City in amber: Race, culture, and the tourist transformation of New Orleans, 1945--1995
Description
This dissertation examines the growth of a modern tourism industry in New Orleans, Louisiana, in the half century after World War II. It sheds light on the ways in which tourism shaped local culture, race and class relations, and public policy-making in a city that was struggling to reverse its slippage from the first order of American cities. Topical chapters explore how, in a time of urban decline, tourism assumed greater importance in concert with several developments: the rise of historic preservation, the resurgence of traditional jazz, and the expansion of the city's Carnival celebration. The study also considers how struggles to end racial discrimination in public accommodations and to stem prostitution, gambling, and other forms of vice and disorder both drew strength from the city's need to attract tourists and facilitated the further expansion of the hospitality industry. Finally, it traces the growing municipal and state partnership with private developers and tourism promoters to develop tourist attractions and venues, market the city's colorful heritage, and fill the calendar with conventions, festival, and other special events Much of this dissertation centers on the French Quarter, or Vieux Carre, the site of the French and Spanish colonial city in the eighteenth century. It argues that different groups in the city---including white social elites, business leaders, municipal officials, and preservationists---tried to use the French Quarter as a vehicle for tourism or as a preserve for an imagined romantic past that reflected a very selective memory. Conversely, many African Americans, whose cultural heritage and labor had proved essential to the city's rise as a tourist destination, viewed the French Quarter with much less affection. For transients, street performers, and nonconformists, the Vieux Carre was a place where they might drink freely, indulge in sexual activities, earn money by entertaining tourists, or live unorthodox lifestyles relatively free from harassment---far different from the upper-class notions of a genteel past. As tourism became more and more central to New Orleans' economy, city leaders and preservation-minded French Quarter residents clashed with those who did not use the urban district in ways they found acceptable