Xavier University of Louisiana
University Archives and Special Collections
Library
1 Drexel Drive
New Orleans, LA 70125-1098

Telephone number: (504) 483-7655
Fax: (504) 485-7917
E-mail: lsulliva@xula.edu or ilachoff@xula.edu
Website: http://www.xula.edu

Contact person: Lester Sullivan or Irwin Lachoff

Access privileges: Open to the public with certain restrictions

Hours: Monday - Friday 8:30 a.m. - 4:30 p.m. (hours change during academic holidays)

Repository Information:
Xavier University of Louisiana was founded in 1915 by Mother Katherine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament (S.B.S.) The University's archival program traces to the 1920's, when Mother Katherine and local black leaders founded a Negro Historical Association to raise money to buy rare books and manuscripts for the Library. In 1987, the University Archives and Special Collections was established as a separate Library division. Xavier Archives collects in four areas: the history of the University, African-American history and culture, U. S. Roman Catholicism, and the Southern United States and the Gulf-Caribbean region, with special emphasis on the history of Louisiana and New Orleans. In addition to the material listed in this guide, Xavier University Archives and Special Collections also contains a clipping file on Mother Katherine Drexel; some unprocessed and local records of the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, an order of nuns instrumental in providing education for Southern blacks and Native Americans. Several photograph collections include pictures of nuns and African-American women from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The repository also contains a collection, Comptes-Rendus de l'Athenee Louisianaise, in which poems and essays by Leona Queyrouze appear as well as one entire issue that she wrote. Also housed in the Xavier Archives are the manuscripts and papers of Chris Wiltz, the author of Killing Circle and A Diamond Before You Die.

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