Japan, it’s the French term plus alpha—knowledge of which was lagniappe itself for the group. —ALFRED E. LEMMON

Fall 2016 5 RESEARCH

One Thread in the Web of Slavery Joshua Rothman, one of THNOC’s 2015 Woest Fellows, examines the legal and financial transactions undergirding the institution of slavery.

Unique among states before the Civil War, Louisiana required every legal sale and purchase of an enslaved person to be recorded by a notary. That provision enables researchers today to understand Louisiana’s markets in enslaved people with a richness and depth impossible to attain elsewhere. On a broad scale, the notarial records also reveal the extent to which slavery remained a profoundly multinational and multicultural insti- tution long after the transatlantic slave trade closed. In fact, as I found during my research at The Historic New Orleans Collection, sometimes that complexity can be found within a single document and a single transaction. On December 7, 1830, Isaac Franklin welcomed Francisco de Lizardi into his office, in a rented house on the corner of Esplanade and Frenchmen Streets in Faubourg Marigny. The two men talked business, came to an agreement, and then walked to the Chartres Street office of notary Hugues Pedesclaux. There, they completed and registered the sale of an enslaved man named Andrew. Franklin, a native of Tennessee and one of the most prominent slave traders in the South, had purchased Andrew just three weeks Joshua Rothman earlier, along with 74 other people, from an itinerant Maryland trader named John Brown Johnson. Now Franklin sold Andrew to Lizardi for $650 cash. Lizardi, meanwhile, was making the purchase not on his own behalf but rather as a representative of the com- ­mission merchant firm in which he was a partner, named in Pedesclaux’s notarial act as “Lizzardi y Hermanos.” The Lizardi brothers—Francisco, Miguel, and Manuel—were sig- nificant players in trans­atlantic banking and trade. Of Spanish descent and originally from Cuba, the Lizardi brothers had offices in Havana, London, Paris, and New Orleans by 1830, and they would soon buy the Merieult House, the French Quarter property that now anchors The Historic New Orleans Collection’s Royal Street campus. It is unknown what Francisco de Lizardi did with Andrew after he purchased him. Perhaps A

6 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly B he used him as a personal servant or had him work at one of the numerous proper- ties the firm owned in the city. Lizardi and his brothers were also proprietors of several sugar plantations in the parishes, and he may have sent Andrew to labor on one of them. Lizardi may have simply been acting as a middleman, making a purchase for a planter or an industrialist whom the firm served as a business agent. There was nothing unusual about the transaction between Franklin and Lizardi. The sale of Andrew was just one of tens of thousands conducted in New Orleans in the 19th century. Nevertheless, what stands out is how brilliantly the notarial act recording the sale—a copy of which can be found in THNOC’s Slavery in Louisiana Collection (MSS 44)—encapsulates the global, cultural, and financial reach of New Orleans and the slave trade before the Civil War. Here was a man of African descent brought to New Orleans by an Anglo trader from Maryland. There, he was purchased by a second Anglo trader from Tennessee, who in turn sold that man to a partner in a merchant firm that had offices and business interests strewn across the Atlantic world. That partner had a Basque A. Isaac Franklin surname, and a notary recorded the name of his firm in Spanish. The notary was himself 1844 or 1845; oil on canvas a Creole and often wrote his notarial acts in French. by Washington Bogart Cooper The domestic slave trade is often viewed as a phenomenon contained by the bound- courtesy of Belmont Mansion, Nashville, Tennessee aries of the United States, one that sprung up to replace the importations from Africa during the colonial and early national periods. In truth, slavery remained an institution B. Act of sale of Andrew, aged 25, by Isaac that transcended national borders. Andrew, like many other enslaved individuals, was Franklin of Sumner County, Tennessee, to Lizzardi y Hermanos of New Orleans entangled in webs of economic production and trade that continued to stretch around the December 7, 1830 world. —JOSHUA ROTHMAN 60-26-L.28

Fall 2016 7 THNOC AT 50

Variations on a Theme In February docents introduced monthly themed tours of the Louisiana History Galleries, to continue throughout THNOC’s 50th-anniversary year. It is only fitting that The Collection’s longest-running, permanent exhibition should anchor so many different narratives, showcasing the myriad ways that THNOC connects visitors to lessons from the past.

FEBRUARY Carnival Time In addition to popular Carnival ephemera such as Rex ducal decorations and ball invitations, this festive tour also spotlighted Mardi Gras practices predating the mid- 19th-century formation of krewes. Marc-Antoine Caillot’s memoir describes a masquerade held the eve of Fat Tuesday 1730 on the banks of Bayou St. John, an opportunity for the young clerk to dress as a “shepherdess in white . . . with plenty of beauty marks.” Less indulgent of local William Charles Cole Claiborne pleasure seeking was William Charles Cole Claiborne, first ca. 1805; oil on ivory American governor of Louisiana, whose miniature portrait by Ambroise Duval gift of Mrs. Alfred Grima and Omer Villere hangs in the History Galleries. Claiborne despaired over Claiborne, 1975.142 New Orleanians’ relentless pursuit of dancing, particularly during Carnival. As he lamented in a letter to Secretary of Ball invitation, Krewe of Rex 1875; color lithograph State James Madison, “The public Ball room has been the 1960.14.70 theatre of all the disorders.”

MARCH Louisiana Lexicon Banquette. Neutral ground. Tchoupitoulas. New Orleanians love their special vocabulary, which can serve as a passport to fascinating aspects of local history. Take, for instance, “batture.” This term, for alluvial land on the river side of a levee, became the subject of a hot-button issue following the Louisiana Purchase, when aspects of Louisiana’s civil law began to conflict with US common law. In 1807 attorney Edward Livingston claimed a portion of the batture as his private property, but federal officials, including President Thomas Jefferson, argued that new land formed by river deposits belonged to the US government. Multiple batture-rights cases wound through the legal system, going to the Supreme Court multiple times, until a compromise was reached in 1820.

