New Orleans In The Thirties

New Orleans in the Thirties offers a nostalgic view of life in New Orleans half a century ago through photographs and reminiscences. It was a time when Robert Maestri was mayor, the St. Charles streetcar made a complete loop, and the Pelicans won the Dixie Series in baseball. Moreover, it was a time when doctors made house calls and women donned gloves to go shopping. Fascinating period photographs accompany intimate and loving descriptions of the Crescent City of the thirties, capturing the mood and magic of that decade. This volume brings to life the New Orleans of the past and allows the reader to discover-or rediscover-the character of that time and place. The author's recollections will appeal to non-New Orleanians, that is, to anyone who grew up in America during the depression era. She recalls, for example, the leisurely pace of pre-television society in which radio held a powerfully unique role, as well as the headline fashions of the day and the cultural mores that now may seem quaint to many. Mary Lou Widmer, a native New Orleanian, is president of the South Louisiana Chapter of Romance Writers of America. She has written several articles for New Orleans publications, and is the author of Night Jasmine, Beautiful Crescent, and Lace Curtain . Widmer is also the author of New Orleans in the Twenties, New Orleans in the Forties, and New Orleans in the Fifties, all published by Pelican.

Celebrated in media and myth, New Orleans's French Quarter (Vieux Carr(r)) was the original settlement of what became the city of New Orleans. In Madame Vieux Carr(r), Scott S. Ellis presents the social and political history of this famous district as it evolved from 1900 through the beginning of the twenty-first century. From the immigrants of the 1910s, to the preservationists of the 1930s, to the nightclub workers and owners of the 1950s and the urban revivalists of the 1990s, Madame Vieux Carr(r) examines the many different people who have called the Quarter home, who have defined its character, and who have fought to keep it from being overwhelmed by tourism's neon and kitsch. The old French village took on different roles--bastion of the French Creoles, Italian immigrant slum, honky-tonk enclave, literary incubator, working-class community, and tourist playground. The Quarter has been a place of refuge for various groups before they became mainstream Americans. Although the Vieux Carr(r) has been marketed as a free-wheeling, boozy tourist concept, it exists on many levels for many groups, some with competing agendas. Madame Vieux Carr(r) looks, with unromanticized frankness, at these groups, their intentions, and the future of the South's most historic and famous neighborhood. The author, a former Quarter resident, combines five years of research, personal experience, and unique interviews to weave an eminently readable history of one of America's favorite neig

"A million facts that range from merely interesting to absolutely vital." -- Louisiana Life " Having [Louisiana Almanac] . . . is like having all the answers to what is happening in the State of Louisiana." -- The Louisiana Weekly "An invaluable tool to people looking to move into the area." -- The Slidell Sentry-News Known for its politics, its natural resources, and its colorful history, the Pelican State is one of the most interesting in America. For more than fifty years, Louisiana Almanac has been the authoritative guide to a million facts about Louisiana, and this painstakingly updated seventeenth edition consists of 720 useful pages of information for ready reference. The wealth of maps, charts, tables, and graphs makes the data and statistics easily accessible as well. No Louisiana business, classroom, or library should be without a current copy of the Louisiana Almanac.

Photos and reminiscences of life the 1950s, part of the decade-by-decade series that vividly documents the Crescent City’s history. Remember when Mardi Gras was cancelled in 1951 in tribute to the men fighting the Korean War? Surely you were there for Elvis Presley’s visit to the Municipal Auditorium in 1956, and you must recall the first time you crossed the brand-new Greater New Orleans Bridge. How about the milk bottle on top of the Cloverland Dairy? For those who were there and those who wish they were, Mary Lou Widmer recalls these and many other images and events that define the decade. Packed with photographs, her remembrances will delight and entertain all who lived through this unique decade in New Orleans and fascinate anyone intrigued by the city’s past—from the tumult of integration to the worries about communism to the rapid growth of Gentilly, Metairie, and other suburbs.

