Featured Stories
La Village des Chapitoulas
New Orleans is an Indian town. When Frenchmen and Africans arrived in the bend of the Mississippi that would eventually be re-named New Orleans, they encountered a place that had been home to Native Americans for hundreds of years.
We know from…
Carville, The National Leprosarium: Patient Life
In 1940, the patient population was between 400 and 450 and a massive renovation was underway. The improved hospital created individual rooms for 450 patients and the 13” thick concrete walls made the buildings as fireproof as possible. Fire was…
The Levee: Gateway to Uncertainty
During the mid-1800’s ships tightly packed the port of New Orleans, according to historian Walter Johnson, “one could walk deck to deck from one end of the city to the other.” All along the docks, ships unloaded and loaded cargo daily. New Orleans…
Recent Stories
Aimée Potens Residence
Aimée Potens was the mother of Louis Charles and Jean Baptiste Roudanez, the founder and publisher of L’Union, the South’s first black newspaper, and the New Orleans Tribune, America’s first black daily newspaper. She was born to an enslaved woman…
Economy Hall
Soon after Union forces seized New Orleans from the Confederacy in 1862, calls for equality reverberated among free people of color. Hundreds assembled at frequent mass meetings and rallies at Economy Hall in the heart of Faubourg Tremé. There,…
Residence of Jean Baptiste Roudanez
Jean Baptiste Roudanez (1815-1895), a free man of color, served as publisher of L’Union, the South’s first black newspaper, and the New Orleans Tribune, America’s first black daily newspaper. Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, the Tribune’s founder, was…
Tombs of Jean Baptiste Roudanez and his mother Aimée Potens
Jean Baptiste Roudanez, publisher of L’Union, the South’s first black newspaper, and the New Orleans Tribune, America’s first black daily newspaper, is entombed alongside his mother Aimée Potens, a free woman of color, in Square 3 of St. Louis…
Tomb of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez
Faubourg Tremé is home to the oldest existing cemetery in the City of New Orleans, St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez, founder of the New Orleans Tribune, America’s first black daily newspaper, is entombed in the Roudanez family…
Residence and Medical Practice of Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez and Family
Like many free people of color in New Orleans, Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez was wealthy, grew up with the French language, attended Catholic Church, and received much of his education in Paris. Roudanez’s parents were racially mixed refugees from the…
Featured Tours
Shadow Steeds of the Crescent City
10 Locations ~ Curated by Lacar Musgrove, University of New OrleansLakefront Airport
6 Locations ~ Curated by Teresa ThessenUpstairs Lounge Fire
5 Locations ~ Curated by University of New Orleans History Department55 in '58: Integrating the University of New Orleans
7 Locations ~ Curated by Becky RetzCarville: The National Leprosarium
9 Locations ~ Curated by Elizabeth Schexnyder, Curator, National Hansen's Disease MuseumNew Orleans Historical
A project by University of New Orleans and Tulane UniversityNew Orleans Historical is a web and mobile platform for sharing stories & scholarship about New Orleans and the surrounding area. A project of the Midlo Center for New Orleans Studies at the University of New Orleans and the Communication Department of Tulane University, New Orleans Historical is a free app available on your Android or iPhone smartphone or tablet as well as on the web. Read more About Us