Orleans ranking twelfth among the cities of the United States; in 1910 it was 339,075. Of the 1900 total, 256,779 were native-born, and 30,325 were foreign-born, including 8733 Germans, 5866 Italians, 5398 Irish, 4428 French and 1262 English; and there were 77,714 negroes. In 1900 the population of foreign parentage was 108,010, of whom 78,269 had foreign fathers and foreign mothers, 27,259 being of German, 15,465 of Irish, 10,694 of Italian, 9317 of French and 1882 of English parentage. The Latin element that came in colonial times included Frenchmen, French-Canadians, colonists from the French and Spanish West Indies, Canary Islanders (whose descendants are still known as Isleños), and French refugees from Acadia in 1765 and the years following, and from Santo Domingo at the end of the 18th century. The earliest French immigrants were largely Bretons and Normans, and various creole words in common use (such as banquette for “side-walk”) still recall these racial beginnings. The creoles of New Orleans and the surrounding delta are a handsome, graceful, intelligent race, of a decidedly Gallic type, though softened in features, speech and carriage. Their dialect has been formed from the French entirely by sound, has no established orthography, and is of much philological interest. Until very recent years the Latin races, though fusing somewhat among themselves, mixed little in blood with the Anglo-American. The Spaniards when in power at the end of the 18th century were notably different from the French in their liberalism in this respect. In social life and standards the French creoles were very conservative; the old styles of dress, e.g. of the late 18th century—wigs, silk stockings and knee-breeches—lingered later among them, probably, than in any other part of the country. But before the pressure of Anglo-American immigration, capital, enterprise and education, this creole civilization has slowly yielded ground, at last fairly beginning to amalgamate with the social system of the American nation. But the creole has stamped his influence upon wellnigh every aspect in the life of the city that has broadened out so widely on every side of his antique town. Its cuisine, its speech, its “continental” Latin Sundays, its opera, its carnival, its general fashions and manners, its intolerance of all sorts of rigour, its whole outward tone and bearing, testify to this patent Latin impress. A comparatively recent addition to the Latin element in the city has been through Italian immigration.
The coloured population, notwithstanding the presence among it of that noted quadroon class which enjoyed a certain legal freedom for generations before the Civil War, has not greatly improved since the date of emancipation. Catholicism is naturally extremely strong in New Orleans. So also are the Baptist and Methodist churches.
Carnivals.—The famous carnival displays of New Orleans are participated in very largely by the “Americain,” i.e. the Anglo-American; but they mark one of the victories of the Latin-American over North-American tastes, and probably owe mainly to the “Americain” their pretentious dignity and to the creole their more legitimate harlequin frivolity. Out of the simple idea of masked revelry in the open streets, as borrowed from Italian cities, the American bent for organization appears to have developed, by a natural growth, the costly fashion of gorgeous torch-lighted processions of elaborately equipped masques in tableaux drawn on immense cars by teams of caparisoned mules, and combining to illustrate in a symmetrical whole some theme chosen from the great faiths or literatures or from history. Legends, fairy-tales, mythologies and theologies, literature from Homer to Shakespeare, science and pure fantasy are drawn upon for these ornate representations, which are accompanied by all the picturesque licence of street life characteristic of carnival times in other cities. They have no rival in America, and for glitter, colour and elaborateness are by many esteemed the most splendid carnival celebrations of the world. The first carnival parade (as distinguished from the Mardi Gras celebration) was held in 1827 by masked students recently returned from Paris. In 1837 and 1839 the first processions with “floats” were held in New Orleans. The regular annual pageants, almost uninterrupted save during the Civil War, date from 1857, when the “Mystic Krewe of Comus,” the oldest of the carnival organizations, was formed; similar organizations, secret societies or clubs are the “Twelfth Knight Revelers” (1870), “Rex” and “Knights of Momus” (both 1872, when the carnival was reviewed by the Grand Duke Alexis of Russia), the “Krewe of Proteus” (1882), and the “Krewe of Nereus” (1895). Balls, processions and other festivities are now spread over a considerable period, culminating in those of Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras). During this time the festivities quite engross public attention, and many thousands of visitors from all parts of America are yearly attracted to the city.
