Lugger Culture: Vernacular Oyster Vessels of Coastal Louisiana
A century ago, distinctive vernacular boats traversed the waterways in and around New Orleans, even sailing up to the rear of the French Quarter. Known as luggers, their crews brought oysters and other wild foods to public markets—and coastal culture to the metropolis. Tulane geographer Richard Campanella investigates “lugger culture” in this article from Louisiana…
Pleasure Atlas: New Orleans
Making space for—and money from—pleasure in New Orleans is as old as the city itself. By Tulane geographer Richard Campanella, courtesy LA+ Interdisciplinary Journal of Landscape Architecture a Pleasure Atlas of New Orleans (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months, AAG’s “Focus on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,” will feature a series of…
Confederate Monument Controversy in New Orleans
Across the South and beyond, cities are debating the fate of their Confederate monuments. In New Orleans, the May 2017 removal of the Robert E. Lee monument in Lee Circle, the large round-about on St. Charles Avenue, was the culmination of over two years of public and political drama, driven primarily by Mayor Landrieu’s 2015…
How Do You Fence a Cloud? Tracking Bourbon Street’s Pedestrian Parade
A recent spate of shootings on Bourbon Street precipitated a citywide debate on how best to patrol and secure the rollicking strip. This article, courtesy The Times-Picayune, draws upon Tulane geographer Richard Campanella’s research into the spatial dynamics of the nightly Bourbon Street pedestrian parade (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months,…
Shotgun Geography
It’s New Orleans’ most ubiquitous house type, and its sobriquet is as intriguing as its geometry is simple. Where did this vernacular architecture come from, and how and where did it diffuse—or was it invented locally? Tulane geographer Richard Campanella synthesizes some of the cultural geography and anthropology research on the shotgun house, courtesy The Times-Picayune…
Commemorating the Enslaved Along Louisiana’s River Road
Members of the NSF research team visit the River Road African American Museum in Donaldsonville, Louisiana in June of 2013. (Photo by Amy Potter) Between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, lies the remnants of antebellum sugar plantations along Louisiana’s famed River Road, named for the Mississippi River that snakes its way through southern Louisiana before spilling…
The Accidental Forest
Sometimes urbanization misses a spot. Join Tulane geographer Richard Campanella in exploring a relict patch of New Orleans once-vast, now-drained backswamp, today an emerald Eden without a name, surrounded by a million people. Courtesy The Times-Picayune (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months, AAG’s “Focus on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,”…
Culture Wars, Ethnic Rivalry, and New Orleans’ Messy Municipality Era
An ill-fated attempt to resolve social problems through political geography—and by exploiting ethnic geography—is explained by Tulane geographer Richard Campanella in "Culture Wars, Ethnic Rivalry, and New Orleans' Messy Municipality Era," courtesy The Times-Picayune (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months, AAG’s “Focus on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,” will feature a series…
Dining with Cajuns and Creoles
The foods of New Orleans are an expression of south Louisiana's history, culture, and wetlands. Influences upon the area's traditional cuisine are much like using recipes gathered at a crossroads of European, Caribbean, and Acadian culinary customs at interplay with local ideas and available ingredients. Understanding menus means knowing terms like — roux, remoulade, and…
Like Geological Strata, Layers of Urban History Underlie Bourbon Street’s Pavement
A recent public works project on Bourbon Street unearthed centuries’ worth of infrastructure and urbanization, not to mention layers of Mississippi River sediment. This article, by Tulane geographer Richard Campanella courtesy The Times-Picayune, recounts the various street conditions and improvements in New Orleans over the past 300 years (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the…
An Ethnic Geography of New Orleans
This Journal of American History article by Tulane geographer Richard Campanella maps and spatially analyzes the residential settlement patterns of various ethnic and racial groups in New Orleans, from antebellum times to post-Katrina. New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months, AAG’s “Focus on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast,” will feature a series…
The Evolution of Creole Architecture
New Orleans’ earliest structures, and some of its most distinctive extant buildings, are described as being “Creole.” What does Creole architecture mean, where did this design thinking come from, and how did it evolve? Tulane geographer Richard Campanella reviews the evidence, courtesy The Times-Picayune (PDF). New Orleans: Place Portraits — Over the next nine months, AAG’s…