Thank you for coming to see The Uninvited!

We created the show using many different resources and materials. Below is some of that information; may it benefit you on your journey to more fully understanding our history and how we can learn from it.

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
THE UNINVITED BIBLIOGRAPHY
TIMELINE
GALLIER HOUSE FAMILY TREE

Frequently Asked Questions*
What is historically accurate?  What is extrapolated?

The Changing City:  At the time people of color were fighting hard for rights that most whites were reluctant to give them.  The city was a place of passionate activism on behalf of civil rights, and the show is partly meant to portray the daily, sometimes forgotten ways, that people of color worked to secure their rights.  It also, hopefully, portrays the many different white reactions to this fight. 

The Incident:  The main incident in this show, wherein the White League tries to forcibly segregate an integrated girls’ school, is based on a real-life event in December 1874 that took place two doors from the Galliers’ home, at the LaLaurie Mansion.  During this time the White League undertook similar ‘actions’ at a variety of integrated schools across the city.  Accounts of this particular incident can be found in Harper’s and in George Washington Cable’s Strange True Louisiana Stories.  Cable was a reporter on the education beat for the Picayune at the time. 

Donaldsonville:  Charity references Donaldsonville in the show as one of the first black-run political enclaves in the United States. This is all based on real historical evidence, as is Charity’s story about the Battle of Fort Butler.    

French:  The language of the household would have been French at the time. In our production we have our characters speaking mostly English, with a few moments of French. 

The Tribune:  The New Orleans Tribune was a black-run newspaper, founded in 1864 by Dr. Louis Charles Roudanez. The paper was a successor to L’Union and one of the leading voices of Louisiana’s civil rights movement in the years after the war. 

The Characters:  Most of the characters in the show are inventions, except for Aglaé, Blanche, and Leonie Gallier.  The names of the Galliers and their relationships are based on fact, however the specific views they express and language they use are representative of the period, considering the family’s social and economic standing, and their family backgrounds. Everyone else is built as a composite of figures we know or were built by the ensemble based on extensive historical research. 

The Galliers:  James Gallier Jr. passed in 1868, leaving behind his wife and four daughters (in age order: Leonie, Blanche, Josephine, Clemence).  Blanche was society editor for The New Orleans Bee (where her brother-in-law was the editor) from 1908 to 1913.  Clemence worked at the New Orleans Public Library from 1898 to 1941. See the Gallier Family Timeline for more information.

‘Palsy’:  In our show Leonie is portrayed as having a version of ‘palsy’ in her left hand (as it was referred to at the time).  This is based on oral histories collected about the Gallier women. 

Political Views:  The Gallier family did own slaves before the war, and evidence suggests they would have been a pro-Confederate family.  However, the variation in views is representative of the ways in which younger generations were deviating from the norms of their parents and conveys the differing points of view that gripped the city in the years after the Civil War. The creators did not have primary documentation of Aglaé’s or Leonie’s personal political views as expressed in the play; these attitudes are meant to reflect the period.

Comstock:  At the beginning of the show Rene references ‘Comstock’; federal laws instituted at the time to limit the sale of contraceptives. 

Property:  The Galliers owned a large property, known as Gallier Court, on Carondolet Street. Built by James Gallier Sr., it comprised three four-story buildings (two on Carondelet and one on Common). The 1874 address was 11 Carondelet, which would have been today’s 129 or 131 Carondelet. The rental income from the offices located in these buildings provided for Aglaé and the girls after James Jr.’s death.

Moses’ article: The article that Moses reads about the attack on schoolteacher Julia Hayden is a real article from the time.

Detective LeCoq:  In the play Moses reads from Detective LeCoq, a very popular detective series from the time.  However, the stories were not translated into English until the 1880s. 

Little Women:  First published in two volumes in 1868 and 1869, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott was a very popular book at the time. 

Spiritualism:  Spiritualism was popularly practiced at the time, and seances were not just a time to try to contact deceased relatives and other famous names, but also a time to discuss the political topics of the day.  These were spaces uniquely open to women and people of color in the city. 

