Topic Guides
About
The information below intends to provide historical context to the digitized Louisiana newspapers. The Sample Topic Guides provide search tips and links to sample articles covering Louisiana topics. An Overview of Louisiana Journalism summarizes the general development of the digitized Louisiana newspapers, and is followed by a Selection of Significant Events Reported in the newspapers. Together, this information can assist when browsing and searching the Louisiana newspapers on the Chronicling America website. For more detailed information about individual newspaper titles and their general content, please refer to the “About the Newspapers” page.
Louisiana Topic Guides
Overview of Louisiana Journalism, 1836-1922
Journalism in Louisiana developed slowly and its establishment occurred after the United States purchased the Louisiana Territory. By 1820, newspapers appeared across Louisiana in English, French, and Spanish. During the years leading up to the Civil War, a Pro-Southern, pro-slavery Democratic newspapers far outnumbered Republican viewpoints among the Louisiana press. Many newspapers went out of business between 1861-1865 due to the Civil War, paper shortages, the occupation of New Orleans, and the eventual fall of the Confederacy. Republican newspapers emerged during this period and Democratic newspapers censored themselves for fear of the Union shutting them down. In 1877, Federal troops withdrew from Louisiana and the press witnessed a war of words that targeted both southern Republicans and African-Americans. By the 1880s, emotions waned and other topics such as sports, literature, health, and gossip made their appearance in the newspapers.
Louisiana newspapers drastically altered in layout and content during the first twenty years of the 20th century. The newspapers’ issues presented unique imagery in the form of photographs and cartoons and provided readers with a front row seat to the development of the advertising industry. The Louisiana press gave more attention to the exposure of corrupt politics and business practices and less attention to the social issues of segregation and suffrage. By the 1920s, Louisiana newspapers provided significant international reporting due to World War I as well as Louisiana businessmen venturing into Latin America and the Caribbean.
Selection of Significant Events Reported
Antebellum Period (1830-1859)
1831 - The Pontchartrain Railroad, Louisiana's first railroad and the first west of the Alleghenies, built
1834 - Medical College of Louisiana (now Tulane University) founded
1836 - New Basin Canal is completed
1836 - Texans besieged at the Alamo
1837 - New Orleans Picayune is established
1837 - Shreveport founded
1838 - First Mardi Gras parade held in New Orleans
1838 - St. Charles, a Jesuit institution, opens in Grand Cocteau
1838 - Cherokees forced to walk the "Trail of Tears"
1838 - Henry Miller Shreve removes the Great Raft, a 160-mile logjam that had blocked navigation of the Red River
1840 - Thanks to overwhelming steamboat traffic, New Orleans becomes the second largest port in the U.S.
1840 - Theatre de la Renaissance opens in New Orleans with an all-black cast
1845 - Louisiana Constitution is rewritten
1846 - Mexican-American War begins; New Orleans becomes important staging ground for the U.S. troops
1847 - Construction of the state capitol in Baton Rouge begins
1847 - The Medical College of Louisiana (now Tulane University) becomes the University of Louisiana
1847 - The Feliciana Female Collegiate Institute opens in Jackson
1848 - Zachary Taylor, a Louisiana planter, elected U.S. President
1849 - Baton Rouge becomes the capital city of Louisiana
1850 - Compromise of 1850 passed; Fugitive Slave Act is strengthened
1850 - John McDonogh bequeaths $750,000 to establish public schools in New Orleans and Jefferson Parish
1851 - Jenny Lind performs in New Orleans under the management of P.T. Barnum
1852 - Louisiana Constitution revised again
1852 - Mansfield Female College founded; Silliman Collegiate Institute, a girls school, opens in Jackson
1853 - Yellow fever epidemic kills 11,000 in New Orleans
1854 - Republican party formed
