First Draft
Stories from the Historic New Orleans Collection
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East Meets West
Over the course of a century, two iterations of Chinatown in New Orleans shaped the city’s landscape and culture.
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Browse our latest posts or search by topic.
The French Quarter That Made Cosimo Matassa
Before his recording studio changed the course of American popular music, Cosimo Matassa grew up in a teeming French Quarter community that no longer exists.
Glasnost Menagerie
Even while denigrating his work, Soviet reviewers set the stage for Tennessee Williams’s popularity in Russia.
Tremé’s Homegrown Historian
Founder Al Jackson’s scholarship and personal history come together in Treme’s Petit Jazz Museum.
Who’s a Good Boy? These Pups from the Past
For as long as dogs have been domesticated, there have been dog lovers. The evidence runs throughout HNOC’s holdings.
“One of the Great Literary Curiosities” of French Quarter Bohemia Turns 100
With a foreword by William Faulkner and clever portrait drawings, Sherwood Anderson and Other Famous Creoles is an offbeat who’s-who of 1920s New Orleans.
Views of the Vieux Carré
An HNOC exhibition showcases a diverse selection of paintings that reflect the unique character of New Orleans’s French Quarter.
The Man Who Lived in a Movie Palace
Rene Brunet Jr. grew up in his father’s cinema, the Imperial. He went on to shape New Orleans’s movie landscape.
Frame by Frame, Developing a Picture of Vietnamese New Orleans
Mark J. Sindler spent almost 10 years documenting the lives of refugees in New Orleans East. His work might be the largest photographic record of Vietnamese resettlement in the United States.
How the Circus Helped Define Childhood, and Vice Versa
For a long time, the circus was no place for children. With the rise of mass manufacturing in the late 19th century and new ideas about childhood, that changed.
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Cajuns & Creoles
Sally Miller or Salomé Müller?
An enslaved woman named Sally Miller went to the Louisiana Supreme Court to sue for her freedom. She won, then she was forgotten.
Identity Theft
Nearly 35 years ago, a heedless conservator altered a rare portrait of a free woman of color. Now, it has been restored and is on view again—and this time, HNOC is telling the story.
What’s the Difference Between Cajun and Creole—Or Is There One?
The answers are tied up in race, class, language, and, of course, history.
New Orleans Icons
Richard Simmons, New Orleans’s Hometown Hero
How a native son who grew up in the French Quarter sweated his way into the spotlight
Shades of Blanche
An experimental theater production sheds new light on one of Tennessee Williams’s most beloved characters.
Danny Barker’s Folk Heroes
The jazzman was also a gifted writer and storyteller who put his own spin on the archetypes of African American folklore, from badmen and blues mamas to “day people and night people.”
Carnival Chronicles
DJ Soul Sister’s Personal Mardi Gras Playlist
In liner notes to a playlist curated for HNOC, the “Queen of Rare Groove” leads a tour through Mardi Gras music history, drawing on her memories as a New Orleans native.
The Renaissance Man Who Changed Mardi Gras
Before he became the father of the Carnival doubloon, H. Alvin Sharpe was a sailor, maker, prospector, and poet.
Carnival Couture
Eight Mardi Gras fashion designs inspired by history, pop culture, and even architecture
North Side Skull and Bone Gang: “You Next!”
Bruce Sunpie Barnes, big chief of the North Side Skull and Bone Gang, describes a Mardi Gras Black masking tradition.
The Defiance of New Orleans’s Black Debutante Tradition
The debutante circuit was once the province of whites only, until Black New Orleanians found their own way to hold court.
The Breadth of Carnival Artistry in Nine Photographs
Snapshots of Carnival through photographic history, from Mardi Gras Indian big chiefs to ‘Tit Rex
How to Catch Beads during Mardi Gras (No, Not That Way)
In a charming DIY pamphlet from 1969, one Carnivalgoer gives humorous tips for how to survive and thrive during Mardi Gras.
HNOC Quarterly
Our members-only magazine, full of pretty pictures, interesting articles, and inside info
New Orleans Stories,
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