Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007 - (Page 6)

American Association of State and Local History confers two awards on LEH-funded projects Two LEH-sponsored projects recently received prestigious awards from the American Association for State and Local History: • Reconstructing Creole, a documentary film by Jennifer John Block, traces the life of a 19th-century Creole matriarch, Laura Locoul Gore, and the recent restoration of her River Road plantation home. In 2004, fire stripped the Laura Plantation manor in Vacherie, Louisiana naked to its beams, bricks and plaster. A young team of builders attempted to save the unusual timber-frame design — a blend of African, French and Native-American building styles. In the film, as preservationists undertake a successful two-year restoration, the memoir of Laura Locoul Gore reveals a long-gone world of slavery and society balls, of cruelty, love and joie de vivre. Her home and her life exemplify how and why Louisiana culture is different from the rest of America. The film also won the Best Documentary Fea- ture Award at the Hollywood HD/DV Festival in April 2007. For more information, log on to: www.getfreshmedia.com • The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank uses electronic media to collect, preserve, and present the stories and digital record of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. George Mason University’s Center for History and New Media and the University of New Orleans, in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History and other partners, organized this project. The Hurricane Digital Memory Bank contributes to the ongoing effort by historians and archivists to preserve the record of these storms by collecting first-hand accounts, on-scene images, blog postings, and podcasts. Project organizers hope to foster positive legacies by allowing people affected by these storms to tell their stories in their own words, which as part of the historical record will remain accessible to a wide audience for generations to come. For more information, or to contribute a story, log on to: www.hurricanearchive.org Pennington Foundation awards two grants to LEH The LEH is proud to announce that it has received two $25,000 grants from the Irene W. and C.B. Pennington Foundation of Baton Rouge. One is to support the LEH’s Louisiana Humanities Education Center Capital Campaign while the other is to expand Prime Time Family Reading Time programming in the Baton Rouge area. According to LEH President and Executive Director Dr. Michael Sartisky, “The Pennington Foundation support is especially heartening as it is sometimes difficult to convince non-New Orleans based donors and foundations that an investment in the Center is an investment in Louisiana and not just New Orleans.” Evidence of that truth could not be more apparent. In the last weekend of July, more than 80 literacy professionals from around Louisiana participated in a two-day Prime Time training in the Center and two days later, administrators and staff from several small museums from around the statel participated in a two day workshop on the LEH/Smithsonian Museum on Main Street Program. And yet, the Center is not yet completely finished. Dr. Sartisky added: “In supporting an expansion of Prime Time Family Reading Time in Baton Rouge, the Pennington Foundation is investing in the future. There is no surer way to break the poverty cycle than to break the cycle of intergenerational illiteracy. Prime Time has shown itself very effective in families where parents possess limited reading skills and the people at the Pennington Foundation realize just how important that is.” For more information on the Pennington Foundation, log on to: www.penningtonfamilyfoundation.org PAINTING BY JIM BLANCHARD State increases support to LEH Thanks to Governor Kathleen Blanco and a group of key state legislators, the LEH will receive an additional $200,000 from the state for the 2007-08 fiscal year. The additional funds will allow the LEH to create, among other programs, an ambitious and state-of-the-art Internet-based Encyclopedia of Louisiana Culture and History. To create the encyclopedia, now in the research and development phase, the LEH will partner with archives, universities and cultural organizations across Louisiana. Increased funding for the LEH received wide support during the recent legislative session. Representative Elcie Guillory of Lake Charles authored the amendment to increase LEH funds. Co-authoring the bill were Representatives Dan Morrish of Jennings and Jalila JeffersonBullock of New Orleans. House Appropriations Committee Chairman John Alario Jr. also supported Guillory's amendment. In the Senate, Senator Butch Gautreaux of Morgan City authored the funding increase with co-sponsors Senators Diana Bajoie of New Orleans, Sherri Cheek of Keithville, and Lydia Jackson of Shreveport, all members of the Senate Finance Committee. Senator Willie Mount of Lake Charles, Chair of the Senate Revenue and Fiscal Affairs Committee, also co-sponsored the amendment. 6 http://www.leh.org http://www.getfreshmedia.com http://www.hurricanearchive.org http://www.penningtonfamilyfoundation.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

Contents Friends & Letters Editor’s Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Big Charity: A History of New Orleans’ Public Hospital Historic New Orleans Collection Making Groceries: A History of New Orleans Markets New Orleans’ Faubourg Tremé: Rooted in Tradition Jazz Notes Louisiana Association of Museums Chinatown New Orleans Louisiana Foodways A Question of Secession Louisiana Architecture Louisiana State Museum The Unnatural History of Cypress Parish Terra Incognita Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Fall 2007

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