The Louisiana Digital Library (LDL) offers access to thousands of digitized primary sources. This guide highlights items and collections related to the 1920s.
To use this guide, please follow the links to browse and research collections. The links go to either the collection, individual items in the collection, or search results within a collection, as noted.
Carnival Collection
Search results from the collection limited by date to 1919-1929 and sorted by date from most recent to earliest. The online Carnival Collection currently features more than 5,500 original float and costume designs. Most are from Carnival’s “Golden Age” (the 1870s through the 1940s) with about three hundred designs are from 1950 to 1970. The great majority of designs are from the Carnival krewes of Comus and Proteus, with Rex and Momus also represented. Included are artworks from many of Carnival’s most noted designers, including Jennie Wilde, Bror Anders Wikstrom, and Charles Briton.
- Topics: Carnival, 1920s, New Orleans
Col. Joseph S. Tate Photograph Album
The original Joseph S. Tate photograph album contained 103 black and white photographic prints mounted on paper. The images show scenes from several locations in Louisiana during the 1920s including lumbering and shrimping operations, city scenes, and a number of scenic bayou images. It is not known whether Joseph S. Tate was the photographer. It is known that the album was his property.
- Topics: 1920s, photographs, historic buildings
Hogan Jazz Archive Photography Collection
Search results from the Hogan Jazz Archive Photography Collection that date from 1919-1930. The images document people, places and events important to the study of New Orleans jazz. Included among the photographers whose work resides in the collection are Ernest Bellocq, Arthur P. Bedou, Villard Paddio, John Kuhlman, Don Perry, Florence Mars, William Russell, Alden Ashforth, Lee Friedlander, Bill Gottlieb, Ray Avery, Jack Hurley, Grauman Marks, Harriet Blum, and Michael P. Smith.
- Topics: Photographs, New Orleans, Jazz
LSU Libraries Postcard Collections
Search results from the collection limited by date from 1919-1929 and sorted by date most recent to earliest. The postcards depict subjects in towns and regions of Louisiana and some areas of Mississippi and Wyoming. Louisiana towns and regions best represented in the collection include Abita Springs, Alexandria, Baton Rouge, Bogalusa, Convent, Covington, Donaldsonville, Franklin, Hammond, Houma, Jennings, Lake Charles, Mandeville, Monroe, Morgan City, New Orleans, Plaquemine, Saint Francisville, Shreveport, and Thibodaux.
- Topics: Postcards, tourism, small towns, Louisiana
State Library of Louisiana Historic Photograph Collection
Search results from the collection, with the date limited to 1920-1929 and sorted by date from most recent to earliest. There are large collections of images from the Department of Transportation, Tourism, Conservation, and Environmental Quality. As such, there are many photographs related to floods, the petroleum industry, and pollution.
- Topics: Photographs, Louisiana, 1920s, petroleum, oil, floods, levees, pollution
Works Progress Administration of Louisiana
Search results from the collection, with the date limited to 1920-1929. Includes many images of historic buildings.
- Topics: 1920s, photographs, historic buildings
