The story of the Lalaurie mansion in New Orleans is part true atrocity tale and part urban legend, so naturally, it ended up as a ghost story. In this episode, Matt discusses how these legends form, how they can misinform us about the past, and how ghost stories can sometimes soothe us into a false sense of security about who we are and what values we hold.
This episode was written by Matthew Armstrong with music by Matthew Armstrong and production assistance from Kaylia Metcalfe.
The transcript for this episode can be found here.
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Show Notes and Sources
French Quarter Phantoms Ghost Tours
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (scan of first printing)
The Law Library of Louisiana on Code Noir under French, Spanish, and United States rule
Preservation Resource Center of New Orlean
Translation of the Code Noir edict
Austin, Joanne. 2006. Weird Hauntings. Sterling, New York, NY.
Crockett, I’Nash. 2018. Twentieth-Century Voodoo – Black Culture, Cultural Geographies, and the Meaning of Place. In The Supernatural in Society, Culture, and History, edited by Dennis Waskul and Marc Eaton. Temple University Press, Philadelphia.
Hauk, Dennis William. 2002. Haunted Places: The National Directory: Ghostly Abodes, Sacred Sites, UFO Landings and Other Supernatural Locations. Penguin Books, NY.
Jacobs, Harriet. 2001 (Original printing, 1861). Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Dover Publications. Mineola, NY.
Miles, Tiya. 2015. Tales From the Haunted South: Dark Tourism and Memories of Slavery from the Civil War Era. The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill NC.
Spear, Jennifer. 2009. Race, Sex, and Social Order in Early New Orleans. Johns Hopkins University Press. Baltimore, MD.
KMMA Media 