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operas in which Fides Devries-Adler performed include the Paris premieres of Giuseppe Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra and Richard Wagner’s Lohengrin.
Fides Devries-Adler was one of three siblings to achieve fame in the performing arts. Her twin sister, Jeanne, and brother, Marcel, were also well known on the French stage. Marcel, a tenor, was best known for his role in Charles Gounod’s Faust.
The three undated letters were all written by Devries-Adler. In two she expresses her gratitude for professional support and flattering reviews to the director of the Paris Opera and editor of the Jotirnal des Debats, neither of whom is identified by name. In the third, Devries-Adler asks the correspondent to obtain novelist Arsene Houssaye’s autograph. (2010.0234)
—Mary Lott Eichhorn
Library
For the third quarter of 2010 (July-September), there were 45 acquisitions, totaling 77 items.
I In the late 19th century, household guides targeting women of a growing middle class became popular throughout America. The Home Manual: Everybody’s Guide in Social, Domestic, and Business Life( 1889) by Mrs. John A. Logan, wife of a U.S. senator, was donated to the library by Frederick Lee Lawson. Boasting “the contents of one hundred books in a single volume,” The Home Manual covers the usual topics presented in such guides: etiquette, hygiene, household economy, beauty, care of invalids, and home decoration. The accomplished Mrs. Logan, who actively campaigned with her husband and was one of Washington’s leading hostesses, also includes sections on horsemanship, baseball, writing for the press, treatment of gunshot wounds, and a Shakespearean quote for each day of the year. (2010.0262.2)
The Home Manual: Everybody’s Guide in Social, Domestic, and Business Life by Mrs. John A. Logan, 1889 (2010. 0262.2), gift of Frederick Lee Lawson
I Wardwell Clement Flanders, born in 1811 in New Hampshire, went to sea when he was about 1 5 on a brig bound for New Orleans. From cabin boy to captain, he spent most of his life on a variety of seagoing merchant vessels traveling to numerous ports. When he became part-owner and master of the schooner Junius in 1838, he married Irish-born Anna Cunningham, and the couple made their home in New Orleans. In 1886, about five years before his death, he wrote a brief account of his life, travels, and adventures to satisfy the “earnestly repeated solicitation of my children and friends.” The original manuscript is included in the Flanders Family Papers (2004.0224), which were donated in 2004 to The Historic New Orleans Collection by Drs. Robert L. and Sidney A. Seegers, descendants of W. C. Flanders. The library recently acquired the published version of this account, Biography of a Sea Captains Life: Written by Himself edited by Rickey Pittman.
A lively reminiscence of Flanders’s nearly 50 years as a seaman, the book relates his many experiences—navigating the Straits of Magellan, managing and investing in cargo, and handling a variety of both sailing and steam-powered ships through peace and war on open seas and inland waters. He writes of daily life
and events in New Orleans, as well as his involvement with the construction of a wharf at the head of St. Ferdinand Street in 1831 and his role supervising and inspecting government vessels during the war with Mexico. Flanders ends his biography abruptly with the South’s declaration of war, stating that when Federal troops occupied the city in 1862 and reopened the Custom House, he accepted the position of acting surveyor of the port for two years. Then he served as U.S. Local Inspector of Hulls of Steam Vessels for the next 13 years. Although W. C. Flanders does not mention his brother Benjamin Franklin Flanders, mayor of New Orleans from 1870 to 1872, Pittman includes an article about him along with other genealogical material and a description of Flanders’s house at 925 Independence Street. (2010.0195.1)
H Dissertations on topics related to the history and culture of the Gulf South region are ordered regularly from UM1 Dissertation Publishing, a division of ProQuest. The authors of these works often conducted some if not all of their research at the Williams Research Center. A few recently acquired titles include “Making Race: The Role of Free Blacks in the Development of New Orleans’ Three-Caste Society, 1791-1812,” by Kenneth Randolph Aslakson, University of Texas at Austin; “Hurricane Katrina: An Evaluation of Governmental Leadership and the Disaster Surrounding the City of New Orleans,” by Gregory L. Cotton, Capella University; “Benjamin Morgan Palmer: Southern Presbyterian Divine,” by Christopher M. Duncan, Auburn University; “Leona Queyrouze (1861-1938): Louisiana French Creole Poet, Essayist, and Composer,” by Donna M. Meletio, Louisiana State University; and “Instruments of Power: New Orleans Brass Bands and the Politics of Performance,” by Matt Sakakeeny, Columbia University. (2010.0184.1, .2, .3, .8, .11) —Pamela D. Arceneaux
The Historic New Orleans Collection Quarterly 17