This report explores issues surrounding health concerns in the State of Louisiana in the context of environmental justice. It provides a history of Cancer Alley, an area along the Mississippi River with disproportionately high cancer rates. It discusses case studies of environmental justice issues within the state. The researcher provides a geographical analysis and statistical analysis to estimate whether there is a relationship between the presence of industrial plants and health indicators, specifically cancer and infant mortality. Using cancer and infant mortality as health indicators for a population, the evidence supports a correlation between the presence of industrial pollution and waste with cancer rates and infant mortality rates across the State of Louisiana. Given that these populations are predominantly minority and low-income, these results reflect an environmental injustice. / text

Music is an essential piece of the culture of south Louisiana. Three genres -- Cajun, Zydeco, and Swamp Pop -- grew up in this region. The genres developed as separate cultures, primarily Cajun and Creole, developed and blended before entering a period of cultural assimilation in the early twentieth century. The music, and the social dancing that accompanies it, took place at weekly gatherings in rural residences in the eighteenth century. Commercial dance halls began to appear in the state around 1900 and have evolved throughout the century. The evolution of dance halls and their use follows a cultural evolution from relative isolation to assimilation and eventually cultural awareness and promotion as tourism blossomed in the state. Despite their significant place in the region's history, dance halls are not yet recognized in any official capacity, including the National Register of Historic Places. The Center for Louisiana Studies is collecting information about the extant and demolished buildings to advocate for preservation of dance hall culture and extant buildings. I am contributing to this advocacy effort with a National Register of Historic Places Multiple-Property Documentation Form for extant historic dance halls. The form will discuss the historic contexts of Cajun, Zydeco, and Swamp Pop music and establish typical and variable characteristics, both physical and associative, for dance hall buildings. Registration requirements based on significance and integrity will establish criteria for eligibility of extant buildings for the National Register of Historic Places. / text

Palynological, lithological, loss-on-ignition, and X-ray fluorescence spectroscopy data were collected from a modified Livingstone core retrieved from Bay Jimmy, Louisiana. This data indicates a slow, general regression of the marsh due to sea level rise. This trend was punctuated by several catastrophic events including floods from around ca. 600 Yr BP and ca. 360 Yr BP, a fire around ca. 950 Yr BP, and still more flooding caused by the landfall of Hurricane Audrey in AD 1957, and Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in AD 2005. In more recent years (220 Yr BP to present) the marsh appears to have thinned out. This may be due to anthropogenic barriers, which have inhibited the marsh’s natural retreat as witnessed over the past 1200 years recorded by this core.

As the locus of cotton production shifted toward the newer southwestern states over the first half of the nineteenth century, the city of New Orleans became increasingly important to the slave-plantation economy of the U.S. South. Moreover, because of its location near the base of the enormous Mississippi River system, the city also thrived on the export of agricultural commodities from western states farther upriver. Handling this wide-ranging commerce was the city's business community: bankers, factors, and wholesalers, among others. This globally oriented community represented an older and qualitatively unique form of wealth accumulation, merchant capitalism, which was based on the extraction of profit from exchange processes. However, like the slave-based mode of production to which it was closely allied, the New Orleans merchant community faced increasing pressure during the antebellum decades even while its fortunes seemed otherwise secure. The city lost most of its market share in western grain products to railroads and other routes linked directly to northeastern urban centers, and its merchants' failure to maintain port infrastructure or create a viable manufacturing sector reflected their complacency and left them vulnerable to competition from the fast-developing industrially-based economy of the North. These and other weaknesses were fatally exposed during the Civil War and Reconstruction. As a result of many changes to the regional and national political economy after northern victory in the war, the New Orleans merchant community was never able to recover its previous commercial dominance, and the former first-rank American city quickly became a site of notorious political corruption and endemic poverty. Much the same can be said of the postbellum southern economy in which it was embedded, where the practices of merchant capitalism nevertheless managed to persist by becoming dispersed throughout the agricultural interior in the form of "country stores." Under the sharecropping system that became prevalent in cotton production, rural merchants furnished seasonal credit to the small farming households that had replaced plantation slavery. Although these stores played different roles in Louisiana cotton and sugar parishes, the culture of merchant capitalism hampered economic development in the South for many decades to come.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 2002. / Restricted until May 2003. Bibliography: leaves 317-338.