Examen des droits des États-Unis et des prétentions de Mr. Edouard Livingston sur la batture en face du faubourg Ste. Marie [Consideration of the rights of the United States and claims of Mr. Edward Livingston concerning the shore in front of the St. Mary suburb] by Jean Baptiste Simon Thierry New Orleans: Thierry and Co., 1808 gift of Ralph M. Pons, 76-1065-RL.1

8 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly APRIL Playing Tricks In the spirit of April Fool’s Day, docents challenged visitors to a game of “Fact or Fiction” about items in the History Galleries. For example, is the German rifle on display called a rattegewehr, used for pest control in the 19th century? No. Was the Baroness de Pontalba, Zimmerstutzen rifle 1850s; tiger maple, steel builder of the Pontalba Apartments flanking Jackson Square, shot in the chest and hand by Jean-Baptiste Revol (New Orleans) by her father-in-law in an attempt to kill her and release her fortune? Yes. 2007.0079

Ursuline Convent refectory table between 1734 and 1753; walnut, cypress, tulip poplar manufactured in New Orleans courtesy of Robert Edward Judice, EL3.1990

MAY Women’s Work May’s tour complemented the exhibition Voices of Progress: Twenty Women Who Changed New Orleans, and while the show focused mostly on women of the 19th and early 20th centuries, docents in the History Galleries brought the discussion back to the earliest days of Louisiana. The first Ursuline nuns arrived in the colony in 1727, and they provided a spiritual and physical home for girls and young women. The long refectory table in the History Galleries, among the earliest documented pieces of Louisiana-made furniture, has long drawers that can be opened from either side. This ease of access served the Ursulines and their wards as they dined, studied, worked, and reflected around the table.

JUNE Sound and Rhythm Talking about New Orleans music in a single tour is a steep task: from Native American drumming to the French Opera House to Jelly Roll Morton to Mahalia Jackson, the centuries are full of people making and loving music in Louisiana. Louis Moreau Gottschalk, the composer and virtuoso pianist, was the first American composer to incor- porate African-derived rhythms into his work, most famously in his Bamboula: Danse des Nègres. Louis Moreau Gottschalk Gottschalk, whose childhood Rampart Street house 1873; painted plaster overlooked the weekly dances at Congo Square, by Achille Perelli 1979.144.5 based the theme on the Afro-Creole tune “Quand patate la cuite,” and the catchy syncopated rhythm, Louis Armstrong’s 50 Hot Choruses as well as his flair for showmanship, made him a for Cornet Chicago: Melrose Bros. Music Company, 1927 huge celebrity. acquisition made possible by the Clarisse Claiborne Grima Fund, 92-48-L.10

Fall 2016 9 THNOC AT 50

JULY War and Peace The Battle of New Orleans and the Louisiana Purchase are among the major milestones covered in the History Galleries, but July’s tour, focusing on battles and treaties, also spotlighted lesser- known conflicts and resolutions. After the American Revolution, farming, particularly in the Ohio Valley, expanded considerably and begat the need for US access to the Spanish-held port of New Orleans for both domestic and international trade. Pinckney’s Treaty (1795), also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo, granted American merchants and traders the right to move goods through the port, a privilege officially outlawed but commonly flouted by smugglers and priva- teers in the preceding decades.

Real cedula de S.M. y señores del consejo . . . . (Pinckney’s Treaty) Madrid: La Imprenta Real, [1796] 83-197-RL

AUGUST Dinner Is Served In early August THNOC’s New Orleans Antiques Forum focused on the legacy of dining in the South, and docents found plenty of food cues to work with in the History Galleries. The painting French Market and Red Store symbolizes an important transition in the colony, from the early days of hardship and near- starvation to a time of greater abundance that could establish and support a formal central market. In the mid-19th century, dining out grew in popularity, with hotels and early restaurants such as Antoine’s offering a fine-dining experience. An 1848 menu for the St. Charles Hotel features familiar items such as shrimp in addition to such forgotten delicacies as “calf’s head, brain sauce.” French Market and Red Store Restaurants were almost exclusively the province of men until between 1841 and 1844; oil on canvas by Louis Dominique Grandjean Develle the early 20th century, when public dining rooms began opening 1948.1 their doors to women.

Topographical and Drainage Map of New Orleans and Surroundings 1878; lithograph with watercolor by Thomas Sydenham Hardee, draftsman 00.34 a,b

SEPTEMBER Geographical Risks and Rewards New Orleans’s location was selected for its high ground and access to the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico, but flooding, tropical disease, and drainage all pro- vided major challenges to the city’s development. This 19th-century map shows an expanding New Orleans and the infrastructure that made it possible. The Carondelet and New Basin Canals expanded shipping access for trade, and the map shows the locations of early drainage structures.

10 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly OCTOBER Danse Macabre The French Quarter is full of stories of the supernatural, but Louisiana history offers plenty of non-spectral frights. The yellow fever epidemic of the 19th century, which killed more than 40,000 people in New Orleans between 1810 and 1900, was only one of many diseases that beset Louisianans through poor sanitation and lack of public health infor- mation. Mourners memorialized the dead through rituals, such as stopping clocks and covering mirrors in a deceased person’s home, or by creating remembrance objects known as immortelles.

St. Cyr and Lacoste family immortelle ca. 1836; human hair, paint on ivory, wood 1958.84

Betsy 1837; oil on canvas by François Joseph Fleischbein 1985.212 NOVEMBER Free People of Color Unlike British colonies, Louisiana under the French and Spanish granted property and legal rights to a growing nonwhite populace. In 1830 gens de couleur libres (free people of color) formed over a third of the city’s population, though they faced more stringent regulations and discrimination in the decades prior to the Civil War. Starting in the late 18th century sumptuary laws required women of color to cover their heads with wraps, or tignons, as seen in the History Galleries portrait of a free woman of color known as Betsy.

DECEMBER Holiday Season TOURS Holidays in New Orleans go beyond Christmas, Themed tours of the Louisiana Hanukkah, and New Year’s, to include the annual History Galleries Sugar Bowl game and the start of Carnival on First Friday of every month, January 6. From the early to mid-19th century, the through 2016 anniversary of the Battle of New Orleans, known as 10 and 11 a.m., 2 and 3 p.m. the Eighth of January, was as big a national holiday 50¢ as Independence Day. Balls and parties in celebra- In addition to the special themed tion of the “Glorious Eighth” added to many people’s tours, docents are offering a reduced packed holiday social calendars, but observance of the admission fee for the Williams Residence and Architecture and anniversary dropped off after the Civil War. Courtyard Tours—50¢, in celebration of 50 years.

