LOUISIANA STATE MUSEUM HISTORICAL CENTER

Summary of Collections (excluding books)

The Louisiana State Museum Historical Center, housed in the Old United States Mint, opened its doors in January, 1977. In addition to maps and manuscripts, the Center houses sheet music, microfilm, scrapbooks, pamphlets, and newspapers.

The Historical Center is open to researchers Monday and Tuesday 9-12 and 1-4:30, and by appointment Monday through Friday. Please enter the Mint through the courtyard facing the French Market. Contact Sarah-Elizabeth Gundlach at (504) 568-3660 or (800) 568-6968.

The State Museum is grateful to Capital One Bank for the donation of Hibernia Bank furniture for the reading room.

Manuscripts
Maps
Scrapbooks
Sheet Music
Microfilm
Diderot Encyclopedias

Newspapers

Manuscripts

The manuscript collection is divided into two basic groups:

• Louisiana colonial judicial records (300 ln. ft.)
• General manuscript collections (500 ln. ft.)

The Louisiana colonial judicial records houses the records of the French Superior Council (1714-1769) and the Spanish Judiciary (1769-1803). These criminal and civil records, which comprise the heart of the museum’s manuscript collection, are an invaluable source for researching Louisiana’s colonial history. They record the social, political and economic lives of rich and poor, female and male, slave and free, African, Native, European and American colonials.

Although the majority of the cases deal with attempts by creditors to recover unpaid debts, the colonial collection includes many successions. These documents often contain a wealth of biographical information concerning Louisiana’s colonial inhabitants. Estate inventories, records of commercial transactions, correspondence and copies of wills, marriage contracts and baptismal, marriage and burial records may be included in a succession document.

The colonial document collection includes petitions by slaves requesting manumission, applications by merchants for licenses to conduct business, requests by ship captains for absolution from responsibility for cargo lost at sea, and requests by traders for permission to conduct business in Europe, the West Indies and British colonies in North America. During the Spanish period many slaves of Indian ancestry petitioned government authorities for their freedom. These requests, usually granted upon proof of native ancestry, are also a part of the collection.

The general manuscript collections consist of c. 500 ln ft and are dated 1584-present. Included in the colonial period documents are the 1724 Code Noir, signed by Louis XV and promulgated at New Orleans, the proclamation establishing the Superior Council in Louisiana in 1716, the letters of patent to Antoine Crozat in 1712 and the Company of the West in 1717, and the Pierre Joseph Landry Notebook (1769-1843).

Included in the Historical Center collections are many abstracts and translations of colonial documents not housed in the Historical Center, such as the Dispatches of the Spanish Governors of Louisiana (1766-1796, 27 volumes), which include material generated by Antonio Ulloa, Luis de Unzaga, Alexander O’Reilly, Bernardo de Gálvez, Esteban Miró, and François-Louis Hector, Baron de Carondelet as well as the Louisiane Recensements (1706-1741), Passages (1718-1724), and Concessions (1719-1724).

Manuscripts documenting Louisiana’s antebellum economic, social and political history are housed in several collections. Among the most notable are:

• Papers of John McDonogh (1813-1846, 2 ln ft) which include correspondence to McDonogh from Andrew Durnford, a free black Plaquemines Parish planter.
• Nathaniel Cox Papers (1802-1809, 17 items)
• John and Jean Rousseau Collection (1814-1838, 13 items)
• Letters of Frederick and Charles Graff (1852-1856)
• Lewis Henry Webb Diaries (1853, 4 items)
• Beebe Papers (1840-1877, 1 ln ft)
• John Slidell Papers (1822-1918, 3 ln ft)
• Cenas Family Papers (1780-1920, 4.5 ln ft)
• H. M. Hyams Letterbook (1855-1857, 1 item)

Louisiana plantations are documented in the collections:

• Bonaventure Plantation Ledger (1850-1851, 1 item)
• Mavis Grove Plantation Journal (1856-1859, 1 item)
• Sophie [Live Oak] Plantation Papers (1824-1829, 35 items)
• Ross-Stackhouse Papers [Belle Chasse Plantation] (1800-1881, 30 items)
• Valcour Aime Ledgers (c. 1840, 9 items )
• Magnolia Plantation Ledger (1829-1853, 1 item)
• Orange Grove Plantation Ledger (1911-1921, 1 item)
• Clarkfield & Smithfield Plantation Account Book (1893-1894, 1 item)

Twentieth century holdings document a wide variety of subjects.

