Agency, Consolidation, and Consequence: Evaluating Social and Political Change in New Orleans, 1868-1900

Abstract

In the last twenty years, recent scholarship has opened up fresh inquiry into several aspects of New Orleans society during the late nineteenth century. Much work has been done to reassess the political and cultural involvement, as well as perspective of, the black Creoles of the city; the successful reordering of society under the direction of the Anglo-Protestant elite; and the evolution of New Orleans's social conditions and cultural institutions during the period initiating Jim Crow segregation. Further exploration, however, is necessary to make connections between each of these avenues of study. This thesis relies on a variety of secondary sources, primary legal documents, and contemporary newspaper articles and publications, to provide connections between the above topics, giving each greater context and allowing for the exploration of several themes. These include the direction of black Creole public ambition after the end of that community's last civil rights crusade, the effects of Democratic Party strategy and the Lost Cause of the Confederacy movement on younger generations of white residents, and the effects of changing social expectations and increasing segregation on the city's diverse ethnic immigrant community. In doing so, this thesis will contribute to enhancing the current understanding of New Orleans's complex and changing social order, as well as provide future researchers with a broad based work which will effectively introduce the exploration of a variety of key topics and serve as a bridge to connect them with specific lines of inquiry while highlighting the above themes in order to make new connections between various facets of the city's troubled racial history.ii Contents