Archaeology
Poverty Point
Poverty Point in Louisiana, one of the most significant archaeological sites in in the world, dates to 3,500 years and represents the largest, most complex settlement of its kind in North America.
Poverty Point in Louisiana, one of the most significant archaeological sites in in the world, dates to 3,500 years and represents the largest, most complex settlement of its kind in North America.
This entry covers the prehistoric Marksville Culture during the Middle Woodland Period, 1–400 CE.
Thousands of New Orleans’s eighteenth-century residents are interred at the site of the St. Peter Street Cemetery in the French Quarter.
In New Orleans archaeological explorations span 2,500 years of history
The French-designed Creole Cottage was a major urban house type in New Orleans during the early 1800s.
Bloom's Arcade, one of Louisiana's first shopping centers, was built in Tallulah in 1930 and served as a centerpiece of the Madison Parish town’s business district for half a century.
The geodesic dome was pioneered by architect Buckminster Fuller in the mid-twentieth century, and used in several notable Louisiana landmarks.
Louisiana architects Charles Dakin and James Dakin designed the Old State Capitol building in Baton Rouge, as well as the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans, among other projects.
The images shot by New Orleans photographer George Mugnier illustrate the life and times of Louisiana as the state entered the twentieth century.
Florville Foy, a free man of color, was a marble cutter, sculptor, and proprietor of one of the most successful marble yards in nineteenth-century New Orleans.
French impressionist painter Edgar Degas stayed with his Creole relatives in 1872 and 1873, and did some of his important works in New Orleans.
Jennifer Ellerbe is a photographer and artist who has found her visual poetry in the dark bayous and shadows along the back roads and endlessly flat landscape of Louisiana.
The United States’ entry into World War II spurred Louisiana’s recovery from the economic doldrums of the Great Depression.
Freeman & Harris Café was a Black-owned restaurant that served as a pillar of Black social, cultural, and political life in Shreveport.
A round, braided cake consumed during the Carnival season across Louisiana, especially in New Orleans.
Once one of the most productive salt mines in the country, the Belle Isle Salt Mine was the site of numerous deadly accidents.
Hurricane Katrina’s landfall in Louisiana and the subsequent levee failures resulted in one of the worst disasters in United States history.
Hurricane Ike’s size and timing was a sobering reminder that Louisiana was underprepared for another storm on the scale of Hurricane Katrina.
The Grand 16 Theater Shooting was a 2015 mass shooting in Lafayette that left three dead and injured nine, catapulting the city into a national discussion about gun control.
The 1976 George Prince ferry disaster between Destrehan and Luling was the deadliest ferry disaster in US history and a touchstone for a new set of safety protocols for ferry travel.
Founded in 1970, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, known as Jazz Fest, draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year to experience the music, cuisine, and cultural heritage of Louisiana.
The courir de Mardi Gras is the rural celebration of Mardi Gras in Louisiana, usually held in Cajun communities
Louisiana’s folktales have been influenced by Indigenous peoples and the many cultural and ethnic groups that have immigrated to the state.
A self-emancipated maroon who lived in the swamps surrounding New Orleans during the 1830s, Bras Coupé has developed a powerful folkloric following.
Fried rice cakes known as calas were once ubiquitous among New Orleans street vendors.
Popularized in the late 1950s, stuffed shrimp is a signature dish of Shreveport.
Stale loaves of bread get a sweet rebirth in this popular baked dessert.
Boudin is a Cajun sausage made of meat and rice typically consumed with the filling removed from the casing and often squeezed directly into the mouth.
Surveyed and platted in 1883 for the New Orleans and Northeastern Railroad, Slidell was named for John Slidell, Confederate ambassador to France and U.S. congressman.
The Fontainebleau State Park bears the name of Bernard de Marigny's sugar plantation, which formerly occupied this site and was itself named after the estate of the French king Francois I.
A portion of Louisiana was once the western extremity of colonial Florida
The Neutral Strip existed outside the governance of either the United States or Spain until 1821.
