These resource sets provide teachers and students with direct access to primary sources from THNOC’s holdings. The items listed in these documents have been fully digitized and are accessible online for educational purposes. Our hope is that teachers can use these resource sets in planning their lessons, as the basis of in-class activities, and as guidelines for student writing assignments. For students, this series can serve as an entry point into archival research and as a reference guide for research projects.
Click on the titles below to view the resource sets.
Although he held office for less than two decades, it would be difficult to identify a figure in Louisiana’s political history who combined popular appeal and national impact more powerfully than Huey Pierce Long Jr. (1893–1935). Widely known as the Kingfish, he is remembered today as the protagonist in a series of colorful anecdotes, a manipulative and crafty politician, and the victim of a shooting, in the Louisiana State Capitol Building, that still engenders speculation. His sympathy for the common man and disdain for powerful interests, coupled with peerless political instincts, allowed him to actualize populist and progressive ideals spouted but never attained by his predecessors. Long’s legacy continues to color state politics down to the present day— inviting assessments by pundits and politicos that, invariably, say more about the viewer’s perspective than they do about the complexities of the man himself.
From the colonial period and into statehood, slavery was a ubiquitous element of everyday life in New Orleans and Louisiana—affecting all parts of the local community, economy, and culture. The official end of the international slave trade, marked by the signing into law of An Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves on the second day of March 1807, dramatically altered the way slaves were bought and sold in the United States of America. In New Orleans, the change meant an increase in sales of slaves brought to the city from the Upper South, and eventually the establishment of the city as a primary hub of the domestic slave trade.
Reconstruction was a time of change and unrest in the American South. This is particularly true for New Orleans. The city had been occupied near the start of the Civil War—in 1862—so the Reconstruction experience in New Orleans differed from that in other southern cities. New Orleans remained largely untouched and was renamed the capital of Louisiana in 1864. The Reconstruction era in New Orleans started around 1865—although some argue it started as early as 1862 when the city was first captured by Union troops—and lasted until 1877 when federal troops left the city. This was a time of great strides for African Americans, but also of great unrest. The following items from The Historic New Orleans Collection are emblematic of important moments during Reconstruction in New Orleans.