AbstractsGeography &GIS

In the first half of the nineteenth century the house types of the landscape and the footprint of New Orleans changed dramatically. Many of the changes can be attributed to the influx of the refugees from Saint Domingue and the Americans who immigrated from the North and the East Coast of the United States. Both sets of influxes reflect the impact of these two immigrant groups on the previously existing power structures in economics, politics, and society of the city. While the refugees from Saint Domingue more or less assimilated into the city, and in doing so, achieved power over the native Creoles, primarily in the area of social sophistication, the Americans with their more blunt approach to business and politics tended to wrest power from the Creoles by a superior, or at least more effective, business acumen. The landscape generated by the social, political and economic activities and conflicts of the first half of the nineteenth century are apparent in New Orleans today. A number of the buildings built during the period are still present. For example on the 400 block of Royal Street, the old Louisiana State Bank building still has the initials LSB in the ironwork of the balcony and Brennans Restaurant now occupies the old Banque de la Louisiane, but the St. Louis Hotel has been replaced by the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel. The Thirteen Sisters is home to a number of art galleries and host to the annual White Linen Night in early August, and social rivalry is maintained by the annual Dirty Linen Night on Bourbon Street the following weekend.