Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 - (Page 56)

Rice Threshing, Crowley, Louisiana, August 1937 Link hit the ground running — photo essays on the filming of Paramount’s The Buccanneer at Lake Dautrieve near New Iberia, and the LSU’s sorority system’s rush week through the eyes of Kappa Delta’s Julia Wendt were wrapped up by the end of July. In August, Link covered the blessing of the shrimp fleet at Bayou Little Caillou, oil prospecting and shrimping on the Gulf of Mexico, rice harvesting in Crowley, bee insemination in Donaldsonville, and Governor Leche’s party for farmers in Baton Rouge. The next month Link was documenting an alligator hunt at Lake Calcasieu and the Leche’s yacht party for six other governors in New Orleans. Link fell in love with New Orleans — it remained throughout his life one of his favorite spots on the planet. It was here that he teamed up with Vanda Marteal Oglesby. Oglesby, a former Miss Ark-La-Tex from Plain Dealing, Louisiana, whom he met at the shooting of The Buccanneer, “starred” in several of his posed French Quarter scenes. They later married in 1942. Based on Link’s negative numbering system, roughly half of the New Orleans negatives have been stolen or lost since 1937, but those that remain represent a quintessential slice of pre-war French Quarter life. By late summer of 1937, Link’s first tour of duty in Louisiana was complete. He returned the next four Augusts to document a multitude of Louisiana events, often in the company of Ms. Oglesby. But the last one was different — in 1941 he began his long association with the Freeport Sulfur Company (later incorporated as Freeport McMoRan) and that August produced over 150 images of mining and shipping activities in Plaquemines Parish. The Grand Ecaille operation provided the subject matter — sulfur derricks, the relay station, barges in the canal, the purification plant, the mudding process, and exterior and interior shots of the company’s power plant. Employees’ family life in the company town of Port Sulfur was also thoroughly covered. Link remained as a photographer for Byoir until 1942. After leaving the public relations firm, Link put his math and science training to use at the Office of Scientific Research and Development at Columbia University, where he worked on a project to develop non-acoustic anti-submarine warfare sensors — a project made necessary as the German wolf packs were wreaking havoc on Allied shipping in the North Atlantic. After the end of World War II, steam trains — a fascination 56 LOUISIANA ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES\Winter 2008-09

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008 Contents Friends Editor's Column Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Prospect.1 New Orleans The Historic New Orleans Collection The Enduring Performance of Michael P. Smith Jazz Notes Louisiana Foodways Birds of a Feather: Windfowl Carvings in Southeast Louisiana Louisiana Association of Museums Louisiana Architecture O. Winston Link in Louisiana The Ogden Museum of Southern Art The Colfax Massacre Louisiana State Museum Unlocking the History of Greek Key Architecture Bookstand Sound Advice Forum

Louisiana Cultural Vistas - Winter 2008

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