The World of Rose Nicaud
Explore the origins of New Orleans’s coffee culture going back to the 19th century.
In the late 19th century, visitors to the French Market in New Orleans were drawn to the aroma of roasting coffee that arose from a simple wooden stand in the Hall of Vegetables. There, patrons of all races, classes, and nationalities would sip café au lait and chat as they passed their compliments and payments to the stand’s famed proprietor, Rose Nicaud. Selling coffee in the heart of New Orleans defined Rose’s life and legacy, allowing her to purchase her own freedom before the age of 28.
Learn more in this presentation, created by Julia Walsh, HNOC Derven Scholar and graduate student at Southern University at New Orleans.
More on Rose Nicaud
The Untold Story of Rose Nicaud, Coffee Queen of New Orleans
New research about New Orleans’s famed coffee seller shows both the precariousness and the possibilities of urban enslavement.
Murder Before Breakfast: The French Market Killing That Shook New Orleans
Coffee maven Rose Nicaud declared that “everybody takes coffee at my stand,” regardless of race. After a man was shot near her stand, she entered the roiling Reconstruction-era debate over the limits of integration.
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