Williams Research Center
RESEARCH SUBJECTS AND COLLECTIONS AT THE WILLIAMS RESEARCH CENTER
The Williams Research Center (WRC) offers scholars access to extensive collections related to the Gulf South, particularly New Orleans and Louisiana. The WRC's professional curators, librarians, archivists, and reference assistants can connect researchers to our extensive holdings: over 30,000 library items, including books, pamphlets, sheet music, printed broadsides, theatre programs, and periodicals; more than two linear miles of documents and manuscripts; and approximately 350,000 photographs, prints, drawings, and paintings. The Collection regularly adds to its research collections through purchase and tax-deductible donation.
The major research fields are: colonial Louisiana, the Louisiana Purchase, the Battle of New Orleans, the Civil War, Mississippi River life, cartography, transportation, plantations, urban development, Louisiana artists and writers, architecture, French Quarter, early New Orleans jazz, historic preservation, and Mardi Gras. The collections reflect aspects of history and culture of the Gulf South, Louisiana, and New Orleans. Research Guides are available upon request.
SELECTED MATERIALS AND COLLECTIONS
Maps from the 16th century through the 20th century
Clarence John Laughlin photographs
Commercial photographs by Charles L. Franck, Stuart M. Lynn, Sam R. Sutton,
and Daniel S. Leyrer
Pre-Civil War photographs by J. D. Edwards
Michael A. Smith photographs of New Orleans in the 1980s
Eugene Delcroix photographs
Alfred R. Waud drawings
Josephine Crawford paintings and drawings
Morris Henry Hobbs etchings and drawings
Jules Lion lithographs
Charles Reinike watercolors
Designs of Mardi Gras costumes and floats (1860s to the present)
Boyd Cruise watercolors
James Gallier, Sr. and Jr., architectural drawings
Vieux Carré Survey
Pierre Clément Laussat Papers
Records of African American troops in Louisiana during the Civil War
Performing arts collection
Sheet music collection
German community records
Survey of Historic New Orleans Cemeteries
Land survey records from the 19th century
Chinese porcelain and 18th- and 19th-century furniture in the Williams Residence
William Russell Jazz Collection
Ursuline Collection
Fred W. Todd Tennessee Williams Collection
William C. Cook War of 1812 in the South Collection
Microforms:
New Orleans City directories
Louisiana records from the U. S. National Archives (NARA)
Louisiana materials from the French National Archives
Louisiana materials from the General Archive of the Indies in Seville, Spain (AGI) and the Cuban National Archives
Sanborn Fire Insurance Maps and other selected atlases
New Orleans newspapers
Historic American Buildings Survey
National Register of Historic Places
Online Guides and Collections:
Battle of New Orleans Pathfinder
Germans in Louisiana Pathfinder
Franck-Bertacci Collection 1956-90 (Photographs from Charles L. Franck Photography Studio mostly of construction and Real Estate but includes portraiture, aerial views and accident scene photography.)
Manuscript Division Update, vols. 1-13
William Russell Jazz Collection (scope and content notes)