• The Grace Chamberlain Papers (1850-1918, 1.5 ln ft) relate to Louisiana’s Women’s Suffrage movement.
• The Robert S. Maestri Papers (1905-1982, 3 ln ft) document the life of the man who served as New Orleans mayor 1936-1946.
• The Justin Denechaud Papers (c.1912-1915, 7.5 ln ft) document early twentieth century Louisiana agriculture and efforts to lure immigrants to the state.
• The Wren Family Papers (1859-1941, .5 ln ft) concern early twentieth century Louisiana politics.
• The Neil Curran Collection (1962-1988, 15 ln ft) documents late twentieth century political campaigns in the New Orleans area.
• The T. Fonville Winans Collection (1927-1993, 7 ln ft) houses the papers of a noted Louisiana photographer.
• The Anita Pring papers (1892-1909, 1 ln ft) concern the activities of the Audubon Society of Louisiana.

Other twentieth century holdings include:

• The Papers of the Louisiana Engineering Society (1897-1930, 1.5 ln ft) and the Christopher Valley Sr. Papers (1927-1978, 3.5 ln ft) which concern the Elks Krewe of Orleanians.
• Flood control in Louisiana during the early part of the twentieth century is the subject of the George Hebard Maxwell Papers (1894-1940, 9 ln ft), the James Parkerson Kemper Papers (1926-1965, 43 items), the Harry B. Caplan Collection (1927-1929, 7 ln ft), and the Isaac M. Cline Collection (1927, 61 items).

Included in the manuscript collections are several political and other original cartoon art. Artists represented are:

• Keith Temple (1939-1943, 93 items)
• John Chase (1941-1945, 27 items)
• Roy Aymond (1942-1944, 43 items)
• Byron Humphrey (1975-1982, 545 items)
• John Slade (1983-1995, 137 items)
• Wade Welch (1960-1988, 6 ln ft)

Several manuscript collections document war time activities. The Battle of New Orleans is represented by:

• Order Book, Louisiana Militia (1815-1828, 1 item)
• Gaspar Cusachs Gift (1770-1890, .5 ln ft)
• United States Infantry Reports (1814-1815, 29 items)
• Stanley C. Arthur Collection (1800-1907, 8 items)
• Sol Wexler Collection (1815-1830, 13 items)
• Edward M. Boagni Collection (1815, 2 items)

The Albert G. Blanchard Diary (1846-1848, 1 item) concerns the Mexican-American War, while the Spanish American War is represented by the J.S. Kendall Collection (1862-1898, 17 items) and the W. C. Ehlers Collection (1898-1910, 1 ln ft).

Several collections should be consulted by those studying the Civil War era.

• Journal of the Secession Convention of the State of Louisiana (1861, 1 item)
• Brent Collection (1862-1896, 3.5 ln ft)
• George Moss Papers (1854-1868, 1 ln ft)
• William S. Mitchell Papers (1859-1892, 40 items)
• James Currell papers (1864-1865, 14 items)
• George Coppel Papers (1862-1901, 59 items)
• August Delpit Collection (1861-1879, 4 items)
• Duncan F. Kenner Papers (1863-c. 1877, 23 items)
• Florian Octave Cornay Papers (1845-1864, 40 items)
• Mansfield Lovell Collection (1861-1865, 4 items),
• Carroll Family Papers (1800-1880, .5 ln ft)
• Henry Hill Goodell Papers (1851-1900, 31 items)
• Briant Family Papers (1830-1976, 66 items) which house the 1863 diary of a Confederate soldier.
• The Frederick Speed Collection (1863-1866, 6 items) documents the Sultana explosion, an 1865 maritime disaster in which 1,800 passengers were killed near Memphis. The Sultana was carrying liberated federal soldiers formerly imprisoned in Confederate prisons, including Andersonville.

World War I is represented by:

• Jacob Muller Collection (1918, 7 items)
• Ira McCune Collection (1918-1919, 20 items)
• James Daly Collection (1914-1915, 9 items)
• The Leon C. Cahn Collection (1937-1952, 54 items) documents the activities of a U.S. Coastguard Reserve Warrant Officer during World War II.

Those wishing to study medical history should consult the :

• Charity Hospital Papers (1811-1912, 1 ln ft)
• New Orleans Lazaretto Warrants (1818, .5 ln ft)
• Henry W. Sawtell Letterbook (1896-1898, 1 item)
• Stanley Stein/Sidney Leveyson Collection (1928-1990, .5 ln ft).

Maps

The Louisiana State Museum’s cartographic holdings are dated 1525-present and contain c. 1, 400 original maps. An additional c. 600 pieces are non-original works such as photostatic and photographic reproduction maps. The museum’s cartographic collection contains many valuable maps concerning the exploration and settlement of Louisiana during the colonial period as well as maps delineating Louisiana and her cities and towns after the Purchase, from 1803 to the present time. Other maps depict the Mississippi River, other Louisiana waterways, the Gulf of Mexico, the circum-Caribbean region, other states and cities, as well as parts of Canada, South America, Europe, and Africa. Several maps concern the Battle of New Orleans and the Civil War.

