Sister Gertrude Morgan

2018 ◽  
pp. 235-256
Author(s):  
Jason Berry
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Melting Pot ◽  
Civic Leaders ◽  
French Quarter ◽  
Gay Community ◽  
Gay Bars ◽  
The City ◽  
Art Dealer ◽  
Diverse Cultures

By the 1930s, civic leaders were promoting New Orleans as a tourist destination while the city lurched toward bankruptcy. As the city continued to develop through the 20th century, it became a melting pot of diverse cultures and a mecca for bohemians and LGBTQ people. Gay bars prospered in the French Quarter, and jazz clubs hired integrated bands. Sister Gertrude Morgan was a self-appointed missionary and preacher, Bride of Christ, artist, musician, poet, and writer of profound religious faith. After a revelation in 1934, she decided to travel to New Orleans to evangelize. In the late 1950s, she began singing on French Quarter corners, playing the guitar and tambourine, and selling her paintings. Her work caught the attention of art dealer Larry Borenstein, who helped launch her career as an artist. Borenstein came from a family of Russian Jews in Milwaukee. He worked in a wide variety of jobs in his youth, eventually settling in New Orleans and expanding into real estate and art dealership. He made friends with members of the gay community, artists, and musicians, and helped found the Preservation Hall jazz club.

After the Deluge: The Post-Katrina Cultural Revival of New Orleans

2010 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 483-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
HELEN TAYLOR
Keyword(s):  
Oral History ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Visual Arts ◽  
Crescent City ◽  
Cultural Revival ◽  
Oil Companies ◽  
Postcolonial History ◽  
Music Film ◽  
The City ◽  
Diverse Cultures

This article argues that voices of doom, predicting the demise of Crescent City, have been drowned out by an optimistic and energetic movement both within and outside New Orleans to bring everyone home, and to revive and renew the city, especially through a showcasing of its diverse cultures. New Orleans's history is one of destruction and rebuilding, climatic disaster and haphazard reconstruction. The dramatic disappearance of the wetlands and urban hinterland, caused by climate change and ecological damage brought about by construction and oil companies, makes New Orleans's physical and demographic future questionable and controversial. But there is strong commitment by its citizens and internationally celebrated musicians to keep the city alive, and the global reputation and power of its music have attracted powerful advocates and cheerleaders. Music, film, television programmes, the visual arts, literature and many forms of published testimony and oral history have reminded the world of this city's unique multicultural postcolonial history, drawing back tourists and visitors to celebrate one of America's most extraordinary melting pots.

scholarly journals In the heart of the city: Trypanosoma cruzi infection prevalence in rodents across New Orleans

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruno M. Ghersi ◽  
Anna C. Peterson ◽  
Nathaniel L. Gibson ◽  
Asha Dash ◽  
Ardem Elmayan ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Trypanosoma Cruzi ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
Host Species ◽  
Baton Rouge ◽  
Disease Risk ◽  
Infection Prevalence ◽  
French Quarter ◽  
The City ◽  
Norway Rats ◽  
Trapping Sites

Abstract Background Trypanosoma cruzi - the causative agent of Chagas disease - is known to circulate in commensal pests, but its occurrence in urban environments is not well understood. We addressed this deficit by determining the distribution and prevalence of T. cruzi infection in urban populations of commensal and wild rodents across New Orleans (Louisiana, USA). We assessed whether T. cruzi prevalence varies according to host species identity and species co-occurrences, and whether T. cruzi prevalence varies across mosaics of abandonment that shape urban rodent demography and assemblage structure in the city. Methods Leveraging city-wide population and assemblage surveys, we tested 1428 rodents comprising 5 species (cotton rats, house mice, Norway rats, rice rats and roof rats) captured at 98 trapping sites in 11 study areas across New Orleans including nine residential neighborhoods and a natural area in Orleans Parish and a neighborhood in St. Bernard Parish. We also assayed Norway rats at one site in Baton Rouge (Louisiana, USA). We used chi-square tests to determine whether infection prevalence differed among host species, among study areas, and among trapping sites according to the number of host species present. We used generalized linear mixed models to identify predictors of T. cruzi infection for all rodents and each host species, respectively. Results We detected T. cruzi in all host species in all study areas in New Orleans, but not in Baton Rouge. Though overall infection prevalence was 11%, it varied by study area and trapping site. There was no difference in prevalence by species, but roof rats exhibited the broadest geographical distribution of infection across the city. Infected rodents were trapped in densely populated neighborhoods like the French Quarter. Infection prevalence seasonally varied with abandonment, increasing with greater abandonment during the summer and declining with greater abandonment during the winter. Conclusions Our findings illustrate that T. cruzi can be widespread in urban landscapes, suggesting that transmission and disease risk is greater than is currently recognized. Our findings also suggest that there is disproportionate risk of transmission in historically underserved communities, which could reinforce long-standing socioecological disparities in New Orleans and elsewhere.

