A vintage advertisement featuring J.N.W. Otto Druggist & Apothecary with an illustration of a two-story building. The ad highlights services like chemical patents, drugs, perfumery, and toilet articles, and includes decorative elements and typography.

J. N. W. Otto, Druggist & Apothecary billhead; between 1890 and 1893; by Koeckert & Walle HNOC, 1983.3.14

Research Pathfinder

Germans in Louisiana, Part V

German Businesses in New Orleans

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Germans in Louisiana

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An old map titled Grundriss von Neu-Orleans shows the street layout of New Orleans near the Mississippi River. The map includes numbered and labeled buildings, a legend in German, and distinct blocks with a grid pattern.

Introduction

The economy of New Orleans in the 19th and early 20th centuries clearly benefited from a substantial German contribution. There was a German purveyor for every type of general good or service imaginable, from soap, beer, and groceries, to clothing, shoes. and makeup. Some German businesses catered specifically to the needs of the German community by importing goods that were reminiscent of the Old Country, and were hard or impossible to come by in New Orleans. J. N. W. Otto druggist and apothecary, for example, took care to advertise itself as a “deutsche Apotheke” (German pharmacy), meaning that the ingredients for German homeopathic remedies could be found there in stock. Of the 68 businesses represented in HNOC’s collection of letterheads from 19th century businesses, 35 were German owned. Many Germans were well known in the hotel and restaurant branches, and New Orleanians today still remember Kolb’s Restaurant and the Jung and Grunewald Hotels. Of all businesses, though, Germans held the most impressive share of New Orleans’s music trade. The Werleins, the Grunewalds, and others published sheet music, produced concerts, and sold instruments for all of New Orleans. The section of this pathfinder on music and socializing provides information about HNOC’s holdings related to these music industry businesses.