Sugar Bowl promotional brochure 1935; offset lithograph by Mid-Winter Sports Association gift of the Sugar Bowl, 2007.0208.9

Fall 2016 11 COMMUNITY

ON THE JOB Maclyn Le Bourgeois Hickey POSITION: Coordinator for curatorial conservation, on staff since 1987 ASSIGNMENT: Research the work of painter William Aiken Walker, whose work makes up THNOC’s Monroe-Green Collection

Since my earliest days at The Collection, in city buildings and homes. Sociable and working in the curatorial department, I well dressed, Walker was a raconteur who have enjoyed learning about artwork in enjoyed fine dining, wrote poetry, and our permanent holdings. As coordinator played the piano. of curatorial conservation I arrange for After the bombing of Fort Sumter in artwork and other objects to be conserved, Charleston Harbor, Walker enlisted in the and I also research and write about art Confederate Army but was discharged after that is on exhibition. Recently I explored brief service. After the war, Walker traveled the life and career of artist William Aiken and lived in various southern cities, paint- Walker, whose works are on display outside ing and visiting friends; he also camped, A. Horses at Pasture the WRC Reading Room. Walker painted hunted, and fished in the wilderness. between 1880 and 1892; oil on canvas images of sharecroppers in cotton fields, Walker visited Europe in 1870, and by William Aiken Walker revealing an affection for his memories though little is known of his travels, he The Monroe-Green Collection, 1997.130.28 of a romanticized Old South that is also may have visited various academies and B. Louisiana Cabin Scene evident in his landscapes and still lifes. Born artists’ ateliers in France and Germany. between 1878 and 1920; oil on board in 1839, the youngest child of a well-to- European art had a subtle influence on by William Aiken Walker The Monroe-Green Collection, 1997.130.13 do Charleston cotton factor, Walker was Walker: his skillfully executed Horses at educated at home and studied art, music, Pasture shows similarities to the work of C. Male Cotton Picker and modern languages. Before the Civil John Frederick Herring, a well-known between 1878 and 1920; oil on board by William Aiken Walker War, Charleston was a cultural center in the English painter of horses, and his still The Monroe-Green Collection, 1997.130.6 South, with European paintings on display lifes, such as Still Life with Cheese, Bottle of Wine and Mice, show a Dutch or German derivation. An avid fisherman and hunter, he painted nature mortes, depicting dead game, and drew sketches of southern Florida, where he enjoyed fishing. During and after Reconstruction Walker lived intermittently in New Orleans, where he was active in the local art scene and exhibited his work frequently. He report- edly set up an easel on Dumaine and Royal Streets, where he painted images of sharecroppers in assembly-line fashion. He would divide his board into several smaller rectangular spaces, paint a strip of blue sky in each, then a brown foreground with cotton plants and their fluffy white bounty. Then he would superimpose a A figure over the cotton plants. He cut up

12 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly STAFF NEWS

New Staff Matthew Carlin, Peggy Giorgio, Suzanne Grimmer, Catherine Kinabrew, Lacey Poche, and Suzanne Stone, volunteers.

Publications Erin M. Greenwald, curator and historian, published the book Marc- Antoine Caillot and the French Company of the Indies in Louisiana: Trade in the French Atlantic World (Louisiana State University Press, 2016). In May, Library Processor Kevin T. Harrell presented the paper “Challenges and Promise: How the Digital Surrey Calendar Can Benefit the Ethnohisto- rian” at the annual conference of the B Society of Southwest Archivists. the boards, selling the paintings at afford- Like other artists of his time, Walker In the Community able prices. Similarly, during the 1884 expressed a gentle vision of sharecropper Reference Assistance Robert Ticknor World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial life, one that softened the emotional and joined the programs committee for the Exposition, Walker is believed to have set up physical toll of a lifetime of hard, daily agri- Louisiana Historical Association. his easel in Exposition Park (now Audubon cultural labor. His placid figures are sturdy, Amanda McFillen, associate director Park), selling his paintings of sharecroppers strong, and colorfully dressed; they stand in of museum programs, joined the board as souvenirs. Other scenes were painted on cotton fields where the sky is bright and the of the Louisiana Landmarks Society. copper plates and wooden palettes; many harvest plentiful. In all, Walker strived to Mark Cave, senior curator and oral depicted iconic sights such as steamboats at capture the peaceful and predictable South historian, was elected president of the the levee and expansive cotton fields filled that existed in his memory, of contented International Oral History Association with workers. These romanticized images workers, beautiful landscapes, and abun- at the organization’s recent conference. of the South held appeal beyond Louisiana; dance. —MACLYN LE BOURGEOIS HICKEY many of his tourist clients were from the North. Walker’s smaller canvases typically show a single foreground figure, posed frontally, of a sharecropper, often standing in a cotton field. Their faces are deeply lined, and their

clothing is ragged and colorful, with bright VOLUME XXXIII The Historic New Orleans NUMBER 1 patches. They wear hats or tignons; some Collection Quarterly WINTER 2016 smoke corncob pipes, sit astride horses, or carry bags of cotton slung over their shoulders. With such similar stance, dress, and placement, as well as titles such as Male Shop online at www.hnoc.org/shop Itinerant and Female Cotton Picker, the RIPPLE EFFECTS: Louisiana Watercolors figures appear as stereotypes rather than Honors individuals. His bucolic sharecropper cabin The Historic New Orleans Collection scenes also share similar compositions, Quarterly received a 2016 design award with a dirt lawn in the foreground, a cabin from the American Alliance of Museums. placed frontally at midground, and figures The magazine is designed by Alison and farm equipment scattered about. C Cody Design and edited by Molly Reid.

