Valentine's Day

Our collection has many scrapbooks containing cherished mementos, photographs, and holiday cards. One of the scrapbooks, saved by a Bossier City woman, holds her memories of the 1940s when her husband was serving in the Army Air Corps. Below are some valentines that she carefully tucked away in her book. Some are loving and sentimental, while others feature jokes and puns.






This watery-eyed onion is now missing his moveable arm, which held a tissue to wipe away his tears.

“EXTRACT FROM THE RECONSTRUCTED CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF LOUISIANA”

“Extract from the Reconstructed Constitution of the State of Louisiana. With Portraits of the Distinguished Members of the Convention & Assembly. A.D. 1868” is a rare lithograph poster in our collection that once hung in thousands of homes of black Louisianans. Thumbnail portraits of the black delegates to the Louisiana Constitutional Convention of 1868 surround a portrait of Louisiana’s first black Lieutenant Governor, O.J. Dunn. (Not pictured is John Pierce, representative of Bossier Parish.)

Delegates to this convention rewrote Louisiana’s Constitution during the period following the Civil War called Reconstruction. Black Louisianans were given the right to vote for delegates to the Constitutional Convention of 1868. They enthusiastically voted for almost 60 percent black delegates. The resulting Constitution gave black males the right to vote. It took away the right to vote from those who had preached or published articles against the United States or who had voted for or signed an ordinance of secession. It integrated free schools and (on paper at least) any other public places.

In the election following ratification, many of the black delegates to the constitutional convention were elected to the legislature. It was the first time blacks held public office in Louisiana. These changes did not persist. Reconstruction was over by 1877. But black leaders of the Reconstruction period, who tended to be as educated as their white counterparts, had laid down a framework for black political, economic and educational gains. Reconstruction was Louisiana’s first civil rights campaign, and of course not its last.

The Amazing Travels of Archival Boxes

We have recently embarked on a full inventory of our archives. This is the first inventory of the Historical Center’s collections since our opening ten years ago.

So what is an inventory and why is it important?

Every item in our collection has its own unique number that is tied to our records and our database. This number corresponds to the year in which we received the item and groups items from a particular collection together. Initially, each box and folder was assigned to a specific location in our archives, but things have traveled over the past decade.

Some boxes have made intrepid building-wide journeys, while others have seemingly leapt across aisles, and a few simply shuffled over to the next shelf. Finding a photo or letter in our collection can be a challenge. This is why we need to complete a thorough inventory. We need to pinpoint where everything is right now, so we can find items quickly when patrons request them or when we are creating a new exhibit.

During our inventory process, we are basically going through every photo, map, and document in our collection and checking its number and location. Moving shelf by shelf, we open every box and record the items that we find. Then this list is compared to our collections database and we note changes in location and fix any discrepancies. When we finish the inventory process, our archives will be well-organized and we will be able to locate individual items with ease.