Published also as Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Pennsylvania, 1906. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 153-160).

This paper examines the production of my thesis film, “The Horse and The Castle.” I will explore the choices taken in each step of the production, from the writing process to post-production and finishing. Each area — writing, directing, production design, cinematography, editing, and sound — contained a multitude of decisions that helped to achieve my final vision for the film.

The modern gay New Orleans community was born on the neglected streets of the historic French Quarter neighborhood during the 1920s. Despite a century of harassment at the hands of local officials and the police department, this vulnerable community developed strong communal bonds in and around the French Quarter, ultimately transforming it into one of the preeminent gay neighborhoods in the United States. This study examines how a vibrant gay community thrived in the socially conservative South, shifting traditional narratives of twentieth century gay life primarily existing on the East and West Coasts. To survive, gay men and lesbians were forced to create alternative social spaces, often coopting and exploiting the traditions of heteronormative New Orleans culture. Drawing upon archival sources and personal interviews, this dissertation challenges assumptions about the apolitical nature of the gay New Orleans community. Ultimately, this is a story of how a gay community became politically active while navigating the challenges of the socially conservative Deep South.

This thesis is about the self-identity of antebellum New Orleans's free people of color. The emphasis of this work is that French culture, mixed Gallic and African ancestry, and freedom from slavery served as the three keys to the identity of this class of people. Taken together, these three factors separated the free people of color from the other major groups residing in New Orleans - Anglo-Americans, white Creoles and black slaves. The introduction provides an overview of the topic and states the need for this study. Chapter 1 provides a look at New Orleans from the perspective of the free people of color. Chapter 2 investigates the slaveownership of these people. Chapter 3 examines the published literature of the free people of color. The conclusion summarizes the significance found in the preceding three chapters and puts their findings into a broader interpretive framework.

acase@tulane.edu / Background It is estimated 3 to 5 million individuals in the U.S. are chronically infected with the Hepatitis C virus (HCV). (Durham DP, 2016) More than 12,000 deaths occur annually in the U.S. as a result of HCV-related liver disease. (Wieland A, 2015) The cost of treatment medication for an individual with HCV genotype-1 is approximately $100,000 for 12 weeks of therapy. (Reau N, 2014) The exorbitant cost of HCV treatment has led to fears that many who could benefit from treatment will not receive it considering many with HCV are uninsured or have Medicaid. Purpose The purpose of this study is to quantify the cost, cost-effectiveness, and adverse outcomes associated with denying or delaying HCV treatment among the Louisiana Medicaid (LA-Medicaid) HCV GT-1 population. Methodology This project evaluates the cost and cost-effectiveness of treating HCV compared to not treating; initiating early treatment compared to late treatment and HCV-related health outcomes. A decision tree and Markov model simulates progression through the various states of health involved in progressive HCV disease, including death (hepatic and other causes). Results Don’t Treat/Treat Comparison Treatment was generally cost-effective, exhibiting an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of $21,670/life-year and $37,067/QALY (Quality-Adjusted Life-Years) gained. Optimal Treatment Stage Comparison Treatment of a person at F0 was cost effective, exhibiting an ICER of $6,482/QALY and $6,194/year of life compared to not treating at all and treating at F1, F2, F3, F4 or after LT. Conclusion Treatment of HCV-infected patients without liver fibrosis or in early stages of liver fibrosis appear to be more cost-effective than treating in advance stages of liver fibrosis or denying treatment. / 1 / Dwana Green