Fall 2016 13 COMMUNITY

In her uniform of pressed button-downs, smart flats, and chic pencil skirts, “she had a wonderful sense of style,” recalled Alfred E. Lemmon, director of the Williams Research Center. “She always managed to get things done, not only for her work at The IN MEMORIAM Collection but in the community. She was always taking care of people, so gracious, and Mimi Calhoun she was very, very dear to me.” Development Coordinator Coaina Delbert incredibly gracious about it,” Lawrence said. recalled the dogged persistence with which “She attended workshops and trainings and Calhoun attempted to help her through learned all about HVAC systems and how the tribulations of post-Katrina rebuilding. they’re supposed to work in museums. She Though Calhoun was two decades Delbert’s built a support system of contractors who senior, “she could run circles around me,” would come to us before anyone else. She she said. “I had lost everything [in the flood], was highly respected by them.” and Mimi helped me through the whole Calhoun’s southern manners and process. I was having trouble with Road indomitable fortitude proved a powerful Home, and one day she took me down to a combination. “Diminutive and feisty, Mimi title company on Bienville Street to try to was a little dynamo, a force to be reckoned solve the issue. She was determined to fix this with, and her energy and drive will be for me. ‘You’re gonna get back home again,’ missed here at THNOC,” said Carol O. she’d say.” Bartels, director of technology and a long- Calhoun lost her husband of 56 years, Mimi Calhoun first came to The Collection time friend and colleague. “She took her John Worthing Calhoun, in 2015. She as a volunteer filling in a few shifts for a job seriously but not herself, always down- is survived by her three children—John friend, and over the following three decades playing her role in matters and the force Worthing Calhoun III, Catherine Clann she became irreplaceable. Facilities manager that she was. Nobody could fuss and fight Calhoun, and Susan Calhoun Waggoner— until earlier this year, when she quietly like Mimi to protect and defend THNOC.” and four grandchildren. —MOLLY REID retired to attend to her health, Calhoun was an indomitable spirit beloved by friends and colleagues as a caring, eminently capable person. She passed away July 14, 2016, at the age of 77. “Mimi was incredibly energetic and active, and she graciously took on every new project that came under her purview,” said Executive Director Priscilla Lawrence. “She was fun, she was funny, she was kind, she was caring—just the most wonderful person. I feel very privileged to have been able to work with her for so long.” Calhoun, a New Orleans native who graduated from Newcomb College, began her formal employment with The Collection as a docent, but her efficiency and eagerness soon moved her into other positions. In the mid-1990s she served as assistant to Jon Kukla, then executive direc- tor of THNOC, and in her role as facilities manager she found a perfect vehicle for her moxie. “The longer she was here, her job got bigger and bigger, and she was just Calhoun with Lynn Adams, 1988

14 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly Sunday jazz brunch at Arnaud’s Restaurant caps off the 2016 New Orleans Antiques Forum.

MEMBERSHIP LEVELS Founder Individual $35 Become a Member Founder Family $65 Full membership benefits BENEFITS OF MEMBERSHIP Family memberships are for one or two All members of The Collection enjoy the following benefits for one full year: adults and any children under 18 all • complimentary admission to all permanent tours and rotating exhibitions residing in a single household, or for • special invitations to events, trips, receptions, and exhibition previews one member and a guest. • complimentary admission to the Concerts in the Courtyard series • a 10 percent discount at The Shop at The Collection Merieult Society $100 • a subscription to The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly Full membership benefits plus: • a special gift HOW TO JOIN Visit www.hnoc.org and click the Support Us link or complete the enclosed envelope and return Mahalia Society $250 it with your gift. Full membership benefits plus: • a special gift • private, guided tours (by appointment)

Jackson Society $500 Full membership benefits plus: • a special gift • private, guided tours (by appointment) • free admission to all evening lectures

Laussat Society $1,000 Full membership benefits plus: • a special gift Participants in the • private, guided tours (by appointment) Antiques Forum’s • free admission to all evening lectures optional preconference tour are greeted at the • invitation to annual gala Catalpa Plantation, near St. Francisville, Bienville Circle $5,000 Louisiana. Full membership benefits plus: • a special gift • private, guided tours (by appointment) NORTH AMERICAN RECIPROCAL MUSEUM PROGRAM Members of the Merieult, Mahalia, Jackson, and Laussat Societies and the Bienville Circle receive • free admission to all evening lectures reciprocal benefits at other leading museums through the North American Reciprocal Museum (NARM) • invitation to annual gala program. These benefits include free member admission, discounts on concert and lecture tickets, and • lunch with the executive director discounts at the shops of participating museums. Visit www.narmassociation.org for more information.

Fall 2016 15 COMMUNITY

ON THE SCENE Dinner, Theater, and Drinks

The 2016 New Orleans Antiques Forum, held August 4–7, focused on the wares and rituals of the Southern dining room. China patterns, flat- ware, serving utensils, and dining-room furniture each got a turn in the spotlight for antiques lovers A B to discuss and enjoy. A. Adam Erby, Sumpter T. Priddy III, Kelly Conway, and John Stuart Gordon B. Steve Stirling, Joanie Jennings, and Jack Pruitt C. Leslie Grigsby and Nick Dawes D. Jeanette Feltus and Bridget Green E. Louisiana Lieutenant Governor Billy Nungesser (right) greets preconference tour participants at Rosedown Plantation State Historic Site. F. Neal Alford, Sumpter T. Priddy III, and Laurie Ossman G. Ron and Anne Pincus with Ashley and James C D Fox-Smith

E F G

The 14th Les Comédiens Français Lecture, held July 12, focused on the work of the 19th-century poet and playwright Victor Séjour, a free man of color.

H

In June the culinary symposium “Rum, Rhum, Ron!” occasioned lectures and libations centered on the sugarcane-derived spirit. H. Abigail Gullo, Elizabeth Pearce, Jessica Harris, J Ed Hamilton, Nick Detrich, Rosie Schapp, and J. Walter Harris Jr., Janet Daley Duval, Alfred E. Shannon Mustipher Lemmon, Pamela D. Arceneaux, and Howard I. John H. Lawrence and Jessica Harris I Margot

16 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly tapestry hanging over his sleigh bed; bisque porcelain figurines of Hellenic warriors; and plaster copies of medals from Pompeii, which became popular souvenirs following the rediscovery of the ancient city in the 1700s. With such a wide range of interest in his collecting and his appreciation of art, Blanda finds plenty to discuss with visi- tors to The Collection in the course of his volunteer work. “I’ve met people from many of the countries I’ve visited, and it’s such a pleasure,” he said. On several occasions, he has invited curi- ous passers-by, peeking through his garden gate from Esplanade, into his wonderland of plants and outdoor furnishings. There, they can see 35-year-old orchids brought back from Haiti, gigantic night-blooming cereus (which, in Blanda’s younger days, occasioned annual blooming parties), flag- stone from India, busts of Roman emperors mounted in archways along the top of the patio’s back wall, and dozens of thriving FOCUS ON PHILANTHROPY palms, ferns, begonias, and more. “I’ve C. J. Blanda gotten so many thank-you letters over the years,” he said. “I’m just a caretaker. I don’t C. J. Blanda announces his love of own antiques show—he shares with The want to be selfish.” —MOLLY REID antiques and art as soon as one steps into Collection a commitment to exhibiting the foyer of his historic Esplanade Avenue beautiful, historically significant objects for townhouse. Serving as a wall opposite the the public. “The Collection is doing a great front entry are a pair of 300-year-old floor- service to the state and the city by preserv- to-ceiling French doors with gold leaf trim, ing and presenting all their artifacts related originally hailing from a Spanish castle to the history of the region,” Blanda said. but found in a New Orleans antiques shop. “I collect because I love the beauty of the For Blanda, a New Orleans native whose object and the history.” roots in the city extend to the 1700s, travel Blanda had a long career in insurance and decorative arts are entwined passions, before his retirement, and his travels have ones he has indulged through multiple taken him to 78 countries, including trips around the world and the beautiful multiple trips to every country in Europe souvenirs that appoint his abode. and three stints in India and in China. On A longtime member of The Historic his travels, he likes to follow his instincts, New Orleans Collection and a current seeking out “places where I think there volunteer, Blanda has attended every New are beautiful things, and I let them speak Orleans Antiques Forum since the event’s to me.” This wanderlust-fueled collect- founding in 2008. He has also included ing tactic has led him to treasures such The Collection in his estate plan, making as 19th-century lithographs of Persian him part of THNOC’s Williams Society. warriors, which he has placed in his “They are wonderful stewards,” he said. burgundy-red bathroom; a white marble “I enjoy volunteering at The Collection table inlaid with lapis lazuli and mother of because it’s such a marvelous place, and pearl, from India; an 18th-century Spanish you meet so many people.” By opening his engraving of the Christ child sleeping on Blanda’s stereo room features a first-empire cabinet topped with verde antique marble, as well as an doors to visitors for various historic house the cross and two Russian icons, which arrangement of portraits and portrait miniatures on tours over the years—in effect, hosting his fill his “sacred wall”; an enormous French ivory hanging above.

