casa de Charlotte Della Luna

I’m always on the look-out for books about New Orleans and I found the following review by Cheré Coen in the (Lafayette) Daily Advocate (which I’ve shamelessly cut and pasted here). The book is compiled by Melissa Lee Smith of The Louisiana State Museum here in NoLA. I’ll be making a trip to local bookstores for this one! Not only is it about my favorite subject, NoLA, but it’s filled with vintage photographs…..what could be better than a new book of old photos of The Crescent City? Only one thing……photo’s not usually seen in your traditional photog book. Read.

Louisiana Book News: New book traces photographic history of New Orleans
Cheré Coen
bacoen@cox.net

Just when I’ve thought I’ve seen all of the classic photos of the Crescent City comes Historic Photos of New Orleans by Melissa Lee Smith (Turner Publishing, $39.95).

Granted, there must be hundreds if not thousands of photos of the famous city, but one tends to see the same shots, if not subjects over and over again. Smith does include well-known landmarks such as Aubudon Park, Canal Street and the French Quarter, but her chosen photos tend to spotlight the underrepresented people and places not usually found in history books.

For instance, she includes African-American residents outside their homes in Tremé and explains not only the significance of the area (the country’s oldest African-American neighborhood) but also how Tremé changed with different influxes of immigrants. Rex is shown arriving on Mardi Gras but shots of children masking and minorities watching parades are also included. A photo of the French Market features a group of butchers from the Gascon region of southwestern France.
Other impressive photos includes a long shot of the 1966 Mardi Gras crowd on Canal Street, historic buildings that have since seen the wrecking ball or been lost to fire, presidents who have visited the city, 9-year-old boys hawking newspapers, Tulane football players in 1905 who only played one game against LSU, the Higgins factory where boats used in the D-Day invasion were built and publicity shots for the then-new housing developments created by F.D.R.’s New Deal.

Some of the more poignant include a mother being given assistance by the Red Cross during the flood of 1927 and an African-American man’s resigned face sitting behind the “For Colored Patrons” sign on a city bus.

Smith works for the Louisiana State Museum in New Orleans and is currently completing her M.A. in history from UNO, and many of her photos have been obtained from the museum, Tulane University, the New Orleans Public Library and other local sources.