Archives

Tulane University’s archival preservation efforts stretch back to May 3, 1889, when Mrs. L. Dolhonde presented to the Charles T. Howard Memorial Library a letter written by Thomas Jefferson to M. duPlantier of New Orleans. In the years since that inaugural donation, we have grown to encompass almost three linear miles of archival documents about our city and state. Included among our holdings are the papers of Louisiana Governors, Members of Congress, Mayors of the City of New Orleans, Civil War generals, southern writers, the records of women’s organizations, church records, and much, much more.

A full listing of our archival holdings is available in our reading room (Room 202, Jones Hall). Partial listings are available through the library’s online catalog; searchable finding aids are available though our online finding aid database. We expect to have most of our holdings fully discoverable online by the end of 2012.

Among our many notable holdings are the papers of:

• Confederate President Jefferson Davis
• Confederate General Albert Sidney Johnston
• Confederate General Stonewall Jackson
• Southern authors John Kennedy Toole and George W. Cable
• Louisiana governors Sam Jones and David Treen
• Medical pioneers Rudolph Matas and Bernard Weinstein,and many, many others. 
• New Orleans mayors deLesseps Morrison and Victor Schiro
• The papers of more than a dozen Members of Congress, including Hale Boggs, Lindy Boggs, David Treen, Edward Hebert, and Bob Livingston
• The records of the Episcopal Diocese of Louisiana and the records of most Jewish Synagogues and Temples in the greater New Orleans area.
• The records of social welfare organizations just as the Louisiana ACLU, the New Orleans YWCA, the Council of Social Agencies of New Orleans, the Jewish Children’s Home, Kingsley House, Protestant Children’s Home, the Traveler’s Aid Society, the Community Chest of New Orleans, and more.
• The records of many women’s organizations, such as the New Orleans YWCA, the New Orleans League of Women Voters, the Quarante Club, the Ruth McEnery Stuart Clan, the Independent Women’s Organization, the New Orleans Women’s Club, the Metairie Women’s Club, Cancer Crusaders, and perhaps most notably, the records of the Poydras Home, which is probably the oldest organization in the country established for women and continuously run by women.

And much, much more. Our holdings are open to all. We look forward to your visit with us.

We need your help.

To preserve our past for future generations, the Louisiana Research Collection depends on the help of persons such as yourself. If you know of letters, diaries, scrapbooks, photographs, or other documents illuminating Louisiana's past, please contact us so we can help ensure that they are preserved. We can also work with your social, civic, fraternal, or professional organization to preserve its minutes, reports, and other organizational records.

We would also be grateful for donations of Louisiana brochures, pamphlets, flyers, campaign literature, menus, and books. For materials that might fall outside of our collecting criteria, we can work with you to find a more appropriate professional archival, library, or museum facility.

For more information, please visit our "Giving" web page or contact:

Leon Miller
Head, Louisiana Research Collection
504-314-7833
lmiller@tulane.edu

Locating, finding and using our archival collections

Please note that many of our archival collections have not been cataloged in the library catalog or our online finding aid database. We hope to have our collections fully represented in the catalog and database by late 2012. If you cannot find what you are looking for, please contact us and we will be happy to furnish further information to you about our holdings.

Search for archival collections

This search box searches the library catalog, Voyager, for archival collections. The results will be general catalog records. For more descriptive information about what a given archival collection contains, you will need to check the finding aid (also known as inventories or indices). These can be searched from the second search box.

Search archival collection finding aids, inventories and indices

This search box searches our archival description database, Archon, for archival collections, finding aids, indices and inventories. This will help you determine if a collection has the type of material you may be searching for.

Search for digital collections

We are currently digitizing many of our collections for use. These collections are hosted through the LOUIS Digital Library. Search for digitized collections below.