In The Flow of Time – July 18, 2024
I was looking for weather reports. I thought, newspapers of the period. Into the Library of Congress I go. The papers were four dense pages long. The LoC. has thousands of New Orleans papers. The oldest they have is the new Orleans True American, back in the 1830s. The very title of this rag says, it’s for the better people, the Americans of Faubourg St. Marie. It’s in English only. Some papers are in both French and English, it was a multi-lingual city.
No weather. We do have nostrums for scrofulous ulcers, horse races, ships arriving and sailing, steamboat departures, advertisements of all kinds for perfumery, anthracite coal, potatoes, wine, bales of cotton, gins, available passage on ships, fine millinery, mixed in with announcements for auctions of slaves, and rewards for runaways. Testaments to the efficacy of baldness cures. Places for lease. Even bit of news. All the mundane bullshit of daily life. One of these will save you from cholera for sure.
So, with respect to weather, a dry hole. But knowing this resource is available, I suspect that when I decide on a scene, a chapter, whatever the date, I’ll see if I can find one or two newspapers from that day or the day before, and see if anything interesting is happening. You know, like a biblical deluge or the arrival of some sainted politician.
Until then I give you, the gazettes of New Orleans.
(Edit: Later on I found another source. The Jefferson Parish Library has The Abeille (The Bee) dating back to 1827. It looks like they have every issue. It was a 4-page broadhseet, published (initially) three days a week.)