Fall 2016 17

Gregg J. Frelinger French Quarter Citizens Inc. Colette Stelly Friend and Joseph Friend Steve Friesen Kathleen Galante Loren Gallo DONORS Jackson R. Galloway April–June 2016 Betsie Gambel Jacqueline F. Gamble The Historic New Orleans Collection is honored to recognize and thank the following Garrity Solutions individuals and organizations for their financial and material donations. Elisabeth Gehl Dr. Gene A. Geisert and Karen Walk Marilyn and John H. Gesser III Eugenia Foster Adams Mr. and Mrs. Robert N. Bruce Jr. Margo Delaughter Jean M. Gibert Claudette Allison Cheron Brylski and Harold F. Baquet Maurice L. R. Delechelle Dale Gibson Mary Elizabeth Alvarez Bethany Bultman Sandy and Hayden S. Dent Carla Jean Gonzalez Anonymous Patrick M. Burke Kathleen L. and Richard A. Derbes Robin and Tim Gray Tiki and Arthur J. Axelrod Amelia M. and Neil C. Cagle Sandra Derenbecker Janice Donaldson Grijns Ronn Babin and Peter Jolet Cahn Family Foundation Inc. Katherine Miller Determan Lee Meitzen Grue Jenny Bagert Kathleen and Robert Campo Isabelle Dissard-Cooper Joan Guccione Clinton Bagley Shirley G. Cannon Ana Maria C. Dobrescu Ronald J. Guidry Doris B. and William M. Barnett Dr. and Mrs. Michael E. Carey Judith S. and Jeffrey René Doussan Mary and David F. Haddow Björn Bärnheim Nell Carmichael Elizabeth A. Drescher Dr. and Mrs. Frank A. Hall Jeanette and Robert Barras Carol Lise and Irving Rosen Fund Susan Schoonmaker Dufour, Wendy Hall Ann Schoonmaker Lopez, Baskerville John K. Carpenter and John C. Steven Halpern Sykes III Rae Schoonmaker Miller, Lawrence E. Batiste Gail Schoonmaker Ruddock, Dr. and Mrs. William Hammel Sonya and Joe Carr A. Chandler Battaile Jr. and Jan Schoonmaker Mrs. Roger P. Hanahan Karen N. Carroll Mary Jane Bauer Margaret M. Dziedzic and Julie Hardin Charles Case and Phillip St. Cloud James Marunowski BBC Destination Management Kathy Harrell Barry Cazaubon Thelia Jean Eaby Dr. Edwin and Barbara Beckman Ronald Harrell and M. Christian Dr. and Mrs. Valentine Earhart Joan and Roland Becnel Mr. and Mrs. Judson Chase Mounger J. Peter Eaves Deena Sivart Bedigian Stephen Chesnut Martha Harris and Morgan Lyons Dr. Jay D. and Andrea Edwards Aimée and Michael Bell Caroline and Greg Christman James Harvey Mr. and Mrs. Robert D. Edwards Dorothy L. Benge Mrs. William K. Christovich Diana Hayman Mary Lou Eichhorn Mr. and Mrs. Emanuel V. Benjamin III Sarah Churney Polly and Dan Henderson Mr. and Mrs. Stanley E. Ellington Jr. Myrna B. Bergeron Loretta Capdevielle Clark The Herman and Seena Lubcher Haydee Lafaye Ellis and Charitable Foundation Inc. Alvin Y. Bethard Jacquelyn B. and Arthur A. Clarkson Frederick S. Ellis Kevin Herridge Lila and Ernest B. Beyer Carolyn and Merlin Clausing Kurt D. Engelhardt Earl J. Higgins Anne and Christopher G. Bird Susan Clements Estate of Tatham E. Hertzberg H. Jack Hinrichs Eric R. Bissel Linda and Martin Colvill Charlotte A. Estopinal History Antiques and Interiors Catherine and Tom Bissell Mr. and Mrs. James P. Conner Deborah Fagan Louise C. Hoffman C. J. Blanda Donna Capelle Cook and Tony S. Cook Sonny Faggart Max C. Holland Bryant Blevins Elizabeth and Lynton G. Cook Jean M. Farnsworth Hotel Management of New Orleans Dr. and Mrs. Thomas Bonner Jr. Mac and Pamela Corbin Jennifer Farwell Hotel Monteleone William E. Borah Joyce Corrington Jan Feldberg Judge and Mrs. Henley A. Hunter Joan B. Bostick Mr. and Mrs. Ralph C. Cox Jr. Karen and Ray Fernandez Sean Hurly Isabelle and Lester Bourg Betty Crow Dr. Terrance and Merle Fippinger Newton E. Hyslop Jr. Leslie Lambour Bouterie and Fitzpatrick Foundation Larry Bouterie Louis D. Curet Helen Ingram Marlive E. Fitzpatrick Angela M. Bowlin George L. Dansker Elizabeth and Benjamin Janke Ella and Walter Flower III Mr. and Mrs. John G. B. Boyd Joe Darby Mr. and Mrs. R. Andrew Jardine Helen Flammer and Raúl Fonte Bradish Johnson Co., Ltd. Jan E. Davis Thomas Jayne Charlotte Fontenot Drs. Elizabeth and Robert Bray Eileen M. Day and Alan J. Cutlec Jimmy Maxwell and John Ford His Orchestra Inc. The Honorable and Mrs. Peter Scott Marie Louise de la Vergne Bridges Winston De Ville Mr. and Mrs. Forrest Forsythe Barbara Viavant Broadwell Johnsen and Erik F. Johnsen Arthur Brocato Deborah and Joseph Exnicios Dr. R. Fortier-Bensen and Sylvia Bensen Leonard Earl Johnson Brigid Brown and Steven Guidry Family Fund Brandon J. Frank Madeline and David Jorgensen Gay Browning Susan B. Deckert JP Morgan Chase and Co.

