 | New Orleans Sports: Playing Hard in the Big Easy Subjects: Sports -- Louisiana -- New Orleans -- History; Sports -- Economic aspects -- Louisiana -- New Orleans; Sports -- Political aspects -- Louisiana -- New Orleans; Sports -- Social aspects -- Louisiana -- New Orleans; Discrimination in sports -- Louisiana --; New Orleans has long been a city fixated on its own history and culture. Founded in 1718 by the French, transferred to the Spanish in the 1763 Treaty of Paris, and sold to the United States in 1803, the city's culture, law, architecture, food, music, and language share the influence of all three countries. This cultural mélange also manifests in the city's approach to sport, where each game is steeped in the city's history. Tracing that history from the early nineteenth century to the present, while also surveying the state of the city's sports historiography, New Orleans Sports places sport in the context of race relations, politics, and civic and business development to expand that historiography--currently dominated by a text that stops at 1900--into the twentieth century, offering a modern examination of sports in the city. Thomas Aiello is associate professor of history and African American studies at Valdosta State University. He is the author of Jim Crow's Last Stand: Nonunanimous Criminal Jury Verdicts in Louisiana and The Kings of Casino Park: Race and Race Baseball in the Lost Season of 1932 . |
