Purple, green, and gold are the
colors of Mardi Gras.

Receptions

The opening reception (Thursday evening) will be at the Historic New Orleans Collection, a museum, historic residence, and research center complex in the French Quarter. SSAers will have the opportunity to view HNOC’s latest exhibit, which celebrates the Bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase, Fusion of Nations, A Fusion of Cultures: Spain, France, the United States, and the Louisiana Purchase. The exhibit focuses on the domestic and international events and personalities that surrounded the purchase.

The Friday night reception will be at the Beauregard-Keyes House in the French Quarter. Built in 1826, the fascinating raised cottage was home to Confederate General Pierre G. T. Beauregard after the Civil War. In 1944, author Frances Parkinson Keyes (Dinner at Antoine’s) purchased the house, restored it, and made it her residence for twenty-five years. Keyes’ papers are today preserved at Tulane University, and in her honor, Tulane’s Special Collections Division is graciously sponsoring the reception.

The Beauregard-Keyes House was  featured in “Historic Homes of New Orleans” March 2, 2003, on the HGTV television network. Check your local listings for a rebroadcast of the show.

Special Guest Speakers

Robert S. Martin has graciously agreed to return home and be our keynote speaker. A distinguished archivist, librarian, scholar, and educator, Bob is Director of the Institute of Museum and Library Services in Washington, DC. He is the first archivist to hold that post.

Jane E. Nokes, president of the Academy of Certified Archivists, will give a pre-session program on current national and international issues and lead a question and answer session on archival certification, the current state of the Academy of Certified Archivists, and the role of certification in the archival profession. Participating with Ms. Nokes in the panel will be Leon Miller, immediate past president of the Academy of Certified Archivists; Cindy Smolovik, past secretary of the Academy, and Robert Sherer, member of the Academy's certification maintenance committee. 

Tour 1: Uptown New Orleans
Thursday, May 22, 12:00 – 4:00
Cost per person: $32 

12:00. Board buses at hotel. Depart 12:15 

12:30-1:15. Visit the Rosary, Academy of the Sacred Heart, a lovely 1887 campus and archives at 4521 St. Charles Ave in Uptown New Orleans. The present building was constructed in 1900, replacing an 1840s suburban villa that the Religious of the Sacred Heart purchased in 1887. The school was enlarged with the present outstretched wings in 1906. The third floor was added in 1913 to accommodate the boarding school. The house was home to nuns and boarders until the 1970s, when it became a day school only. Sister Lillian Conaghan, r.s.c.j., Archivist at the Rosary, will be our hostess at Sacred Heart. 

1:15-1:45. Enjoy a catered box lunch in the stately Assembly Room at Sacred Heart, or outside in the courtyard, weather permitting. Choice of club, California croissant, or stuffed tomato lunch, served with potato salad, fruit, relishes, cheeses, chips or crackers, dessert and beverage.  

2:00 -2:45. Visit Renee de Ville Book and Paper Conservation, a well-designed studio for the conservation of rare books, archives and works on paper, 4500 Dryades St. Mrs. de Ville trained in conservation at the Preservation and Conservation Studies Program at the University of Texas and has worked at the Weissman Preservation Center at Harvard. In 2001, she assumed ownership of the studio of Phyllis Hudson, a knowledgeable longtime local conservator. Here we will observe technique and equipment used in both book and paper conservation.  

2:45-3:30. Visit Bryce Revely, Gentle Arts textile conservation, 4500 Dryades. Bryce Revely is an internationally known conservator of textiles who over the part 28 years has conserved textiles for nearly every major museum in the U.S. She trained at the University of London and at the American School of Textile Arts in Boston. She has recently conserved the silk and gold coronation mantle of the Empress Josephine, which was manufactured in Paris in 1803. It is now owned by a museum in Nice and on display at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Note: This studio is directly above that of Renee de Ville. Visitors must be able to climb stairs to reach it.  

