First Draft - Local Life

April 9, 2020
By Nick Weldon, associate editor

Our staff members are often the ones studying major historic events, but sometimes we live through them. This is the story of our Associate Editor Nick Weldon who came down with COVID-19 at the height of the global pandemic.




March 27, 2020
By John Magill, retired curator

As New Orleans reels under the global outbreak of the new coronavirus, lessons from a 100-year-old pandemic have come back with a new urgency.




February 14, 2020
By Lydia Blackmore, decorative arts curator

Mardi Gras as we know it began in New Orleans in the second half of the 19th century, and the mythology that krewes chose for their parade themes reflects larger stylistic and sociopolitical currents of the time.




December 30, 2019
By Eli A. Haddow, marketing associate

In 1997, a THNOC employee found a bullet in a courtyard that was fired into the air on New Year's Eve. The discovery came during a particularly fraught time in the history of New Year's celebrations in New Orleans.




December 9, 2019
By Eli A. Haddow, marketing associate

Though a local school is named for him, Isidore Newman's cultural contributions to New Orleans are much further reaching.




October 25, 2019
By Dylan Jordan, interpretation assistant

A pair of gruesome murders in the French Quarter, remembered as the “New Orleans Trunk Murders,” was one of the most violent crimes in 1920s New Orleans.




October 18, 2019
By Lissa Capo

New Orleans actor Sid Noel stepped into one of the most iconic local television roles when he created the mad scientist known as Morgus the Magnificent.




October 11, 2019
By Eli A. Haddow, marketing associate

In honor of THNOC's 2019 culinary symposium "Uncorked: A History of Wine in New Orleans," we're breaking out an old recipe from Lafcadio Hearn for Wine Jelly.




September 13, 2019
By Nick Weldon, associate editor

In 1935, fried chicken history was made—not with a clever tweet or a sandwich war, but with one man, one bird, and a timer. That year, James “Buck” Fulford set a record when he killed, plucked, cooked, and ate a chicken all in one minute and 50 seconds. 




August 2, 2019
By Lydia Blackmore, decorative arts curator

Calvin Dayes made shoes fit for a king, but more importantly, he made shoes fit for those who most needed them. Regardless of the reason or the occasion for his specialty shoes, each finished piece featured a truly unique label: “By the JiveAss Shoemaker.”






 

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