Percy Viosca was one of Louisiana’s most acclaimed biologists and conservationists. He also was an accomplished photographer, capturing a visual record of the state’s natural resources. Nearly 50 years after his death, Viosca’s photographs – once boxed-up and tucked away on a shelf – are available at the click of a mouse. The Hill Memorial Library at LSU began scanning more than 1,100 Viosca images not long after they were salvaged by Louisiana Sea Grant and the LSU AgCenter Extension. Sea Grant funded the archiving project.

Viosca created the images in this collection to document his work as a biological scientist working for various Louisiana state agencies. As part of his work for the Louisiana Department of Conservation, Viosca documented the Mississippi River flood of 1922 in Louisiana and Mississippi. When he served as Director of the Division of Fisheries, Louisiana Department of Conservation, he photographed the Mississippi River Flood of 1927 in the vicinity of Caernarvon, Louisiana.

His involvement with the Boy Scouts of America led to the creation of a fairly large series of images created in Boy Scout camps in the Istrouma Area Council and the Southeast Louisiana Council. The Camp Wilson subseries includes a number of images in which he had boy scouts build a dam across Sandy Creek to learn the effect such a structure would have on the native fish population.

A very small number of images record aspects of his personal life. This subseries is largely restricted to family trips to Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1925; informal portraits of friends and family; and, unidentified fishermen with their catches.

Hunters

As well as publishing many scientific articles and technical reports, Percy Viosca Jr. frequently gave talks to scientific societies, sportsmen’s groups and garden societies, usually illustrated with his own photographs. He was also active in a number of organizations. He was a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, vice-president of the American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists, president of the Louisiana Academy of Sciences and the New Orleans Botanical Society, and a member of the American Fisheries Society for over 40 years. Although unable to afford the pursuit of a PhD, he was initiated into Phi Beta Kappa at Tulane. The Louisiana Outdoor Writers Association named him “Outstanding Conservationist of the Year” in 1960 but, typically, he was studying shrimp in the gulf and could not be present for the ceremony. Just before his death the following year, he was named by Tulane University as “Biologist of the Year” in recognition of his nearly fifty-year contribution to biology. His work remains influential today.


Funding for this project provided by the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program.
Project Co-Principal Investigators: Gina R. Costello, Digital Services Librarian, LSU Libraries Special Collections and Mark E. Martin,  Processing Archivist, LSU Libraries Special Collections
Graduate Students: Rachel Bergeron, LSU School of Library and Information Sciences and Gerald Chaudron, LSU School of Library and Information Sciences
Project Advisor: Elaine Smyth, Head, LSU Libraries Special Collections

Copyright © 2008 LSU Libraries • This page was updated on Wednesday, 30-April-2008