3:30. Board buses for hotel; arrive 3:45-4:00

Tour 2: The University Section
Thursday, May 22, 12:00 – 4:30
Cost per person: $26

Tour leader: Robert Sherer, Tulane University Archivist 

12:00. Board buses at hotel. Depart 12:15. 

12:30-1:15. Visit Amistad Research Center, a manuscript library for the study of race relations and ethnic history and culture, emphasizing the African-American experience. The Center is home to over ten million documents and a significant art collection. It is the home of the American Missionary Association Archives. Amistad overlooks St. Charles Ave. in Tilton Hall on the Tulane University campus.

1:15-1:45. Walk through the lovely, tree-shaded Tulane University campus, guided by Tulane University Archivist Rob Sherer, en route to lunch at Tulane’s Jones Hall. 

1:45-2:15. Box lunch on the patio of Jones Hall, home to Tulane’s Special Collections Department. Guests will enjoy their choice of a Turkey Club Wrap (bacon, tomato, and deli turkey with honey mustard in a spinach tortilla), Grilled Vegetable Wrap, (zucchini, yellow squash, Roma tomato and red and yellow pepper with garlic hummus spread in a red pepper tortilla), or Grilled Chicken Foccacia (breast of chicken on basil foccacia and pesto mayonnaise). 

2:15-3:30. Visit Tulane’s Special Collections in Jones Hall. Guests may wander among the William Ransom Hogan Jazz Archive, the Louisiana Collection, the Tulane Manuscripts Department, the University Archives, and the Southeastern Architectural Archive. Our host will be SSA member Bill Meneray, Assistant Library Dean for Special Collections.

3:30. Depart for Archives of the Dominican Congregation of St. Mary and the historic campus of the old Dominican College, 580 Broadway at St. Charles Ave. Here our hostess will be SSA member Sister Dorothy Dawes, O.P., Archivist.

Tour 3: Civic Center and Warehouse District
Thursday, May 22, 1:15 – 5:00
Cost per person: $18

Tour leader: Irene Wainright, New Orleans Public Library

1:15. Board buses at hotel. Depart 1:30.  

1:45-2:45. Visit the New Orleans Public Library’s Louisiana Division, home to the official archives of the City of New Orleans, with records of municipal government dating from 1769. 421 Loyola Ave. Our hosts will be SSA members Wayne Everard and Irene Wainwright.

3:00-4:00. Walk two blocks to the second stop of the tour at the New Orleans Notarial Archives. The sole repository of civil law notarial records in the United States, the Notarial Archives was founded in 1867 to gather in the records of colonial and antebellum notaries. It has been collecting incoming acts ever since, with a collection now amount to 40 million pages of notarial acts and thousands of water color architectural drawings created by 19th century civil engineers, artists, and architects. Host: SAA member Sally Reeves.

4:15-5:00. The last stop on this tour is the Preservation Resource Center, housed in the historic Leeds Davis Building, a former iron foundry showroom. The PRC is a private, non-profit organization founded in 1974 to promote the preservation of New Orleans’s historic architecture and neighborhoods through a variety of initiatives and programs. The PRC seeks to increase the public’s understanding of the economic, cultural and aesthetic importance of historic preservation and involve citizens in preservation projects and services that enhance living in New Orleans. 923 Tchoupitoulas (Patty Gay, Director].

Post-Meeting Tour
Tour 4: Creole Neighborhoods and Attractions: Esplanade Avenue, Treme, and Bayou St. John Cultural Tour
Saturday, May 24, 12:00 – 7:00
Cost per person: $59.50

Tour leader: Sally Reeves, Notarial Archivist

12:00. Board buses at hotel. Depart 12:15.  

On our way to the Creole sector we will head for the Treme neighborhood and ride past St. Augustine Church, built in 1841 from designs of the French architect Jacques de Pouilly, architect of the St. Louis Cathedral. Today it is home to a large congregation of substantially African-American Roman Catholics. 