18 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly

Jeanne and Mark Juneau Mary Martin Morrill Bill Ross Sheryl L. Thompson The Kabacoff Family Foundation Moss Antiques Inc. Royal Antiques Ltd. W. Howard Thompson Maurice Pres Kabacoff Roxanne Mouton Virginia Dare Rufin Carol D. and James W. Thornton William “Bill” Karam Jr. Mr. and Mrs. D. B. H. Chaffe III Marilyn S. Rusovich Dr. Henry K. and Audrey G. Family Fund Dr. Jan Kasofsky Elizabeth H. and John H. Ryan Threefoot Mr. and Mrs. Lawrence D. Garvey Beverly Katz, Exterior Designs Inc. Mr. and Mrs. Harold J. Ryan Jessica Travis Fund Keil’s Antiques Inc. Courtney-Anne Sarpy Wade Trosclair Lilian and John E. Mullane Jack Kelleher Linda J. and John R. Sarpy Judith Talbot Tullis Patricia M. Murphy John Kelly Jan Schoonmaker Nancy P. Turner Craig W. Murray Dr. Nina M. Kelly Florence and Richard Schornstein The University of Pennsylvania Emilie G. Nagele School of Design Dr. Susan Kelso Sandy and Naif Shahady Linda M. and Randall E. Nash V. Price Leblanc Jr. Fund Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Killeen Jane B. and Edward Shambra The Nashua Historical Society Russell B. Van Dyke Carole Kulman Dr. Alan E. and Joan Sheen Katrina Neill Dr. Alfonso and Maria-Eugenia Jenny Brown LaCour and Leatrice S. Siegel Alice Monroe Nelson Vargas Barry L. LaCour Lindy and Jon Silverman New Orleans Fire Department Caroline Vézina Elizabeth M. and James C. Landis Anita Silvernail New Orleans Silversmiths Robert C. Vogel Marlin C. Landry Adrian Sirbu Jeannette Chambon Noel David Waldheim Tommy Laurendine Lisa Slatten Teri and Randy Noel Dolores J. Walker Mr. and Mrs. John H. Lawrence Diana Smith Marguerite Nunnally Mr. and Mrs. John E. Walker John H. Lawrence Gayle B. Smith Mary Lou and Michael R. O’Keefe Beth Watkins Mr. and Mrs. Clyde H. LeBlanc Karen G. Smith Dr. Joseph F. O’Neil Mary Welch Lorraine LeBlanc Betty J. Socha Orpheum Theater Mr. and Mrs. Walter T. Weller Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Edward F. LeBreton III Angela and Jacques Soulas Carol S. Osborne Paul Werner Gladys LeBreton Elizabeth M. Stafford Michael Oubre Elfriede S. Westbrook Dr. Joseph and Leanne LeClere Howard C. Stanley Mary Kay and Gray S. Parker Theresa D. Westerfield Lili LeGardeur Mr. and Mrs. John A. Stassi II Mrs. Godfrey Parkerson Sarah Whicker LGBT+ Archives Project of Louisiana Anne D. and Richard B. Stephens Inc. Pat O’Brien’s Bar Inc. Martha Vidos White Whitney Allyson Steve Jo Lichtman Patrick F. Taylor Foundation Walter H. White III Irma Marie Stiegler Lightner Museum Dr. Gene F. Pawlick Dwayne Whitley Betsy Stout Michelle Lipka Mary Jane Phelan Catherine A. Whitney Jason Strada Douglass R. Lore Andrew L. Plauché Jr. Jimmie C. Wickham Thomas J. Stranova Henri M. Louapre Carlton Polk Shelly Wills Dr. and Mrs. Michael Sullivan Dr. J. Bruce Lowe Helen and Andrew Polmer Gaylord Wilson Drs. Jane F. and Austin J. Sumner Mrs. Ralph Lupin Judith and Frank S. Pons Jeanne Wilson Alfred R. Sunseri John T. Magill Darlette A. and William S. Powell Nellie C. and Donald E. Wilson Felton Suthon Drs. Jamie M. Manders and Preservation Hall LLC Dr. James M. Winford Jr. James M. Riopelle Mary Lee Sweat and Thomas J. Dr. and Mrs. William J. Woessner Princeton University, Rare Books Gault Jacob Manguno and Special Collections Carolyn C. and John D. Wogan Frances Swigart Frances F. Marcus Karen L. Puente Nancy G. Wogan Laurie Taaffe Howard M. Margot Evelyn F. Pugh and Dr. James H. Wolfe Richard A. Thompson Jim Tapley Josie and George Markey Warren J. Woods Ralph Brennan Group Tyrone H. Taylor Nora Marsh and Julian Doerr Mutter Toni Wright Kathryn E. Rapier Mary Melanie Thigpen Patricia S. and John F. Marshall Melody Young and Steven D. Martin Adrienne Mouledoux Rasmus and Mrs. Frank W. Masson Ronald C. Rasmus Michael Mays Gary Rauber James A. McAlister Tribute Gifts Yolita E. Rausche Gregory McClain Tribute gifts are given in memory or in honor of a loved one. Deborah Rebuck Celia and Colin L. McCormick Dr. and Mrs. Richard J. Reed As You Like It Club in honor of Davis Jahncke Ralph McDonald II Barbara and David Reid Mr. and Mrs. Fredric J. Figge II in memory of Paul M. Haygood Ceil and Thomas C. McGehee Leon J. Reymond Jr. Friday Afternoon Club in honor of Amanda McFillen Robert E. McWhirter Dr. Frederick A. and John A. Karel in honor of Priscilla and John H. Lawrence Ginger Borah Meislahn Suzanne Rhodes III LSU Foundation in honor of Daniel Hammer and Howard Margot Margit E. Merey-Kadar Robert E. Rintz New York University in honor of Daphne L. Derven and Erin M. Greenwald Elsie Mae Miller John McEnery Robertson Joy and Howard Osofsky in memory of Lissa Christine Capo Mary Moises Harriet E. Robin Diane Fehring Reynolds in memory of Ray and Rose Fehring Dick Molpus John Robinson IV Billy and Cindy Woessner in honor of Bonnie Boyd Elizabeth P. Moran Dr. Marianne and Sheldon L. Warren J. Woods in honor of Dolores F. Harris Tony Morgan Rosenzweig

