Cities of the Dead Class

We welcomed Professor Heather Knight's "Cities of the Dead" class to SEAA last week for an introduction to our holdings and a tour of our stacks to give the students an idea of what an archives looks like. We brought out materials from our Albert Weiblen Marble & Granite Company records, including watercolor presentation renderings and plaster scale models for tombs, which were used to show clients potential designs. Great expense went into these drawings and models, but the result of a client spending many times more than the price of some of the costlier homes in New Orleans at the time, was well worth the effort. The Weiblen company had architects on staff who designed many of the large-scale "golden age" tombs of Metairie Cemetery in the 19teens through the 1940s, including Lorenzo Orsini, Charles Lawhon, and Ralph Phillippi. The company also worked with other leading New Orleans architects hired by clients. 

We also included in our talk working plans, bronze decoration and art glass samples, and photographs of the Weiblen stone carvers, masons, and office staff. A highlight of our stacks tour included the concrete, plaster, and copper foil scale model of the 1918 Bendel family tomb and memorial at the Jewish Cemetery in Lafayette, Louisiana, also made by the Weiblen company, designed by Charles Lawhon. The photo shows the tomb fairly soon after completion. The tomb was commissioned by Henri Bendel to hold the remains of his mother, father, and step-father. Bendel, who was born in Vermilionville, Louisiana in 1868, established himself as a milliner in New York City in 1895, and soon after created what became the iconic Henri Bendel department store. It was announced recently that the remaining Henri Bendel boutiques located throughout the United States would close.  

Storyville and Architectural Archives

We gave a tour last week of SEAA and our stacks to a colleague from Mississippi, whose institution is planning to form an archive to house its own building plans. They wanted to use SEAA as a model to organize their various collections of architectural drawings to make them available for staff and other researchers to use. A highlight of the stacks tour was the scale model (at left) of the former Storyville brothel, Lulu White's Mahogany Hall and Mahogany Hall Annex, which were located at 235-241 Basin Street. The model was made in the 1960s by artist William Toye and jazz historian Al Rose, and constructed of basswood, plexiglass, and other materials.

Storyville, also known as The District, was a section of New Orleans, north of the French Quarter, where prostitution became legal in 1897. Named for alderman Sidney Story, who wrote legislation for the district, it was an experiment to limit prostitution to one area of the city. Many infamous brothels, including Lulu White's, operated successfully until 1917, when the city, spurred by demands from the Army and Navy, made prostitution illegal again. The bulk of Storyville was razed in the 1930s to make way for the Iberville Housing Project. Lulu White's Mahogany Hall stood until 1949, and the Annex stood until the 1990s. When preservationists got wind of it being demolished, a portion of the building was saved and still stands today. 

Another well-known brothel belonged to Josie Arlington (1864-1914), whose real name was Mamie Deubler, and took her professional name after her friend Tom Anderson's Storyville bar, the Arlington. There are stories that the Arlington name came after a visit to the Arlington Hotel in the spa town of Hot Springs, Arkansas. From our holdings below is an ink and watercolor working elevation drawing and the gouache presentation perspective rendering for the tomb for Arlington in Metairie Cemetery, New Orleans. Built in 1911 for John Brady, Josie's business partner, it was designed by Lorenzo Orsini for Albert Weiblen Marble & Granite Company. Constructed of red Maine granite with carved eternal flames, bronze doors, and a bronze figure by German sculptor F. Bagdon. The tomb was later sold by Josie's niece, who married John Brady, to the Morales family, and Josie's remains were moved to an undisclosed location within the cemetery. Josie Arlington died on Valentine's Day 1914, which also happens to be Ash Wednesday today.