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This special issue, “Through the Eye of Katrina: The Past as Prologue?” grew out of a multidisciplinary conference of the same name held in March 2007 and sponsored by the Journal of American History and the Department of History at the University of South Alabama. This issue and the conference were created in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, one of the worst natural disasters to hit the United States, to examine the history and culture of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Because we are so little removed in time from Katrina’s August 2005 landfall, the essays collected here cannot, and do not, fully historicize the events surrounding the storm. They are intended instead to play an important part in the writing of a “second draft” of this history.
The essays range widely. Chronologically, they touch on events from the building of the first Mississippi River levees in the early eighteenth century to the use of tattoos as expressions of civic identity in post-Katrina New Orleans. Topically, they encompass urban, environmental, architectural, and musical history, as well as analyses of politics in three centuries and of carnival as a shaper of world views.
The goal of the contributors to this special issue—Christopher A. Airriess, Richard Campanella, Angela Chia-Chen Chen, Donald E. DeVore, Elizabeth Fussell, Frye Gaillard, Kent B. Germany, Arnold R. Hirsch, Verna M. Keith, Ari Kelman, Karen Kingsley, Juliette Landphair, Karen J. Leong, Wei Li, Alecia P. Long, Henry M. McKiven Jr., Reid Mitchell, Clarence L. Mohr, Marline Otte, Lawrence N. Powell, Bruce Boyd Raeburn, Rebecca J. Scott, J. Mark Souther, Pamela Tyler, and Michael G. White—is to provide a historical basis for thinking about Katrina’s impact, a way to measure its significance from many perspectives.
The Journal of American History has created a companion online project for this special issue to help readers better understand the print articles and the Katrina disaster in general. It features explanatory essays that address themes of race, the environment, tourism, and musical and visual culture. Several interactive graphic elements—including historical and modern maps—enhance understanding of changes in New Orleans before, during, and after Katrina.
http://www.journalofamericanhistory.org/projects/katrina/.
“An Introduction,” by Clarence L. Mohr and Lawrence N. Powell (pp. 693–94)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“Boundary Issues: Clarifying New Orleans’s Murky Edges,” by Ari Kelman (pp. 695–703)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“An Ethnic Geography of New Orleans,” by Richard Campanella (pp. 704–715)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“New Orleans Architecture: Building Renewal,” by Karen Kingsley (pp. 716–25)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“The Atlantic World and the Road to Plessy v. Ferguson, ”by Rebecca J. Scott (pp. 726–33)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“The Political Construction of a Natural Disaster: The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1853,” by Henry M. McKiven Jr. (pp. 734–42)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“The Politics of Poverty and History: Racial Inequality and the Long Prelude to Katrina,” by Kent B. Germany (pp. 743–51)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“Fade to Black: Hurricane Katrina and the Disappearance of Creole New Orleans,” by Arnold R. Hirsch (pp. 752–61)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“Water in Sacred Places: Rebuilding New Orleans Black Churches as Sites of Community Empowerment,” by Donald E. DeVore (pp. 762–69)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“Resilient History and the Rebuilding of a Community: The Vietnamese American Community in New Orleans East,” by Karen J. Leong, Christopher A. Airriess, Wei Li, Angela Chia-Chen Chen, and Verna M. Keith (pp. 770–79)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“The Post-Katrina, Semiseparate World of Gender Politics,” by Pamela Tyler (pp. 780–88)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“Carnival and Katrina,” by Reid Mitchell (pp. 789–94)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“Poverty Is the New Prostitution: Race, Poverty, and Public Housing in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” by Alecia P. Long (pp. 795–803)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“The Disneyfication of New Orleans: The French Quarter as Facade in a Divided City,” by J. Mark Souther (pp. 804–811)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“‘They’re Tryin’ to Wash Us Away’: New Orleans Musicians Surviving Katrina,” by Bruce Boyd Raeburn (pp. 812–19)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“Reflections of an Authentic Jazz Life in Pre-Katrina New Orleans,” by Michael G. White (pp. 820–27)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“The Mourning After: Languages of Loss and Grief in Post-Katrina New Orleans,” by Marline Otte (pp. 828–36)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“‘The Forgotten People of New Orleans’: Community, Vulnerability, and the Lower Ninth Ward,” by Juliette Landphair (pp. 704–15)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“Constructing New Orleans, Constructing Race: A Population History of New Orleans,” by Elizabeth Fussell (pp. 846–55)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“After the Storms: Tradition and Change in Bayou La Batre,” by Frye Gaillard (pp. 856–62)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
“What Does American History Tell Us about Katrina and Vice Versa?” by Lawrence N. Powell (pp. 863–76)
[Full text available at the History Cooperative]
In this photograph taken in April 2006, a devastated home in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward bears witness to Hurricane Katrina’s destructive force and human toll. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith. Courtesy Carol M. Highsmith.
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On the cover: In this photograph taken in April 2006, a devastated home in New Orleans’s Lower Ninth Ward bears witness to Hurricane Katrina’s destructive force and human toll. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith. Courtesy Carol M. Highsmith. See