The Resilient City

2005 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Los Angeles ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
World Trade Center ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Oklahoma City Bombing ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Ancient City ◽  
Trade Center ◽  
The City

In 1871, the city of Chicago was almost entirely destroyed by what became known as The Great Fire. Thirty-five years later, San Francisco lay in smoldering ruins after the catastrophic earthquake of 1906. Or consider the case of the Jerusalem, the greatest site of physical destruction and renewal in history, which, over three millennia, has suffered wars, earthquakes, fires, twenty sieges, eighteen reconstructions, and at least eleven transitions from one religious faith to another. Yet this ancient city has regenerated itself time and again, and still endures. Throughout history, cities have been sacked, burned, torched, bombed, flooded, besieged, and leveled. And yet they almost always rise from the ashes to rebuild. Viewing a wide array of urban disasters in global historical perspective, The Resilient City traces the aftermath of such cataclysms as: --the British invasion of Washington in 1814 --the devastation wrought on Berlin, Warsaw, and Tokyo during World War II --the late-20th century earthquakes that shattered Mexico City and the Chinese city of Tangshan --Los Angeles after the 1992 riots --the Oklahoma City bombing --the destruction of the World Trade Center Revealing how traumatized city-dwellers consistently develop narratives of resilience and how the pragmatic process of urban recovery is always fueled by highly symbolic actions, The Resilient City offers a deeply informative and unsentimental tribute to the dogged persistence of the city, and indeed of the human spirit.

Dreaming New Orleans

2021 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-39
Author(s):  
Joseph Roach
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Streetcar Named Desire ◽  
A Streetcar Named Desire ◽  
The City

Having passed the tercentenary of the “Mississippi Bubble” of 1720, the financial fiasco that accompanied the founding of New Orleans, the city continues to risk everything by gambling on the collateral of its dreams. Like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, “The City that Care Forgot” is playing out a mortgage melodrama under constant threat of dispossession, dreading the last stop on an itinerary that begins with Desire, changes at Cemeteries, and dead ends in Elysian Fields.

Bricks in the Making of Race and Place: Excavating a Lieu de Souvenir in New Orleans

2020 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-32
Author(s):  
Angel Adams Parham
Keyword(s):  
New Orleans ◽  
Social Relationships ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
The Past ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
The City ◽  
Race And Place

This essay facilitates a multi-dimensional immersion into the life and rhythms of New Orleans, an entrée to the past that equips us to better understand the present and, from there, critically and creatively to envision our possible futures together. We explore the Faubourg Tremé by traversing layers of its lieux de souvenir - places of remembering, a concept inspired by but distinct from Pierre Nora’s lieux de mémoire - across three time periods. Each lieu de souvenir we visit from 1720 to the present will highlight material and symbolic foundations in Tremé that help us to understand key aspects of New Orleans’s past and present. The object that will guide our travel and meditation through each layer is the lowly but highly serviceable brick. At a purely material level, bricks are the literal building blocks of the city. Roads were paved with them and homes and other buildings were constructed with bricks as well. And at a symbolic level, bricks carry multiple rich and complex significations: Who makes them? How does their manufacturing shape the lives of the laborers who create them? Who buys them, and who profits from their sale? Tracing the brick and its uses throughout each lieu de souvenir sheds light on key social relationships, inequalities, and cultural practices that form the foundation of New Orleans’s past and present.

The St. Joan of Arc Parade, Gender, and Pride of Place

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-54
Author(s):  
Robin Roberts ◽  
Frank de Caro
Keyword(s):  
European History ◽  
Joan Of Arc ◽  
Twelfth Night ◽  
French Quarter ◽  
History Of ◽  
Female Icon ◽  
The City

This chapter explores the history of the Joan of Arc parade, a women’s enterprise that celebrates the birthday of the famous saint, which happens to fall upon January 6th, Twelfth Night, the traditional commencement of the Carnival season. The parade runs through the French Quarter, concluding at the gilded Joan of Arc statue on Decatur Street (Joanie on a pony). The chapter looks at the feminist aspect of the group, which celebrates this female icon, a woman who spoke truth to power and actively fought against it. The parade also is significant for drawing upon European history in a way that underscores the French heritage of the city.

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