The Helen and Solis Seiferth Collection of 159 maps (1541-1878) and five atlases (1709-1848) comprises the cornerstone of the museum’s cartographic collection. Housing maps by such noted cartographers as:

The majority of the maps in this collection are dated 1650-1800. Included are four woodblock prints from the 1541 Venice edition of Claudius Ptolemy’s Geographica first drawn c. 151 a.d. Many Bleau family--Willem, Joan [John] and Cornelius--maps are also a part of the collection. These well-known Dutch cartographers produced some of the most beautifully decorated maps of the seventeenth century.

Also noteworthy is Jean Baptiste Nolin’s 1700 map of the world assembled and hand colored by Nicholas Bocquet. Decorated with biblical scenes surrounding the hemispheres, the map contains information concerning the voyages of several early explorers and was the center of a plagiarism controversy when first published. The collection houses Jean B. Lattre’s "Carte des Etats-Unis de Amerique," published in 1784 and dedicated to Benjamin Franklin, then United States ambassador to France. It was the first French map of the United States. One of the most important maps in the Seiferth collection is Guillaume de L’Isle’s 1718 "Carte de la Louisiane," printed in two editions. The Seiferth copy is a first edition print which does not locate New Orleans, established by Bienville in spring 1718. Once the French cartographer was advised of the newly-founded settlement (possibly fall 1718 or spring 1719) he altered the copperplate and continued printing this map. The museum’s collection houses two copies of this altered version which includes what became known as the Crescent City.

Other cartographers represented in the museums’s map collection are:

Scrapbooks

There are almost 200 scrapbooks in the collection. They are divided into two groups:

• those compiled by individuals (1852-1956)
• those compiled by the WPA (c. 1920-1940)

The WPA scrapbooks are (mostly) compilations of newspaper clippings pasted into large bound volumes titled:

• "Rivers, Harbors and Levees,"
• "Schools, Colleges, and Institutions"
• "Southern Industries"
• "Homes Gardens, and Buildings"
• "Sports," "Hobbies"
• "Interior Decorating"
• "Art, Music, and Theatre"
• "Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy"
• "Centennial of the Louisiana Purchase"
• "Charles Lindbergh"
• "Huey P. Long"

The scrapbooks compiled by individuals are further subdivided:

• those pieces documenting a specific collecting interest
• memorabilia collected throughout the maker’s life or a specific span of time therein;
• paper ephemera

Specific Collecting Interest scrapbooks include such topic as:

• New Orleans Cotton Exchange 75th Anniversary (1945-1946)
• New Orleans Grand Opera Association (1936-1956)
• Civil War (1864)
• Spanish American War (1898)
• The Sugar Industry (1906-1909)
• New Orleans Pelicans (1935-1937)
• New Orleans Theatre (1896-1928)
• New Orleans politics (1852-1928)

Individual memorabilia scrapbooks include:

• The Claudia Sherman Scrapbook (1904)
• The Mrs. Charles Lestart Scrapbook (1894-1942)
• Several school girl memorabilia scrapbooks (1875-1937)

Collection of six scrapbooks (1873-1892, unidentified maker, probably Joseph Jones, M.D.) documenting:

• yellow fever
• Board of Sanitation
• health

Walter Parker Scrapbook collection, 49 volumes (1904-1942) document:

• Progressive Union
• Louisiana commerce, industry, agriculture
• flood control
• Louisiana waterways
• immigration
• 1915 hurricane
• 1905 yellow fever epidemic

Paper ephemera scrapbooks are representy by the:

• Rose C. and Helen A. Ryan scrapbook collection, 5 volumes (1890-1913)

Sheet Music

Approximately 4,500 pieces of (non-Jazz) sheet music dated 1829-1958, are housed at the Historical Center. The collection is comprised of nineteenth and early twentieth century parlor music, opera, New Orleans imprints, and genre music.

Several Louisiana women composers and lyricists as well as Louis M. Gottschalk, Theodore von la Hache, August Davis, and African American Louisiana composers Basile Bares and Edmond Dédé are represented. Additionally, many Louisiana historical events, people, and places are the subject of pieces in this collection and are illustrated on the cover. For example, the collection houses several Mardi Gras pieces, as well as pieces concerning:

The collection includes a copy of the Silverspoons (General Benjamin F. Butler) Schottisch, as well as two pieces associated with Louisiana governors: "Every Man a King," (Huey P. Long), and "You Are My Sunshine," (Jimmie Davis). One of the most important pieces is titled "Jim Crow," and dated 1832.