12:15-12:45. Visit the New Orleans African-American Museum of Art, Culture and History, housed in the 1828 Simon Meilleur house, one of the finest examples of Creole villa-style construction in the city. The museum is dedicated to preserving the lives, history, and communities of New Orleans, specifically Treme. See the Bertrand Permanent African Art Collection and a Martin Luther King exhibit which will be on display in May.

1:00-2:30. Lunch at Restaurant Indigo, on Bayou Road. Restaurant Indigo features Nouvelle Creole specialties created by chef Kevin Vizard. It is housed in a hundred-year old corner tavern that has been elegantly renovated by owner Cindy Reeves. The side verandah overlooks the garden of the historic Fleitas-Reeves House. Dine on Creole oyster chowder, Indigo Cobb Sandwich, and Callebut Chocolate Cake served with a mixed berry compote.

2:30-2:45: Adjacent to Restaurant Indigo is the historic Fleitas-Reeves House at 2275 Bayou Road. This hipped-roof Creole style cottage is believed to be the original Fleitas Plantation manor house, dating to the turn of the 19th century and moved to the present site in 1836. It is presently used as the headquarters of a bed-and-breakfast complex.  

2:45-3:00. Visit the adjacent Benachi-Derbes House, 2257 Bayou Road, an outstanding 1859 center-hall classic-style mansion on lovely grounds. Built by Greek Consul Nicolas Benachi and restored by current owner James Derbes, the house is now a residence and bed and breakfast. It is furnished with period antiques. Mr. and Mrs. James Derbes will be our hosts.  

An 1860 Notarial Archives drawing by the Parisian artist Adrien Persac documents the appearance of the original home and gardens just six years after construction. It has been used in restoration efforts and in the analysis of Degas’ New Orleans series. Owner and restorer David Villarrubia is our host at Degas House.

 3:15-3:45. Visit Degas House, a museum and bed and breakfast at 2306 Esplanade Avenue, just across from the Derbes house. Built in 1854 for a street railway developer, the home was originally a large, center-hall suburban villa on expansive grounds. In 1869 the Musson family, close relatives of the artist Edgar Degas, occupied the residence. Here Degas visited his family in the winter-spring of 1872-’73 and painted a number important works featuring family members and elements of the house and gardens. During the 1880s the façade was updated for use as a school, but the building underwent cataclysmic change just before 1920 when it was split into three pieces, scattered over the block, and partially shrouded in jalousie windows.  

3:55-4:30. Visit Pitot House, a galleried, 1799 West Indies style manor house on peaceful Bayou St. John. With its Creole type floor plan, the house reflects the city’s French, Spanish, and Caribbean roots, designed to accommodate Louisiana’s sweltering summers, floods and insects. It is named for James Pitot, one of the early owners and the first mayor of the incorporated city of New Orleans in 1804 - 1805. In 1904 the house was purchased by Mother Frances Cabrini, later the first canonized American saint. Mother Cabrini and the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart occupied the residence, then located some 200 feet upstream from its current location, for over fifty years. It 1965 the Louisiana Landmarks Society rescued it from demolition and moved it to its present location, restoring it to its original appearance. The Society operates the house as a distinctive house museum with Louisiana furnishing ranging from the 1790s to 1840. 

4:45-5:00. Ride through historic City Park and along the New Orleans Botanical Garden. City Park is an 1854 urban park with a long, colorful history, laced with lagoons and overhung with ancient oaks. The Botanical Garden and green houses were redeveloped at the end of the 20th century and today feature magnificent floral plantings including old roses, tropical plants, orchids, palms, and flowering perennials.  

5:15-5:30 - If time permits: Ride through Metairie Cemetery, built around an 1870s race track and filled with tombs built as distinguished architectural monuments.  

5:45-6:45 Wine & cheese Reception for tour participants, board, and host committee at a private St. Charles Avenue home.