Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

In every decade, the Society has continued to produce new leaders who have kept alive its mission. Under longtime president Edward
Parsons, the custom of commemorating the Battle of New Orleans with a January 8 dinner at the famous Lake Pontchartrain restaurant of
Chef Lucien Boudro began. Moving to Antoine’s, the Society held its banquet there for over fifty years, continuing under the leadership of
leading intellectual Hugh M. Wilkinson, who succeeded Parsons in 1962.
To this day, the annual banquet never deviates from the 8th of January. Filled with festive greetings from allied parties, the banquet rings
with songs and toasts to France, to Spain, to England, to America, and to the lasting peace among them. A second annual event commemorates
the Louisiana Purchase with staged readings, held on a Sunday nearest December 20. The Society holds this annual event in the Cabildo’s Sala
Capitular, on which it holds a legal servitude for the presentation. In the year 2000 the Society launched a digital, searchable, Web republication
of the Louisiana Historical Quarterly, available on line to members, and an effective membership tool. Well-attended regular meetings and lectures,
held each month in season, have continued to the present day the Society’s work to find, produce, and promote the history of Louisiana. 2
NOTES
For Further reading see, William D. Reeves, “Recent History of the Louisiana Historical Society, 1940-2010” (Tulane University Archives). Concerning the history of
colonial documents, see Howard Margot, Survivor(s)! Historical Peregrinations of New Orleans’s French Superior Council and Spanish Judicial Records, in
Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals. Volume 11, No. 3. Summer 2015, pp. 171-184.
1 For an extensive exploration of Gayarré’s and French’s efforts in conjunction with the Society, see Faye Phillips, “Writing Louisiana Colonial History in the Mid-
Nineteenth Century: Charles Gayarré, Benjamin Franklin French, and the Louisiana Historical Society, “ Louisiana History: The Journal of the Louisiana Historical
Association, Vol. 49, No. 2 (spring, 2008), pp. 163-190.
2 Recent presidents of the Louisiana Historical Society are:1997-2003 William D. Reeves; 2003-2009 Sally K. Reeves; 2009-2015 Howard G. Hunter; 2015-
Nora Wetzel.
BIOGRAPHIES
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