1856 - Hurricane strikes Last Island (Isle Dernière) killing more than 200
1857 - First formal Mardis Gras carnival organizations established
1857 - Emancipation of slaves is prohibited in the state
1857 - Dred Scott Case ruled upon in the U.S. Supreme Court
1858 - Know-Nothings riot in New Orleans
Civil War and Reconstruction (1860-1877)
1860 – Louisiana State Seminary (now Louisiana State University) opens
1861 – Louisiana votes for secession
1862 – New Orleans captured by Union navy; city subjected to military rule
1862 – Confederate troops fail to recapture Baton Rouge
1863 – Siege and surrender of Port Hudson
1864 – Battles of Pleasant Hill and Mansfield
1864 – Slavery abolished in Louisiana
1865 – Confederate state capital briefly located in Shreveport
1866 – Race riots following constitutional convention in New Orleans
1868 – African-Americans granted social and civil rights; Louisiana readmitted to Union
1870 – Steamboats Robert E. Lee and Natchez race from New Orleans to St. Louis
1873 – Rail service from New Orleans to Chicago inaugurated
1873 – Race riot in Colfax, Louisiana, leaves at least 63 African Americans dead
1874 – The White League organized to drive carpetbaggers out of the state
1877 – Federal troops withdrawn from Louisiana, ending Reconstruction
Industrial Development (1878-1900)
1878 – Yellow fever epidemic in New Orleans kills at least 3,800
1879 – State Constitution amended, neutralizing black vote
1879 – Thousands of African Americans leave Louisiana in the “Kansas Fever” exodus
1879 – James Eads’ jetty system at mouth of Mississippi River improves navigation
1880s – Opelousas receives 2,000 orphans from New York via the Orphan Trains
1880 – Southern University, now the largest historically black university in the U.S., opens in New Orleans
1882 – State Capital moves back to Baton Rouge from New Orleans
1883 – Rail service from New Orleans to California inaugurated
1884 – Louisiana State Normal College (now Northwestern State University) founded
1884‐86 – World’s Industrial and Cotton Centennial Exposition held in New Orleans
1887 – Blue Laws passed, closing saloons on Sundays
1890 – Prize fighting legalized
1891 – First “Jim Crow” law passed
1893 – Hurricane kills 2,000 people in Louisiana and Mississippi
1894 – One of only two U.S. hospitals for treatment of leprosy opened in Carville, Louisiana
1895 – Louisiana Lottery, the largest lottery in the United States, outlawed
1896 –Fusion Populist‐Republican gubernatorial ticket, representing north Louisiana dirt farmers and south Louisiana sugar planters, defeated by Bourbons in fraudulent election
1896 –U.S. Supreme Court rules “separate but equal” is constitutional in Plessy v. Ferguson, a case that originated in Louisiana
1897 – New Orleans’ red‐light district, Storyville, formally established
1898 – Poll tax and illiteracy test enacted to disqualify black voters
1898 – Louisiana troops, considered immune to yellow fever, sent to fight in Cuba
Modern Development (1901-1922)
1901 – Southwestern Louisiana Institute (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette) founded
1901 – First oil well in the state is drilled in Jennings, Louisiana
1901 – Fire destroys a large portion of Jennings, Louisiana
1901 – Grambling College (precursor to Grambling State University) opens in Lincoln Parish
1902 – Jelly Roll Morton claims to have invented jazz
1902 – State mental hospital established at Pineville
1904 – Loyola Academy (now Loyola University of New Orleans) founded
1904 – Drainage of swamp around New Orleans begins
1905 – Last yellow fever epidemic
1909 – New locks on the Mississippi open the Atchafalaya Basin (Acadiana) to navigation
1909 – Standard Oil Company builds facility in Baton Rouge
1910 – International aviation tournament held in New Orleans
1912 – Air mail route opened between New Orleans and Baton Rouge
1914 – Southern University moves to Baton Rouge
1915 – Hurricane hits New Orleans
1916 – Natural gas discovered in north Louisiana; State Federation of Labor organized
1919 – French Opera House in New Orleans, symbol of Creole culture, destroyed by fire
1920 – Red Scare destroys Socialist Party in Louisiana
