African American Carnival Films, 1950s-1960s
Islandora advanced search
The three films selected for this digital exhibition were preserved and digitized with two grants from the National Film Preservation Foundation. They feature images of balls and parades organized by New Orleans carnival clubs in the 1950s and 1960s. These home movies are rare visual records of private African American balls, which are traditionally closed to non-members. Intriguing themes like “Satan’s Inferno” and “Symphony Variations” provide a lively backdrop to the vintage costumes. Carnival royalty is presented ceremoniously to the hall. Louis Jordan’s band performs silently, and dancing, costumed audience members pose for camera.
A portion of one of the films depicts a parade, with a marching band and costumed youngsters riding floats. The parade appears to have been organized by the African American Catholic lay organization Knights of Peter Claver (one float carries a banner which reads “Krewe of Klaver”). The hosting organizations of the balls depicted in the 1950s films have not been identified, although they may be the Bon Temps organization, portrayed in the 1960s film.
Islandora Collection Search
Contact the Louisiana Digital Library
Permissions/rights/reproduction and information requests:
The Louisiana Digital Library (LDL) is composed of collections from many different institutions. Permission to publish and acquire images or requests for more information about materials that you find in the LDL should be directed to the institution that contributed the item to the LDL. To find the contact who can help you, find the field called "Contact Information" next to the image of interest to you. The Louisiana Digital Library is a service provider only and has no authority to grant permission to publish or supply high-resolution images.
- Louisiana State Museum: lsm@crt.state.la.us
- Louisiana State University: diglib@lsu.edu
- Louisiana State University Shreveport: libarchives@lsus.edu
- Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center: digitalarchives@lsuhsc.edu
- Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport: http://lib.sh.lsuhsc.edu/
- Louisiana Tech University: specialcollections@latech.edu
- Loyola University New Orleans: archives@loyno.edu
- McNeese State University: archivesdept@mcneese.edu
- Nicholls State University: http://nicholls.libguides.com/archives
- Northwestern State University of Louisiana: wernet@nsula.edu
- Southern University: archives@subr.edu
- State Library of Louisiana: lacoll@state.lib.la.us
- The Historic New Orleans Collection: louisquery@hnoc.org
- Tulane University: digitallibrary@tulane.edu
- University of Louisiana Lafayette: archives@louisiana.edu
- University of Louisiana Monroe: http://ulm.edu/library/archives/
- University of New Orleans: libspec@uno.edu
- Vermilionville Living History Museum and Folklife Park: curator@bayouvermiliondistrict.org
Technical assistant/site support
The Louisiana Digital Library platform has been developed by LSU Libraries on behalf of the Louisiana Digital Consortium. It runs on the Islandora open-source digital repository software.
LSU Libraries' Technology Initiatives: lsudiglib@lsu.edu.
Thanks for your interest in the Louisiana Digital Library.
About the Louisiana Digital Library (LDL)
The Louisiana Digital Library (LDL) is the front door to Louisiana's digital cultural heritage. Members include public libraries, academic libraries, museums, and archives from arcross the state.
Currently, there are 25 participating institutions in the LDL. Each institution contributes the digital items and the descriptive text for their collections.
- Calcasieu Parish Public Library
- Delgado Community College
- East Baton Rouge Parish Library
- Law Library of Louisiana
- Louisiana State Archives
- Louisiana State Museum
- Louisiana State University
- Louisiana State University at Alexandria
- Louisiana State University at Shreveport
- Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center New Orleans
- Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center Shreveport
- Louisiana Tech University
- Loyola University New Orleans
- McNeese State University
- Nicholls State University
- Northwestern State University
- Southern University
- State Library Of Louisiana
- The Historic New Orleans Collection
- Tulane University
- University of Louisiana at Lafayette
- University of Louisiana at Monroe
- University of New Orleans
- Vermilionville Living History Museum & Folklife Park
- Webster Parish Library
The LDL is built with Islandora, an open source digital library system based on Fedora, Drupal, and Solr.
Information about the Louisiana Digital Consortium can be found here: http://louisianadigitalconsortium.org