Fall 2016 19 ACQUISITIONS

A

ACQUISITION SPOTLIGHT Eyes of the City

All images © Cheron Brylski and The Historic The Harold F. Baquet Archive comes to THNOC, bringing with it a photographic New Orleans Collection master’s decades-long documentation of African American life in New Orleans. A. Trampoline, Desire Housing Project, from the Eyes of Desire series On June 2, 2016, the photographic archive between 1985 and 1990; photograph by Harold F. Baquet of Harold F. Baquet was transferred to gift of Harold F. Baquet and Cheron Brylski, The Historic New Orleans Collection via 2016.0172 donation from his widow, Cheron Brylski, bringing to a conclusion a process initi- B. Protester holding a sign at a Ku Klux Klan rally in Cummings, Georgia ated after Baquet’s death, at the age of 56, 1987; photograph on June 18, 2015. From the outset, it was by Harold F. Baquet clear that Baquet’s view of New Orleans, gift of Harold F. Baquet and Cheron Brylski, 2016.0172 filtered through both his camera and life experiences, would be a wonderful addi- tion to The Collection’s photographic history of New Orleans, a pictorial chronicle that THNOC has built over nearly 40 years. Active collection of photography (not an area of concentration for founders Kemper and Leila Williams) began in earnest in 1976, with the acquisition of architectural photographs by Betsy Swanson, co-creator B of the Friends of the Cabildo’s New Orleans

20 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly Architecture book series. Since then, THNOC has built photographic holdings based principally on archives of individual photographers or studios, rather than piece- meal images. The acquisition of Baquet’s archive follows this model but is a milestone for The Collection because it represents the first extended body of work by an African American New Orleans photographer at THNOC. The archive spans the late 1970s through 2010 and includes work made during the administrations of the first two African American mayors of New Orleans, Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial (1978–86) and Sidney J. Barthelemy (1986–94). Baquet’s inquisitive personality, as well as New Orleans’s rela- D tively small number of photography firms, led to a wide range of practice for Baquet. black citizens, from crime to substandard Consequently, his archive contains thou- housing and limited economic opportuni- sands of rolls of film (mostly 35 millimeter ties. Yet despite their clear-eyed appraisal but also other formats), color slides, digital of social inequities, his photographs also files, and printed photographs that run the reflected their subjects’ compassion, pride, gamut of a busy and successful commercial and tenderness, as well as their maker’s practice. Through portraits, advertise- affection. ments, hard news, stock photography, and The Harold F. Baquet Archive is vast— E his own projects, he covered weddings, and despite careful documentation by the political events, neighborhood life and photographer, the complete body of work festivals, Mardi Gras, and the larger face will not be fully accessible to the public of the city as embodied in its people and until significant cataloging and digitiza- architecture. Some of these topics skewed tion has been accomplished. As this process more toward the photographer’s personal advances in stages, portions of the collec- interests, including daily life in African tion will be available for consultation in American neighborhoods. His work the Williams Research Center. —JOHN H. depicted many of the problems facing LAWRENCE

C. Workers installing drywall at the Sewerage and Water Board building 1990s; photograph by Harold F. Baquet gift of Harold F. Baquet and Cheron Brylski, 2016.0172

D. Ernest N. “Dutch” Morial speaking to ­supporters during his “third term” campaign between 1985 and 1986; photograph by Harold F. Baquet gift of Harold F. Baquet and Cheron Brylski, 2016.0172

E. Dix’s Barber Shop, 342 S. Rampart Street 1990s; photograph by Harold F. Baquet gift of Harold F. Baquet and Cheron Brylski, C 2016.0172

Fall 2016 21 ACQUISITIONS

Viewers strained to get any indication of his whereabouts in the river, and as seconds ticked by, the crowd became restless—but after half a minute, his arm broke through the water, clutching a mass of chains and opened locks. Then his head appeared, and RECENT ADDITIONS in triumph, he threw the hardware into a waiting rowboat and swam for a floating Death-Defying Tricks, Outsider Poetry, platform, where he was helped into a warm and the Rule of Law robe. While drying off in a private dressing room on the steamer, Houdini remarked On the day of the event, Houdini left to the press, “That’s an awful river . . . the the Orpheum at 11:15 a.m. with a small worst I have ever been in. . . . I felt the entourage and made his way onto the strong current . . . and while they tell me I steamer’s gangplank. Rain had begun to was down only thirty seconds, it seemed to fall but did not deter the gathering crowd me that I was in that cold and darkness for of 7,000 to 10,000 onlookers near the an hour.” —PAMELA D. ARCENEAUX Canal Street ferry landing. Soundings were taken from the boat’s bow, and Houdini Arrest du Conseil d’estat du Roy qui prepared for the dive. Instead of an NOPD nomme les Directeurs de la Compagnie officer, Judge John Fogarty of the First d’Occident Recorder’s Court shackled him with a 2016.0070 set of irons loaned from Orleans Parish Prison; long, thick chains were wrapped The Collection recently acquired an around his wrists, arms, torso, and neck important addition to its holdings on and secured with padlocks. His legs were Scottish financier and economic theorist left free, although Houdini reportedly John Law and the related Companies of asked that they be bound as well. As the West and of the Indies. In August reported in the Daily Picayune, at exactly 1717 the Company of the West, under noon, Houdini acknowledged the crowd, Law’s auspices, received a 25-year monop- and with a “Good-by, boys!” propelled oly over fur trading, mineral rights, and Handbill advertising Houdini stunt in himself headfirst into the Mississippi. the trade in goods and peoples in the New Orleans 2016.0147

During his slate of appearances at New Orleans’s Orpheum Theatre in November 1907, the renowned illusionist and escape artist Harry Houdini (1874–1926) received a challenge from the New Orleans Item. Houdini often received such challenges to perform public stunts while on tour, and in this one he was first to allow himself to be manacled by a member of the New Orleans Police Department and then to dive into the Mississippi River at the foot of Canal Street from the steamer J. S. The date announced was Sunday, November 17, at noon. A recently acquired handbill bearing a bust portrait image of Houdini in the upper-left corner advertises the challenge, assuring attendees that “the Leap can be plainly seen from the Levee.”