The ways in which city leaders of early 1900s New Orleans tamed nature are described in a richly illustrated history that also recounts what the city's inhabitants were wearing and driving, where they were living, and how they whiled away idle time.

During the formative years of jazz (1890–1917), the Creoles of Color—as they were then called—played a significant role in the development of jazz as teachers, bandleaders, instrumentalists, singers, and composers. Indeed, music penetrated all aspects of the life of this tight-knit community, proud of its French heritage and language. They played and/or sang classical, military, and dance music as well as popular songs and cantiques that incorporated African, European, and Caribbean elements decades before early jazz appeared. In Jazz à la Creole: French Creole Music and the Birth of Jazz, the author describes the music played by the Afro-Creole community since the arrival of enslaved Africans in La Louisiane, then a French colony, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, emphasizing the many cultural exchanges that led to the development of jazz. Caroline Vézina has compiled and analyzed a broad scope of primary sources found in diverse locations from New Orleans to Quebec City, Washington, DC, New York City, and Chicago. Two previously unpublished interviews add valuable insider knowledge about the music on French plantations and the danses Créoles held in Congo Square after the Civil War. Musical and textual analyses of cantiques provide new information about the process of their appropriation by the Creole Catholics as the French counterpart of the Negro spirituals. Finally, a closer look at their musical practices indicates that the Creoles sang and improvised music and/or lyrics of Creole songs, and that some were part of their professional repertoire. As such, they belong to the Black American and the Franco-American folk music traditions that reflect the rich cultural heritage of Louisiana.

In this new addition to the America in the Twentieth Century series, Sullivan and others present a detailed look into life in America during the 1930s. Beginning with the events leading up to The Great Depression, America in the Thirties presents the themes and events that shaped America during this decade. President Roosevelt’s New Deal, the Dust Bowl and life during the Great Depression, domestic life, and America’s foreign policy are some of the many issued covered in this highly readable, concise manuscript. Throughout the text, the authors also provide commentary on the role of various societal groups such as women, immigrants, African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and Latino Americans. The America in the Twentieth Century series presents the major economic, political, social, and cultural milestones of the decades of the twentieth century. Each decade is treated in individual books: thus far, books focusing on 1920s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s have been published. This latest addition to the series, focusing on the tumultuous 1930s, will provide logical links to the previously published books in the series.

In this, the third volume of an interdisciplinary history of the United States since the Civil War, Sean Dennis Cashman provides a comprehensive review of politics and economics from the tawdry affluence of the 1920s throught the searing tragedy of the Great Depression to the achievements of the New Deal in providing millions with relief, job opportunities, and hope before America was poised for its ascent to globalism on the eve of World War II. The book concludes with an account of the sliding path to war as Europe and Asia became prey to the ambitions of Hitler and military opportunists in Japan. The book also surveys the creative achievements of America's lost generation of artists, writers, and intellectuals; continuing innovations in transportation and communications wrought by automobiles and airplanes, radio and motion pictures; the experiences of black Americans, labor, and America's different classes and ethnic groups; and the tragicomedy of national prohibition. The cast of characters includes FDR, the New Dealers, Eleanor Roosevelt, George W. Norris, William E. Borah, Huey Long, Henry Ford, Clarence Darrow, Ernest Hemingway, Scott Fitzgerald, W.E.B. DuBois, A. Philip Randolph, Orson Welles, Wendell Willkie, and the stars of radio and the silver screen. The first book in this series, America in the Gilded Age, is now accounted a classic for historiographical synthesis and stylisic polish. America in the Age of the Titans, covering the Progressive Era and World War I, and America in the Twenties and Thirties reveal the author's unerring grasp of various primary and secondary sources and his emphasis upon structures, individuals, and anecdotes about them. The book is lavishly illustrated with various prints, photographs, and reproductions from the Library of Congress, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum of American Art.