This text was obtained via automated optical character recognition.
It has not been edited and may therefore contain several errors.

---

The completed replica serves as a visual centerpiece to THNOC’s Purchased Lives exhibition.
For the top surface, Head Preparator and Exhibition Designer Scott Ratterree offered up weathered heart-pine floorboards from a recent remodeling project, and for the main cabinet we were able to locate aged and distressed wood at the Green Project, a local salvage depot. We were unable to find aged lumber to suit our specifications for the recessed panels and moldings, so we turned to modern materials, which presented us with an additional challenge: new boards are milled to thinner and narrower dimensions today than they were in the 19th century, and hand planing them to the exact measurements of the original would have been too time consuming. I took great care in constructing the replica to match the exact dimensions of the original wherever possible, but where the modern materials wouldn’t allow it,
I focused on keeping the character of the original.
Next, the surface of the new lumber needed to be roughed up to match its older counterparts. I gouged, chiseled, checked, and coarsely sanded the wood to create a rough-hewn surface, and intentionally
broke and splintered new wood to match the aged and battered original. The new lumber was faux finished with a mixture of steel wool and vinegar, which artificially aged the boards, making them gray and dull in appearance. A water-based stain also helped us to closely match the tone of the old, weathered lumber. I oxidized iron nails with vinegar to mimic the rusty ones protruding from split joints and damaged sections of the auction block on display at the Cabildo.
While we were unable to display the original, our reproduction aims to convey the gravity and reality of the slave trade.
I was really shocked with the scale of the item the first time I saw it. I was imagining perhaps a small box or something the size of a crate, but the original block’s size and heft made its purpose all too clear: people actually stood on it as items for sale. The physical presence of the auction block is an expression of the human scale of slavery, and I hope our replica helps drive home the emotional and physical impact of the domestic slave trade on the individuals who were sold within it. —JOSEPH SHORES
STAFF NEWS New Staff
George Schindler, Dylan Jordan, and Cecilia Hock, docents. Barbara Louviere, Jackie Milan, Emily Toumayan, and Beth Wren, volunteers.
Changes
Jean Parmelee, public relations assistant, has retired. Mallory Taylor is now assistant curator. Dorothy Ball is now senior editor. Amanda McFillen is now associate director of museum programs. Nina Bozak is now library cataloger. Aimee Everrett is now associate curator.
Honors
Curator/Historian Erin M. Greenwald has been appointed a member of the Organization of American Historians’ Local Resource Committee for the 2017 annual meeting in New Orleans.
^ OEIJ;
Tv
KIDNAPPING CASK
WILLIAMS PRIZE
The 2014 Williams Prize in Louisiana History was awarded to The Great New Orleans Kidnapping Case: Race, Law, and Justice in the Reconstruction Era, by Michael A. Ross (Oxford University Press, 2014). The award was announced and presented at the annual meeting of the Louisiana Historical Association, held March 6, 2015, in Lafayette.
Summer 2015	15