July 18, 2008

Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies and the Louisiana State Museum

History Ya-Ya Summer-Fall 2008 Lecture Schedule

Please join the Louisiana State Museum at the Arsenal, Thursday July 17, 6- 8 p.m. for History Ya-Ya featuring UNO Associate Professor of History Dr. Connie Atkinson.

The monthly lecture series exploring Louisiana's historical and cultural legacies is sponsored by The University of New Orleans Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies and the Louisiana State Museum.

All lectures are free to the public, and they all will take place at the Cabildo, 
701 Chartres Street, in the Arsenal building.

Thursday, July 17, 2008
Cabildo
6-8 PM
History Ya-Ya
Dr. Connie Atkinson, Associate Professor of History and Associate Director of the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies, UNO
Napoleon's New Orleans: social life in New Orleans during Napoleon's brief reign over the city

New Orleans fell under the direct governance of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte for a mere three weeks, during one of the most turbulent eras in the city's history. Spain, France, the United States, and even England had designs on the city, and within days its ownership shifted among powerful nations. On Oct. 20, 1803, the US Senate had ratified the purchase of the Louisiana Territory from France. A month later, the Spanish, who had never given up physical possession of Louisiana to the French, did so in a ceremony at New Orleans. In a second ceremony, on Dec. 20, 1803, the French finally turned the governance, if not the heart, of Louisiana over to the United States.
Napoleon's New Orleans was a military outpost, a port of entry for many nations, French-speaking, Catholic, and already determined to hold on to its complex social life and culture. As New Orleanians invented their multiethnic, multicultural city through the arts, patterns of cultural exchange were formed that continue to this day.

Thursday, August 21, 2008
Cabildo
6-8 PM
History Ya-Ya
Joseph Frederick Stoltz, III, MA graduate student, University of New Orleans
Spaniards, and British, and Slaves Oh my!: Organizing the Defense of the Orleans Territory
One of the first decisions the United States had to make following the Louisiana Purchase was how to organize the defense of its new territory. Military policy in America from the time of colonization was to let the locals defend themselves in an organized militia. However, many Americans were ill at ease about the idea of letting francophone Catholics, many of whom were Free People of Color, be the bulwark of defense in America's newest territory. In his lecture, Mr. Stoltz will explore the policies taken by the territorial government to organize the militia of the Orleans Territory and its successes and failures. Mr. Stoltz is completing the MA program in history at UNO.

Thursday, September 18, 2008
Cabildo
6-8 PM
History Ya-Ya
Dr. Emily Clark, Assistant Professor of History, Tulane University
The New Orleans Quadroon: Myth and Reality
"The Quadroon girls of New Orleans are brought up by their mothers to be what they have been; the mistresses of white gentlemen . . . The Quadroon connexions in New Orleans are all but universal, as I was assured on the spot by ladies who cannot be mistaken," reported the English traveler Harriet Martineau in 1837. The testimony of the rich archives of New Orleans shows that the ladies who informed Harriet Martineau were, indeed, very much mistaken. In the archives we find free women of mixed European and African descent who were faithful wives to free men of color, mothers who stood at their daughters' weddings, and nuns who embraced lives of celibacy. This lecture explores their stories, and investigates why they have been eclipsed by the figure of the Quadroon mistress who is more mythical creation than historical reality. Dr. Clark is Assistant Professor of History at Tulane University.

Thursday, October 16, 2008
Cabildo
6-8 PM
History Ya-Ya
Dr. Madelon Powers, Associate Professor of History, University of New Orleans
These Crazy Little Girls': Risk, Rebellion, and Runaway Teens in Wartime New Orleans, 1918-1922
During World War I, hundreds of runaway girls from the countryside boarded trains for New Orleans in a determined search for fun, adventure, and soldiers to love them. Waiting to intercept them at the train stations were the equally determined matrons of the Travelers' Aid Society, whose goal was to return these youthful innocents to the protection of home and family. The result was not only a battle of wills, but also a clash of generations over the nature of love, courtship, social responsibility, and southern womanhood itself in a rapidly modernizing world. Dr. Powers serves as Chairman of the UNO history department.

Thursday, November 20, 2008
Cabildo
6-8 PM
History Ya-Ya
Dr. Al Kennedy
How Public School Teachers Shaped Jazz and the Music of New Orleans
The world's fascination with New Orleans stems from the allure of the music of the city—music that owes its origins and development to many sources. The unsung heroes of the New Orleans jazz scene are the teachers in the city's public schools. In his presentation, Dr. Kennedy will document ways that public school teachers pushed an often unwilling urban institution to become an important structure that transmitted jazz and the other musical traditions to future musicians. Dr. Kennedy an Instructor in the UNO Department of History.

Thursday, December 18, 2008
Cabildo
6-8 PM
History Ya-Ya
Dr. Karen Leathem
Reveillon, a New Orleans Holiday food tradition
Dr. Karen Leathem, Louisiana State Museum historian, explores the cultural and culinary traditions of Reveillon in New Orleans past and present.