A Hub for Decorative Arts

Ask anyone, anywhere and they all agree. New Orleans is unique in so many ways—the culture, music, food, architecture, history—but a hub for decorative arts?

“You have to realize that in the nineteenth century, New Orleans was the biggest city in the South by far, and the richest. There was no Atlanta, Houston, or Dallas as you know it today. New Orleans was the dominant city with strong connections to Europe and the wealth available for trade,” said The Historic New Orleans Collection Senior Curator/Historian John Magill.

It was also a time when goods were being mass-produced, making them more affordable and readily available. The 1840s saw the rise of the dry goods store, over-sized fabric stores that carried all types of fabrics and, later, ready-made clothing. Department stores followed in the 1860s, providing full lines of merchandise, from china and silver to knick-knacks and furniture. By the 1880s and ‘90s, department stores could be found in large cities everywhere.

“By the 1840s, New Orleans was one of the leading wholesale and retail markets in the United States. The merchandise found here was on par with what you could find in Paris or London at the time,” said Magill. “New Orleans, by far, was not an industrial city. The goods came in through the port and were purchased locally and throughout the South to decorate parlors, bedrooms—to essentially show off their lifestyles.”

Add to this the realities of nineteenth century life—hundreds of thousands of soldiers dying in the Civil War, cholera epidemics, yellow fever. Death was a constant companion, a fact that was reflected in the availability of commodities from tomb designs to mourning jewelry.

“Everyone was enveloped in death, and the decorative arts offered an escape from the realities of life,” said Magill. “They surrounded themselves with things that were beautiful.”

Photo: D. H. Holmes: Arcade Dauphine Street Side; between 1883 and 1887; albumen photoprint mounted on card by an unknown photographer; The Historic New Orleans Collection, gift of Stewart K. Gahn Jr., 2003.0053.3.9