Category: oak alley

“The Plantation System in Southern Life” and Plantation Tourism

In his documentary, Lillian Smith: Breaking the Silence, Hal Jacobs uses numerous historical clips. One that stood out to me, though, was a clip, which he showed three sections of, from a ten minute Coronet film entitled “The Plantation System in Southern Life” from 1950. The film presents the South as an idyllic destination, one full of nostalgia and agrarianism, a soothing balm against … Read More “The Plantation System in Southern Life” and Plantation Tourism

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The Roots Beneath Our Feet

Currently, I’m working on a paper that looks at the ways that Attica Locke’s The Cutting Season, amongst other things, critiques the plantation tourism industry in the South. As I was researching, I came across Rebecca C. McIntyre’s “Promoting the Gothic South,” an article that explores the ways that travel writers, after the Civil War, began to construct images of the South, specifically in … Read More The Roots Beneath Our Feet

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What do these “monuments” say about our history?

Last Thursday, I shared a guest post by Jennifer Morrison where she spoke about her own experiences last month at Festival Internationle when a white woman began speaking with her about the statue of Confederate General Alfred Mouton that stands on the corner of Jefferson Street and Lee Avenue in Lafayette, LA. Her interaction with the woman comes at a time when the city … Read More What do these “monuments” say about our history?