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The Historic New Orleans Collection
HNOC in the News

Louisiana Weekly: HNOC Receives LEH Award for Louisiana Mass Incarceration Exhibit

January 29, 2026

Officials praised “Captive State” for addressing a difficult and often polarizing subject with scholarly depth while remaining accessible to a broad audience.

A historical museum exhibit features a large black-and-white photograph of an old prison building. In front, there is a wooden stock used for restraining prisoners, with openings for neck and wrists. The quote on the photo describes the harsh prison conditions.
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Related Exhibition

Exhibitions

Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration

July 19, 2024 to February 16, 2025

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Books

Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration

CAPTIVE STATE cover

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First Draft

Processing Hope and Loss in the Prison Portraits of “One Big Self”

First Draft

Poets Respond to “Captive State” in Verse

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A screenshot from a vintage color film shows part of a ship with the name "VERNON C. BAIN" written on the side.

“Vernon C. Bain” Christening Ceremony Video

When New York City’s war on drugs sent incarceration rates soaring, officials commissioned a floating jail built and christened downriver from New Orleans.

The cover of the newspaper "Hospital Banner" from August of 1955.

Hospital Banner Newsletters

An unusual periodical, written and produced by residents of the state mental hospital in the mid-20th century

A vintage sheet music cover titled The Mysterious Axmans Jazz (Dont Scare Me Papa). It shows a chaotic scene with musicians playing and a startled woman at a piano. Two inset portraits are at the bottom.

The Mysterious Axman’s Jazz

At the turn of the 20th century, a music-loving serial killer proclaimed that only jazz lovers would be safe from his reign of terror.

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Carceral City book cover
Press Release

HNOC, LHA Select “The Carceral City” to Receive 2024 Williams Prize

March 19, 2025
With powerful and evocative prose, author John K. Bardes boldly reinterprets relations between slavery and prison development in American history.
Exhibit wall with a blue panel stating, The institutions of slavery and mass incarceration are historically linked. A section titled CAPTIVE STATE features text and a colorful quilt with nature and wildlife motifs displayed on the right.
Press Release

HNOC Announces Extension of Exhibition Examining Incarceration in Louisiana

November 13, 2024
“Captive State” will be on view through February 16, 2025
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