22 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly Louisiana colony. Shortly thereafter, on September 12, 1717, Louis XV’s council of state, headed by the king’s regent, the duc d’Orléans, issued this warrant naming the company’s six directors. These directors, listed in the document, comprise Law and the other five French financiers, from Auch, La Rochelle, Saint-Malo, Nantes, and La Rochelle: Jean-Baptiste Martin Dartaguiette, Jean- Baptiste Duché, René Moreau, Jean Piou, and François Castanier. In 1719, after absorbing the Senegal Company and the remnants of the several other French trading entities based in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, the conglomerate was renamed the Company of the Indies. This larger company retained control of Louisiana until 1731, when it retroceded the colony to the king 11 years prior to the expiration of its charter. —ERIN M. GREENWALD

Kaja 2016.0011

New Orleans in the mid-20th century was a haven for artists, poets, and musicians of the new bohemian set, including Kay “Kaja” Johnson, the poet and artist who founded the New School Press in her 618 Ursulines Street apartment. Her artwork was shown at the Downtown Gallery in New Orleans, which represented such artists as the photographer and painter George Dureau and the acclaimed folk artist Sister Gertrude Morgan. In 1961 Johnson became a representative of and contributor to the Outsider, the pioneering literary magazine published by the French Quarter–based Loujon Press, and shortly thereafter moved to Paris to seek out Gregory Corso, her literary idol, who was Greece in the late 1960s, but since then a limited edition of 150, of which The living at the famed “Beat Hotel.” she is variously rumored to have joined Historic New Orleans Collection’s copy In Paris, she continued to write and a Buddhist commune, to be living on is number 57. It consists of a completed paint while corresponding with Charles the streets of the Bay Area, and to have poem, “Heaven at 9 Git-le-Coeur,” about Bukowski and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, remained in Greece. A trunk full of her Johnson’s time at the Beat Hotel in Paris, among others. Ferlinghetti’s bookstore and unpublished writings supposedly exists, and a draft of another Johnson poem, publishing house City Lights eventually but its whereabouts are unknown. along with illustrations and an introduc- published Human Songs, Johnson’s only Kaja is a pamphlet published by tion by Edwin Blair of Perdido Press. It book of poetry to have a wide distribu- Perdido Press in 1999 and printed and complements other items at THNOC, tion. The rest of her life and works remain bound at the New Orleans School of particularly the Edwin J. Blair Collection a mystery. She was known to be living in Glassworks and Printmaking Studio in (2011.0427); Johnson’s collection of poems

Fall 2016 23 The Impossible Possible, published by New produced in the same period. A portrait of The Historic New Orleans School Press in 1960 (92-48-L.78.121); George Washington, rather than Andrew Collection Quarterly and a self-portrait Johnson painted in oils Jackson, is prominent over the central around 1955 (2007.0388.30). In the intro- depiction of the Battle of New Orleans, EDITOR duction of Kaja, Blair states, “This book which is surrounded by four historical Molly Reid is being made to honor Kaja in hopes that vignettes that include the 1773 Boston DIRECTOR OF PUBLICATIONS the unpublished poems and novels, so Tea Party; the 1781 siege of Yorktown and Jessica Dorman highly regarded by many, will resurface— surrender of Cornwallis’s army; the sign- HEAD OF PHOTOGRAPHY that she will again share with us the ing of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, in which Keely Merritt beauty of her words.” —NINA BOZAK Great Britain recognized the existence of ART DIRECTION the United States; and the 1804 bombard- Alison Cody Design Descriptive View of the Glorious Battle ment of Tripoli during the First Barbary of New Orleans War, one of the earliest projections of The Historic New Orleans Collection is a 2016.0215.1 American naval power abroad. nonprofit institution dedicated to preserving The 1815 Battle of New Orleans is the distinctive history and culture of New Early printed depictions of the Battle of thus situated within a longer-than-usual Orleans and the Gulf South. Founded in New Orleans are a longstanding strength progression of American independence 1966 through the Kemper and Leila Williams of The Collection, one based in cofounder and military prowess. The central view Foundation, The Collection operates as a Kemper Williams’s interest in the subject, of the battle shows British and American museum, research center, and publisher in the heart of the French Quarter. and THNOC recently acquired another troops fighting on both sides of the rarity in the field with this engraving Mississippi River—also unusual in early on linen depicting the Battle of New prints—with a key identifying persons Orleans and other significant moments and events. Further indicating the likely in the history of the early republic. It was Scottish origin of the print, a mounted likely produced in Scotland soon after the General Jackson is shown rallying his War of 1812. The use of imagery from troops in verse based on Robert Burns’s the American Revolution—rather than 1793 poem “Scots Wha Hae,” though other battles of the War of 1812—sets the words were adapted for the American this textile print apart from most others cause of 1812–15. —JASON WIESE

BOARD OF DIRECTORS Mrs. William K. Christovich, Chair Drew Jardine, President John Kallenborn, Vice President John E. Walker E. Alexandra Stafford Hilton S. Bell Bonnie Boyd Fred M. Smith, Emeritus and Immediate Past President

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Priscilla Lawrence

533 Royal Street & 410 Chartres Street New Orleans, Louisiana 70130 (504) 523-4662 www.hnoc.org | [email protected] ISSN 0886-2109 ©2016 The Historic New Orleans Collection

24 The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly T. Hausmann & Sons building, 135 Baronne Street ca. 1915; gelatin silver print by Charles L. Franck Photographers The Charles L. Franck Studio Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1979.325.415

Fall 2016 25 ADDRESS SERVICE REQUESTED

Rain on the River Map lovers can carry a piece of 19th-century New Orleans cartography with this distinctive umbrella, available at The Shop at The Collection. With a wide, 42˝ span and an automatic open/close feature, it offers shelter from the storm in style.

New Orleans map umbrella, $17

533 Royal Street, in the French Quarter The Shop Tuesday–Saturday: 9:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. at The Collection Sunday: 10:30 a.m.–4:30 p.m. THE HISTORIC NEW ORLEANS COLLECTION (504) 598-7147 Shop online at www.hnoc.org/shop