Exploring Reconstruction in New Orleans

As an assignment in Dr. Nystrom’s Honors Civil War and Reconstruction course taught at Loyola in the Fall of 2015, students produced a blog post exploring a site of memory in Reconstruction-era New Orleans. Students selected topics that interested them and focused on themes of their choosing.

While these posts are far from exhaustive in the scope of their coverage, they represent a start to the ongoing documentation of this important time in the city’s history. You will, for instance, find no entry for the Mechanics’ Institute, the primary site of the Riot of 1866, but there is an excellent piece on the Degas family.

Students were encouraged to think about how differently the urban landscape appeared during Reconstruction, and made extensive use of the 1883 Robinson’s Atlas available at the website of the Orleans Parish Civil District Clerk of Court. In addition, some entries feature images from the Detroit Publishing Company Collection at the Library of Congress. Readers may be interested in exploring this fascinating collection of glass plate images from the turn of the twentieth century. In most cases, you will find that the student authors offer citations for their entries.

Entries:

• The Bank Coffeehouse (scene of Sauvinet v Walker)
• The Old St. Louis Hotel
• Gallier Hall (Old City Hall)
• Leland University
• The Degas Family and Cotton Factoring during Reconstruction
• Washington Artillery Hall
• The Cabildo (Louisiana Supreme Court)
• The US Mint (and the hanging of William Mumford)
• Factor’s Row
• The St. Charles Hotel