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Ca. 1927photograph of unidentified bandfeaturing well-known saxophonist and clarinetist Yvonne Fasnacht, nicknamed “Miss Dixie, ” /center) with Arlene Hobbs on sax, Rose Romano on banjo, Betty (last name unknown) on piano, an unnamed woman holding a baton, and Alma Hobbs on drums. (2010.0198.2)
Curatorial
For the third quarter of 2010 (July-September), there were 15 acquisitions, totaling approximately 2,500 items.
I The Crescent Club donated 403 drawings of Mardi Gras float designs along with several doubloon and invitation designs for the Krewe of Proteus. The colorful, often lavish designs are executed in ink, colored pencil, or, most frequently, watercolor. The oldest date from the early 1970s and are by Louis Andrews Fischer. She started designing floats for Proteus in 1922 and intermittently designed for them, as well as other carnival organizations, until the early 1930s. After a more-than-30-year hiatus, she resumed designing Proteus floats in 1964 and continued to do so until her death in 1974. More recent drawings are by the late Herbert Jahncke Jr. (d. 2007) of Royal Artists, who designed
Float design for the Krewe of Proteus by Louis Andrews Fischer, 1972 (2010.0229.25.2)
floats for Proteus parades between 1 978 and 1992. In 1992 Proteus cancelled its parade after the city council passed a law prohibiting racial discrimination among carnival krewes. The organization resumed parading in 2000, and Jahncke carried on his role as float designer through 2002, when Richard Valadie, the organization’s current designer, took over.
Dating to 1882, Proteus ranks as the fifth oldest carnival krewe, after the Mistick Krewe of Comus (1857), Twelfth Night Revelers (1870), Rex (1872), and
the Knights of Momus (1872). Several of the older krewes no longer parade, making Proteus the second-oldest active parade after Rex. (2010.0229)
B The Collection acquired five photographs of female bands dating from the 1920s and ’30s. One dating from the late ’20s features a group identified as A1 Durning’s Play Girls, the Harmony Maids. The bands in the other photographs are not identified, but one of the musicians, included in all of the images, is easily identified: Yvonne Fasnacht. A New Orleans icon, Fasnacht, nicknamed “Miss Dixie,” performed with the Sophisticates of Swing and Southland Rhythm Girls, among other bands. Raised in St. Bernard Parish, where her family owned the Orange Grove and Caernarvon plantations, Fasnacht, now 100, was until recently a longtime resident of the French Quarter.
Miss Dixie played both clarinet and saxophone; in a 1927 photograph she is seen posing with both instruments. Other band members in that image include Arlene Hobbs on sax, Alma Hobbs on drums, Rose Romano on banjo, Betty (last name unknown) at the piano, and an unnamed woman holding a baton. One of the photographs is inscribed to “Sis” by Yvonne.
“Sis” was probably her sister Irma, with whom she opened Dixies Bar of Music at 204 St. Charles Avenue in 1939. Ten years later Dixies moved to 701 Bourbon Street—now the Cat’s Meow— where it operated until the late 1960s. Among the earliest and best-known gay bars to operate in New Orleans, Dixies was a legendary gathering spot for such luminaries as Lyle Saxon, Tennessee Williams, and Truman Capote. (2010.0198.1—.5)
H Jahncke Services was founded in 1875 by German-born Fritz Jahncke. The company’s first product, Schillinger Patent Pavement, helped lift the city out of the mud. Over the years Jahn-cke’s business grew to provide a host of products, including gravel and shell, and services ranging from harbor dredging to boatbuilding and repair. The Collection recently acquired approximately 1,800 archival items related to Jahncke's business dating between approximately 1900 and 1940. Made up primarily of photographs and albums, the collection includes works by several of New Orleans's noted commercial photographers of the day, such as Charles L. Franck, J. Hvppolyte Coquille, H. J. Harvey, John Teunisson, and E. J. Bellocq. (2010.0186)
—John Mmgill
18 Volume XXVIII, Number 1 — Winter 2011