Poverty Point, Louisiana

The Riches of Poverty Point

Earthworks built around 3,700 years ago in Louisiana centered an exchange system that stretched up the Mississippi and into the Ohio and Tennessee Valleys.
Postcard panorama of "Rex" parade on Canal Street, New Orleans Mardi Gras, 1904, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RexPanorama04B.jpg

Why is New Orleans a City of Parades?

New Orleans’ ethnic diversity and lack of public welfare programs contributed to a culture of mutual aid organizations—and huge, festive parades.
Creole in a Red Turban by Jacques Aman

The Free People of Color of Pre-Civil War New Orleans

Before American concepts of race took hold in the newly-acquired Louisiana, early 19th-century New Orleans had large population of free people of color.
Portrait of Meriwether Lewis by Charles Willlson Peale

The Mysterious Death of Meriwether Lewis

After triumphantly leading the Lewis and Clark expedition, Meriwether Lewis was either murdered or committed suicide. Did syphilis play a role?
Natchitoches meat pies

How Delicious Meat Pies Put Natchitoches on the Map

The Natchitoches meat pie, a crimped half moon hiding a pocket of spiced meat, exemplifies “culinary place making."
Unite the Right flags

White Supremacists and the Rhetoric of “Tyranny”

White supremacists have declared themselves in danger of losing essential rights. It's the kind of argument racists have been making for a long time.
Katrina flooded New Orleans

Has Louisiana Changed, Post-Katrina?

Eleven years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the city and some of its citizens remain in precarious recovery.
Aerial view of the Gulf of Mexico

Our Oceans Are Suffocating

The oceans can’t catch a break. To rising temperatures and acidification caused by rising CO2 emissions, add oxygen deprivation .
Louisiana Purchase

The Politics of the Louisiana Purchase

In a treaty signed in Paris on April 30, France swapped 828,000 square miles of North America to the U.S. for $15 million.