Kellogg and McEnery:  The so-called First Battle of the Cabildo, fought on March 5, 1873, pitted Democrats who supported John McEnery against the Metropolitan Police of New Orleans, an integrated militia that protected the Republican administration under Governor William Pitt Kellogg. Both candidates had claimed victory in the 1872 election and established dual military forces and legislatures, resulting in a McEnery coup attempt directed at Metropolitan Police headquarters in the Cabildo. Kellogg and the Republicans maintained power, although their tenure was unstable throughout the remaining years of Reconstruction.

The Uninvited Bibliography

Cable, George Washington.  Strange True Louisiana Stories.  Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1888.  Pelican Publishing Company, 1994. 

Daggett, Melissa.  Spiritualism in Nineteenth-Century New Orleans: the life and times of Henry Louis Rey.  University of Mississippi Press, 2017.

Du Bois, W.E.B.  Black Reconstruction in America.  New York: The Free Press, 1998.

Foner, Eric. Reconstruction: America’s unfinished revolution 1863-1877.  New York:  Harper, 1988.  

Funke, Loretta.  “The Negro in Education.”  The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 5, No. 1, pp. 1-21.  The University of Chicago Press, Jan. 1920.

Gallier, James.  Autobiography of James Gallier, Architect.  Da Capo Press, 1973.

Harlan, Louis.  “Desegregation in New Orleans Public Schools During Reconstruction.”  The American Historical Review, Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 663-675.  Oxford University Press, April 1962.

Hermann-Grima & Gallier Historic Houses.  Gallier House Guidebook.  Revised, 2013.

Hollandsworth, James G. An Absolute Massacre:  the New Orleans race riot of July 30th, 1866.  Baton Rouge: LSU Press, 2001. 

Lawrence, Eugene.  “Color in the New Orleans Schools.” Harpers Weekly 18 February 1875.

Lemann, Nicholas.  Redemption:  the Last Battle of the Civil War.  New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2006. 

Mitchell, Mary Niall.  Raising Freedom’s Children.  New York University Press, 2008.

Nystrom, Justin A.  New Orleans After the Civil War. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2010.

Roudane, Mark Charles.  “The New Orleans Tribune: an introduction to America’s first black daily newspaper.” Roudanez, History and Legacy.  2015. roudanez.com.

Tademy, Lalita.  Cane River.  United States:  Warner Books, 2002.

reconstruction era Timeline

The Louisiana State Museum’s Reconstruction Timeline is very thorough and helpful!

Gallier Family timeline

September 25, 1827: James Gallier, Jr. born in Huntingdon, England.

1834: Aglaé Villavaso born in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana.

January 29, 1853: James Gallier, Jr., and Aglaé Villavaso marry in the Ursuline Convent chapel.

1853: Aglaé Gallier purchases an enslaved girl, Laurette, with money given to her by her father as a wedding gift.

1853: Leonie Gallier, first child of Aglaé and James Gallier Jr, born.

1856: Blanche Gallier, second child of Aglaé and James Gallier Jr, born.

1858: Josephine Gallier, third child of Aglaé and James Gallier Jr, born.

1859: James Gallier Jr. builds his family home at the current 1132 Royal Street.

1860: The 1860 Slave Schedule lists Rose and Julienne, two women enslaved by the Galliers, as “runaways” from the Gallier home. It is unknown if they return.

1860: Clemence Gallier, fourth child of Aglaé and James Gallier Jr, born.

October 3, 1866: James Gallier, Sr. And his wife Catherine die at sea when the ship Evening Star sinks off the Georgia coast during a hurricane.

May 16, 1868: James Gallier, Jr. dies suddenly at age 41.

December 9, 1906: Aglaé Gallier dies at age 72. Her funeral service takes place at the St. Louis Cathedral.

December 30, 1924: Leonie Gallier dies. Her funeral service takes place at her residence on Soniat Street, and she is buried at St. Louis Cemetery No. 3.

November 7, 1933: Blanche Gallier dies and is buried at St. Louis Cemetery No. 3.