Due to her tireless grassroots organizing efforts, Audley Moore was known as “Queen Mother” of the Black Freedom Movement and the modern reparations movement.
Louisiana reluctantly became subject to prohibition, the effort to eliminate alcoholic drinks, as a result of the 1920 federal law commonly known as the Volstead Act.
The Coushatta Tribe of Louisiana is the largest of four federally recognized tribal governments in Louisiana.
William Charles Cole Claiborne was the first territorial and state governor of Louisiana in its transitional years from the Louisiana Purchase of 1803 to statehood in 1812.
Serving as French governor of Louisiana from 1743 until 1753, Pierre de Vaudreuil was popular with the upper-class colonists and French officials for his elegant manners.
The influence of Irish immigrants in New Orleans can still be seen in the Irish Channel neighborhood, St. Patrick's Day celebrations and churches such as St. Alphonsus.
Democrat Robert Wickliffe, who served as the governor of Louisiana from 1856 until 1860, oversaw the state in the increasingly tumultuous years before the Civil War.
During his short term as governor from 1924 to 1926, Henry Luce Fuqua advocated increased levee and road construction in Louisiana as well as the expansion of Louisiana State University.
Boston-born Julie Kane was appointed the 2011-2013 Louisiana Poet Laureate.
New Orleans-born author Truman Capote wrote the first nonfiction novel, "In Cold Blood" in 1966.
Christopher Mason Haile became a journalist and local color writer after he moved to Louisiana.
Considered among the most important southern writers, Ernest J. Gaines was an award-winning fiction writer whose work often features the region where he grew up: rural and small-town south-central Louisiana.
Jelly Roll Morton was the first important composer and arranger of New Orleans jazz, as well as an agile pianist, a compelling singer, and one of the early jazz world's most flamboyant characters.
The nephew of jazz talent Johnny St. Cyr, Joe Watkins was a traditional jazz drummer and vocalist from New Orleans.
African American Gospel music incorporates elements of both black vernacular and sacred music, including blues, hymnody, spirituals, the folk church, and even popular song.
Jazz musician Paul Barbarin was a pioneer and leading representative of classic New Orleans drumming.
The Ishak are an Indigenous people who have lived in southwest Louisiana and southeastern Texas since precolonial times.
The United Houma Nation claims approximately 17,000 members and continues to keep Native American traditions alive from their tribal center in Lafourche Parish.
Alexandre de Batz created the earliest known images of Native Americans in the lower Mississippi valley from sketches he rendered while surveying Louisiana in the eighteenth century.
The influence of Irish immigrants in New Orleans can still be seen in the Irish Channel neighborhood, St. Patrick's Day celebrations and churches such as St. Alphonsus.
Marie Laveau was a free woman of color born in the French Quarter of New Orleans. Laveau assumed the leadership role of a multiracial religious community for which she gave consultations and held ceremonies. During her time, she was known as "The Priestess of the Voudous"; among many other colorful titles.
Mother Mary Hyacinth led nine Daughters of the Cross from France to central Louisiana in 1855 to open a convent and several schools.
White gospel music, also known as Southern gospel, represents a widespread aspect of US culture.
Jewish people have greatly contributed to Louisiana’s culture and economy as philanthropists, civic and educational leaders, business owners, and art patrons.
During the nineteenth century, cholera epidemics caused tens of thousands of deaths throughout the state of Louisiana.
Woody Gagliano sounded the alarm on Louisiana’s coastal land loss crisis and worked with his colleagues for decades to remedy the problem.
Flint-Goodridge Hospital opened in 1896 to serve New Orleans’s Black community and provide medical training for Black nurses and physicians at a time when other hospitals denied services to Black people.
The United States’ entry into World War II spurred Louisiana’s recovery from the economic doldrums of the Great Depression.
In 1989, jockey Kent Desormeaux's 598 first place finishes set the record for most wins in a single season.
Louisianan John Dane III is a competitive sailor who has won championships at the helm of numerous sailing vessels.
Toby Hart brought New Orleans its first professional sports franchise in 1887.
Louisiana professional boxer Marty Burke was Jack Dempsey' sparring partner.
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