Charitable Institutions.—The large Charity Hospital (1786) and the Richard Milliken Memorial Hospital for Children are supported by the state. The Touro Infirmary (1854; controlled by the Hebrew Benevolent Association; founded by Judah Touro (1775–1854; a Jew of Dutch descent, son of Isaac Touro of Newport, Rhode Island), includes a free clinic open to the needy of all faiths. Other hospitals are: the U.S. Marine Hospital (1885); the Hôtel Dieu (1859) and the St Joseph’s Maternity Hospital (1863), both under the Sisters of Charity; the Sarah Goodrich Hospital (1896; Methodist Episcopal); and the Eye, Ear, Nose and Throat Hospital (1889; private). The Poydras Asylum, on Magazine Street, was founded in 1817 by Julien Poydras (1746–1824), a successful trader and delegate from Orleans Territory to the Federal Congress in 1809–1811; the present building was erected in 1836; the asylum, which is for orphans, is controlled by Presbyterian trustees, although it was, during Poydras’s life, under the charge of Sisters of Charity. St Vincent’s Infant Asylum (1858), or “Margaret’s Baby House,” is in charge of Sisters of Charity. Other orphanages and children’s homes are: the New Orleans Female Orphan Asylum (1849) and St Elizabeth’s Industrial School (1845), under the Sisters of Charity; an Ursuline Orphanage (1729); the Immaculate Conception Girls’ Asylum (1851) and St Mary’s Catholic Orphan Boys’ Asylum (1835, under the Sisters Marianites of the Holy Cross); the St Alphonsus Orphan Asylum (1878) and St Vincent’s Home for Newsboys (1878), under the Sisters of Mercy; the Mount Carmel Orphan Asylum (1869), under the Sisters of Mount Carmel; the Sacred Heart Orphan Asylum (1894) for girls, under the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart; St Joseph’s Orphan Asylum (1863), under the Sisters of Notre Dame; a Protestant Orphans’ Home (1853); a Jewish Orphans’ Home (1855); the Children’s Home of the Protestant Episcopal Church (1859); the Evangelical Lutheran Bethlehem Orphan Asylum (1881); the German Protestant Orphan Asylum (1866); the Freedmen’s Orphan Asylum (Baptist); and, under private and non-sectarian control, the Asylum for Destitute Orphan Boys (1824) and the Colored Industrial Home and School (1902). The J. D. Fink Fund and the Fink Home (1874) or Asylum (for Protestant widows and their children) are the gift of an eccentric, whose offer of marriage had been refused by one preferring not to marry at all, and who forbade that any old maid should enter the asylum. Other homes for adults are: the Soldiers’ Home of Louisiana for Confederate Veterans; two Homes for the Aged (1869 and 1882), both under the Little Sisters of the Poor; the Faith Home (1888; Baptist) for old coloured women; the German Protestant Bethany Home (1889) and the German Protestant Home for the Aged and Infirm (1887); the Julius Weis Home for Aged and Infirm (1899), under the Hebrew Benevolent Association; and, all under private corporations, the Maison Hospitaliére (1893) for aged women, the New Orleans Home for Incurables (1893) and St Anna’s Asylum (1850) for destitute women and their children. Temporary homes are: the Convent of the Good Shepherd (1859), under the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and a Memorial Home (1886; both for wayward women); a Home for Homeless Women (1888), and the New Orleans Convalescent Home (1885). Kingsley House is modelled after Hull House in Chicago. The Louisiana Retreat, a private asylum for the insane, is in New Orleans, and there also is a state House of Detention.
Education.—The public schools give equal opportunities to whites and blacks, but the whites take decidedly greater advantage of them; a large number even of the whites still make practically no use of either public or parochial schools. The races are kept separate: the attempt was made to mix attendance in 1870, but the whites compelled its abandonment. To a bequest of John McDonogh (1778–1850), whose life is one of the romances and the lessons of New Orleans,[1] the city owes already some thirty school buildings. The Home Institute (1883) provides free night schooling for hundreds of students, and similar work is done on a larger scale by public night schools. Of the adult male population in 1900 13·4% were illiterate (could not write), seven-tenths of the illiterates being negroes, of whom the illiterates constituted 36%.
There are various higher institutions of learning in the city. Tulane University of Louisiana was named after its benefactor Paul Tulane (1801–1887), a merchant of New Orleans, who gave $1,050,000 in 1882–1887 to a Board of Trustees for the education of “the white young persons in the city.” The university was established, under
- ↑ See William Allan’s Life and Work of John McDonogh (Baltimore, 1886).
