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Environment, Labor, And Race: An Historical Geography Of St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, 1878-1956, Amy Rhiannon Sumpter

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana, is known as a white suburb of New Orleans. It also has a well-known history as a health resort for wealthy New Orleanians during the summer months, particularly during yellow fever outbreaks in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth centuries. This research investigates the historical geography of this parish in terms of race and attempts to answer the question of how St. Tammany became an attractive place for the development of white subdivisions in the 1950s. I uncover the connections between race, labor, the environment, and political culture of the parish from 1878—the year Reconstruction ended—to …