"Ownership, Engagement, and Entrepreneurship: the gens de couleur libres and the Architecture of Antebellum New Orleans, 1820-1850" examines the architectural activities of New Orleans' gens de couleur libres, or free people of color, and the historical, cultural, and economic implications of their contributions to nineteenth-century American architecture. Specifically, this dissertation explores the histories of two black Creole families engaged in the building trades and real estate in the antebellum New Orleans, emphasizing their activities as a process of building culture that created and supported ethnic and architectural identity on individual and communal levels. The years from 1820 to 1850 saw New Orleans become an important American metropolis and industrialized commercial center. Changes in architecture included the introduction of East Coast urban forms, the introduction of Federal and Greek Revival styles, and professionalization of the building trades and the role of the architect. The antebellum period provides a challenging framework in which to the view the architecture-related accomplishments of New Orleans' gens de couleur libres. They faced a paradoxical situation where the stability of New Orleans' economy and racial hierarchies could positively or negatively affect their success in building as well as owning and developing property. Still the gens de couleur libres' investments thrived as racial separation was becoming increasingly strict and enabled the gens de couleur libres to retain black and Creole control in the city. The members of the Dolliole and Soulié families were key players as builders, owners, and speculators. The gens de couleur libres contact with the built environment created a process of ownership, engagement, and entrepreneurship through which they established, maintained, and underscored their individual and community identities. This process forms the foundation for the organization of the dissertation and invites analysis of the meaning of the gens de couleur libres' influence on New Orleans' antebellum architecture on several levels: social meaning as architecture affected the welfare and relations of the community of free people of color; cultural meaning as architecture pertained to, and was derived from, the artistic and intellectual pursuits of the gens de couleur libres and transmitted from one generation to the next; and socio-economic meaning as architecture affected the production, distribution, and use of wealth for individuals and in the gens de couleur libres community at large. Approaching the study of architecture through a set of diverse lenses including social networks and real estate speculation alongside building design and construction, this dissertation interjects the legacy of the gens de couleur libres into American architectural history. / text

My objective with this thesis is to understand how racist stereotypes and myths compounded the sale of fair-skinned black women during and after the slave trade in New Orleans, Louisiana. This commodification of black women's bodies continued well into the twentieth century, notably in New Orleans' vice district of Storyville. Called "quadroons" (a person with ¼ African ancestry) and "octoroons" (1/8 African ancestry), these women were known for their "sexual prowess" and drew in a large number of patrons. The existence of "white passing" black women complicated ideas about race and racial purity in the South. Race as a myth and social construct, or as Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham explains in her essay, African-American Women's History and the Metalanguage of Race, a "metalanguage" exposes race not as a genetic fact, but rather a physical appearance through which power relations and status were to be conferred. My methodology uses race and gender theory to analyze primary and secondary sources to understand and contextualize how population demographics, myths, and liberal 18th century colonial laws contributed to the sale of black women's bodies. The works of Emily Clark, Walter Johnson, Gwendolyn Midlo Hall and other historians who utilize Atlantic history have been paramount in my research. Emily Clark has transformed the "white-black" women from a tragic, sexualized trope into a fully actualized human being, while Hall has tackled the racist underpinnings inherent in the neglect of black women's history. The writings of bell hooks, particularly her essay Eating the Other, establishes the modern day commodification of black women vis-à -vis their representation in media, as well as through the fetishism of their bodies by a white patriarchal system. During slavery plantation owners could do virtually anything they wanted with their property, including engaging in sexual intercourse. By depicting black women as hypersexual jezebels, they could justify their rape, while establishing their dominance and place in the white male hegemony of that time period. For the right price a white male of a lesser class could achieve the same thing at a brothel down in Storyville at the turn of the twentieth century, for as Emily Clark argues in her book, The Strange History of the American Quadroon, these brothels were a great equalizer, allowing all white men to experience "…sexual mastery enjoyed only by elite planters before the Civil War." By democratizing white supremacy, the quadroon and others like her forged solidarity that bridge across all classes, while upholding whiteness and oppressing people of color at the same time.