More Than Petticoats Remarkable Louisiana Women

From Baroness Pontalba to Kate Chopin to Mahalia Jackson, More than Petticoats: Remarkable Louisiana Women celebrates the women who shaped the Pelican State. Short, illuminating biographies and archvial photographs and paintings tell the stories of women from across the state who served as teachers, writers, entrepreneurs, and artists.

More than Petticoats: Remarkable Missouri Women celebrates the women who shaped the Show-Me State. Short, illuminating biographies and archival photographs and paintings tell the stories of women from across the state who served as teachers, writers, entrepreneurs, and artists.

Learn about the history, landscape, and culture of Louisiana.

Folk art is as varied as it is indicative of person and place, informed by innovation and grounded in cultural context. The variety and versatility of 300 American folk artists is captured in this collection of informative and thoroughly engaging essays. American Folk Art: A Regional Reference offers a collection of fascinating essays on the life and work of 300 individual artists. Some of the men and women profiled in these two volumes are well known, while others are important practitioners who have yet to receive the notice they merit. Because many of the artists in both categories have a clear identity with their land and culture, the work is organized by geographical region and includes an essay on each region to help make connections visible. There is also an introductory essay on U.S. folk art as a whole. Those writing about folk art to date tend to view each artist as either traditional or innovative. One of the major contributions of this work is that it demonstrates that folk artists more often exhibit both traits; they are grounded in their cultural context and creative in the way they make work their own. Such insights expand the study of folk art even as they readjust readers' understanding of who folk artists are.

Your round-trip ticket to the wildest, wackiest, most outrageous people, places, and things the Pelican State has to offer! Whether you’re a born-and-raised Louisianan, a recent transplant, or just passing through, Louisiana Curiosities will have you laughing out loud as Louisiana native Bonnye Stuart takes you on a rollicking tour of the strangest sites in the Pelican State. Track down some serious fun, from watching lawnmower racing and petting live alligators to attending a prison rodeo and dancing at a powwow. Feast your way through festivals that celebrate the state’s cultural diversity and local crops, from fiery Cajun gumbo to sweet mayhaw jelly—and stop in at the local wineries and microbreweries to quench your thirst. Learn about the darker side of Louisiana as you tour haunted plantations, mysterious mansions, and spooky cemeteries.

More Than Petticoats: Remarkable Oklahoma Women celebrates the women who shaped the Sooner State. Short, illuminating biographies and archival photographs and paintings tell the stories of women from across the state who served as teachers, writers, entrepreneurs, and artists.

From the Potomac to the Gulf, artists were creating in the South even before it was recognized as a region. The South has contributed to America's cultural heritage with works as diverse as Benjamin Henry Latrobe's architectural plans for the nation's Capitol, the wares of the Newcomb Pottery, and Richard Clague's tonalist Louisiana bayou scenes. This comprehensive volume shows how, through the decades and centuries, the art of the South expanded from mimetic portraiture to sophisticated responses to national and international movements. The essays treat historic and current trends in the visual arts and architecture, major collections and institutions, and biographies of artists themselves. As leading experts on the region's artists and their work, editors Judith H. Bonner and Estill Curtis Pennington frame the volume's contributions with insightful overview essays on the visual arts and architecture in the American South.

State Oddities takes a different kind of look at the American nation, spotlighting the fun foibles, peculiarities, and twists in each of the 50 states that are (mostly) united under the Stars and Stripes. State Oddities is a fascinating trip through the 50 states for students studying America, teachers planning classroom activities, and general readers who will enjoy an eye-opening journey through the nation's fun side. It offers a compelling look at the character of America through the individuality of 50 very distinct states that together form the USA. This book paints a picture of the broad sweep of the American story, offering a gateway to the country as it developed into one nation filled with individual states that can be remarkably different from each other, yet unified under such national symbols as the American flag and "The Star-Spangled Banner." The author of State Oddities has become known as a master of "painless history," telling America's story in a sparkling style along with the historian's eye for fascinating detail. On the book's cross-country journey, the reader will find that it differs from other works by taking a fresh look at stories we think we know.