{"id":56891,"date":"2018-10-08T02:42:45","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T02:42:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=56891"},"modified":"2018-10-08T02:42:45","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T02:42:45","slug":"the-notorious-mixed-race-new-orleans-madam-who-turned-her-identity-into-a-brand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=56891","title":{"rendered":"The Notorious, Mixed-Race New Orleans Madam Who Turned Her Identity Into a Brand"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Notorious, Mixed-Race New Orleans Madam Who Turned Her Identity Into a Brand<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Z\u00f3calo Public Square<\/a>
\n2018-10-01<\/p>\n

Emily Epstein Landau<\/strong>, Teacher [and author of Spectacular Wickedness: Sex, Race, and Memory in Storyville, New Orleans<\/em><\/a>]
\nGeorgetown Day School, Washington, D.C.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a>
\nLulu White<\/a>, the most notorious madam<\/a> in the turn-of-the-century Big Easy<\/a>. Courtesy of the Collections of the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. All rights reserved.<\/em><\/small><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

By Repackaging the Myths of the Tragic Octoroon<\/a> and the Self-Made Woman, Lulu White Crafted a Persona That Haunts Beyonc\u00e9’s “Formation<\/a>“<\/em><\/p>\n

In 2016, music and pop-culture idol Beyonc\u00e9<\/a> released the album Lemonade<\/em><\/a> to rapturous reviews. As a historian of New Orleans<\/a>, I was especially intrigued by the video<\/a> for one of the songs on the album, \u201cFormation<\/a>.\u201d The video includes iconic images of the city: Katrina<\/a> flood waters and post-flood graffiti; \u201csecond-lines\u201d; marching bands; crawfish<\/a> eating; and even a dancing \u201cMardi Gras Indian<\/a>.\u201d As we move through various neighborhoods, we visit a church service, a St. Charles Avenue<\/a> mansion, and, in what appears to be a move through time into the city\u2019s past, a bordello<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The bordello scenes in the video recall famous photographs from Storyville<\/a>, New Orleans\u2019s notorious red-light district<\/a>, which flourished from 1898 to 1917. And while the song is clearly about Beyonc\u00e9, the persona she embodies in it resonates with an earlier iconic black female: Lulu White<\/a>, the self-styled \u201cDiamond Queen\u201d of New Orleans\u2019s turn-of-the-century demimonde. Knowing Lulu White\u2019s story helps us see Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s artistic creation within a complex historical framework, for in it are woven together threads of American history: stories of sexual slavery and prostitution; revolution and exile; and, not least, capitalism and the American Dream<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lulu White was the most notorious madam<\/a> in Storyville. She earned fame and fortune as the \u201chandsomest octoroon<\/a>\u201d in the South<\/a>, and her bordello, Mahogany Hall, featured \u201coctoroon\u201d prostitutes for the pleasure of wealthy white men during one of America\u2019s most virulently\u2014and violently\u2014racist periods. It was also the dawn of consumer culture and the beginning of modern advertising. Thus, Lulu White crafted a persona for herself through stories that had long circulated in New Orleans; she repackaged those stories to create what today we would recognize as her brand…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Repackaging the Myths of the Tragic Octoroon and the Self-Made Woman, Lulu White Crafted a Persona That Haunts Beyonc\u00e9’s “Formation”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1245,8413,459,369,8,20,25],"tags":[21939,22943,10761,28990,1438,10760,7518],"class_list":["post-56891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-biography","category-communications","category-history","category-louisiana","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-women","tag-beyonce","tag-beyonce-giselle-knowles-carter","tag-emily-epstein-landau","tag-lulu-white","tag-new-orleans","tag-storyville","tag-zocalo-public-square"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56891","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=56891"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56891\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":56892,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56891\/revisions\/56892"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56891"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56891"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56891"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}