The LSU Student Union Art Advisory Committee is set to open “A Slice of Life in South Louisiana: 1890-1920” today to give insight into the lives of southern Louisianians at the turn of the 20th century.
Artifacts are represented from four cultural groups: Italian Americans, African-Americans, Native Americans and middle-class New Orleanians. The artifacts range from medicinal tools, musical instruments, labor tools and a coffee grinder from 1880. Guests will have the opportunity to grind coffee to take home with them.
“[The exhibit] shows cultural background of people who lived in South Louisiana,” said Art Gallery Director Judi Stahl.
The exhibit also displays the origin of many peoples’ roots, according to Stahl.
“Everybody wants to know about their background and life during this time period. This shows the roots of where many people began,” Stahl said.
According to graduate curatorial assistant Lexi Guillory, this exhibit stands as a belated tribute to the
Louisiana bicentennial.
“We wanted to show what life was like during a time of change and the urban expansion,” Guillory said.
According to Guillory, the four groups represented in the exhibit were the most prominent and most influential in the South at the turn of the 20th century.
“The Italians were spreading their heritage far and wide; African-Americans are descendants of sharecroppers; the Native Americans were affected by modernization; and New Orleans was the major city of the South,” Guillory said.
The exhibit displays a number of artifacts that are on loan from several public and private Louisiana museums, such as the American Italian Cultural Center, Louisiana State Museum and LSU Libraries Special Collection.
According to Stahl, a must-see lecture will be one given by John Magill, historian and curator of the Historic New Orleans Collection, which will focus on the urban innovations of electricity and a sewage system that changed New Orleans.
The exhibit is free and open to the public. Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Monday through Friday, and the exhibit will run from April 12 through May 19.
“[The exhibit] shows cultural background of people who lived in South Louisiana.”
Electric Lights and Drains: New Orleans Meets the 20th Century
A lecture by John Magill, Historian and curator of the Historic New Orleans Collection, New Orleans
Thursday, April 18 at 12 p.m.
Feliciana Room, LSU Union
Tabasco Sauce and Rivercane Baskets: How Chitimacha Indians Sought Federal Recognition through Material Culture
A lecture by Dr. Daniel Usner, Professor of History at Vanderbilt University
Wednesday, April 24 at 12 p.m.
Feliciana Room, LSU Union
Italians in Louisiana and a View of Tennessee Williams’ play The Rose Tattoo
A lecture by Dr. Joseph Ricapito, Emeritus Professor of Foreign Language and Literature at LSU
Tuesday, April 23 at 12 p.m.
Feliciana Room, LSU Union
