Uprooted

Race, Public Housing, and the Archaeology of Four Lost New Orleans Neighborhoods

By D. Ryan Gray

SERIES: Archaeology of the American South: New Directions and Perspectives

University of Alabama Press

The archaeology of four New Orleans neighborhoods that were replaced by public housing projects

Uprooted: Race, Public Housing, and the Archaeology of Four Lost New Orleans Neighborhoods uses archaeological research on four neighborhoods that were razed during the construction of public housing in World War II–era New Orleans. Although each of these neighborhoods was identified as a “slum” historically, the material record challenges the simplicity of this designation. D. Ryan Gray provides evidence of the inventiveness of former residents who were marginalized by class, color, or gender and whose everyday strategies of survival, subsistence, and spirituality challenged the city’s developing racial and social hierarchies.

These neighborhoods initially appear to have been quite distinct, ranging from the working-class Irish Channel, to the relatively affluent Creole of Color–dominated Lafitte area, to the former location of Storyville, the city’s experiment in semilegal prostitution. Archaeological and historical investigations suggest that race was the crucial factor in the areas’ selection for clearance. Each neighborhood manifested a particular perceived racial disorder, where race intersected with ethnicity, class, or gender in ways that defied the norms of Jim Crow segregation.

Gray’s research makes use of both primary documents—including census records, city directories, and even the brothel advertising guides called “Blue Books”—and archaeological data to examine what this entailed at a variety of scales, reconstructing narratives of the households and communities affected by clearance. Public housing, both in New Orleans and elsewhere, imposed a new kind of control on urban life that had the effect of making cities both more segregated and less equal. The story of the neighborhoods that were destroyed provides a reminder that their erasure was not an inevitable outcome, and that a more equitable and just city is still possible today. A critical examination of the rise of public housing helps inform the ongoing debates over its demise, especially in light of the changing face of post-Katrina New Orleans.

Ryan Gray’s Uprooted: Race, Public Housing, and the Archaeology of Four Lost New Orleans Neighborhoods strikes a novel and creative series of questions about the relationships between heritage, municipal housing, and the color line illuminated with an interesting range of broadly defined archaeological resources. Telling this story as historical archaeology is novel if not unique, aspiring to paint a picture with prosaic materiality, urban spatiality, historical depth, and a critical eye on the motivations of a stream of ideologues eager to engineer the American city.’
— Paul R. Mullins, author of The Archaeology of Consumer Culture
‘This is a good book and readers with specific interest in New Orleans history will find much to intrigue them. Readers with wider interests in the realities of urban renewal, the insertion of racial preconceptions in urban design, and the intricate relationships between heritage, history, and ‘progress’ will also be rewarded.’
—Heritage and Society

This book would be a great read for those interested in the histories and narratives of marginalized communities. Gray’s book successfully connects the past and present, calling to question the real intentions
of public housing redevelopment.’
—Southeastern Archaeology

D. Ryan Gray is associate professor of anthropology at the University of New Orleans.

List of Illustrations

Preface

Acknowledgments

Abbreviations

Chapter 1. Renewing New Orleans, Past and Present

Chapter 2. Subjectivity, Race, and the Birth of Public Housing in New Orleans

Chapter 3. St. Thomas: Effacing Heterogeneity in the Irish Channel

Chapter 4. Magnolia: Creating Order in Belmont

Chapter 5. Lafitte: Gender, Race, and Creole Color along Orleans Avenue

Chapter 6. Iberville: Desexualizing Space at Storyville

Chapter 7. Conclusions