Notable New Orleanians: A Tricentennial Tribute

Alcée Fortier.
TULANE UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES, LOUISIANA RESEARCH
COLLECTION, TULANE UNIVESITY.
In 1885, Fortier first published folktales based
on the Creole dialects he had absorbed from the
stories of blacks along the Mississippi river. 1 Of
the three types he explored—the lyrical, the fairy
tales from India, and the animal tales from
Africa—the last are best known. In 1895, Fortier
published the principal volume of his Louisiana
Folk-Tales. 2 In the introduction he noted his
thanks to his nieces Misses Désirée and
Marguerite Roman and Mr. Zenon De Murelle residents
of St. James Parish. The very first sentence
points to a sociological problem Fortier faced: “It
is very difficult to make a complete collection of
the negro tales, as the young generation knows
nothing about them, and most of the old people
pretend to have forgotten them.” The Creole
dialect “is not merely a corruption of French, that
is to say, French badly spoken, it is a real idiom
with a morphology and grammar of its own…,a
speech concise and simple, and at the same time
soft and musical.”
Fortier’s books were Sept Grand Auteurs du XIXme Siècle; Histoire de la Littérature Française;
Louisiana Folk-Tales: In French Dialect and English Translation; History of Louisiana. Nineteen hundred
and four saw the publication of Fortier’s Illustrated History of Louisiana in four volumes.
Fortier’s educational contributions led to an appointment on the Louisiana State Board of
Education and the naming of the major public uptown high school after him. Following Hurricane
Katrina the Alcee Fortier High School became Lusher Charter High School.
1 Gerard Labarre St. Martin and Jacqueline K. Voorhies, Ecrits Louisianais du Dix-Neuvieme Siecle: Nouvelles, Contes et Fables
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), xxiv.
2 Alcée Fortier, Louisiana Folk-Tales: In French Dialect and English Translation. Boston:Houghton-Mifflin and Company, 1895.
H ENRY P LAUCHÉ D ART
(1858-1934)
Henry Plauché Dart, whose writings launched The Louisiana Historical Quarterly, combined great
legal acumen with a most extensive grasp of New Orleans history. Constant work at long hours
brought him to an understanding few achieved before or after his time. Without the luxury of
schooling beyond a single term in the Jefferson City High School—his family was unable to provide
much formal education—he was rich in intellect and curiosity. He went to work at the age of fourteen,
paid his own schooling and apprenticed as a law clerk and student in the important office of
Cotton & Levy. Passing the Louisiana Bar examination in 1879, he founded the influential law firm
of Dart and Dart. Nine years after his Bar exam, Dart argued his first case in the Louisiana Supreme
Court, where he was to try over 300 cases over a 55-year career. Among his many clients were the
New Orleans States newspaper office, and future Chief Justice of the United States Edward Douglas
White, whom he represented while White served on the U. S. Supreme Court bench. On the occasion
of White’s death in 1921, it was Dart who gave the most important address before the bar of
the United States Supreme Court.
NOTABLE NEW ORLEANIANS: A Tricentennial Tribute
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