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Southern Comfort: The Garden District of New Orleans
Southern Comfort details the magnificent architecture and planning of the Garden District of New Orleans. Through the histories of the developers, owners, architects, laborers, and craftspeople who shaped this district, the book creates a picture of the uniquely cosmopolitan city in the American South. "This book is a valuable contribution to Southern history and to the history of both American architecture and American cities....Southern Comfort is a landmark piece of scholarship on the area." Anne Rice, New York Times Book Review "There's no part of New Orleans so steeped in architectural history as the Garden District. Southern The Garden District of New Orleans tells the story in words and rich photos." Hemispheres
- GenresArchitectureNonfiction
275 pages, Paperback
First published September 22, 1899
32 people want to read
About the author
Frederick Starr
231 books4 followersFrederick Starr (1858 – 1933) was an American academic, anthropologist, and "populist educator".
As he was avid collector of charms (ofuda) and votive slips (senjafuda or nōsatsu) he was called Dr. Ofuda (お札博士 Ofuda Hakushi) in Japan. He sold much of this collection to art collector and museum specialist Gertrude Bass Warner, and it currently resides at the University of Oregon Knight Library Special Collections & University Archives.
As he was avid collector of charms (ofuda) and votive slips (senjafuda or nōsatsu) he was called Dr. Ofuda (お札博士 Ofuda Hakushi) in Japan. He sold much of this collection to art collector and museum specialist Gertrude Bass Warner, and it currently resides at the University of Oregon Knight Library Special Collections & University Archives.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
December 2, 2025
This book has been sitting on my shelf for 25 years and I finally decided it was time to read it and reclaim that space. Ever since I visited New Orleans in 1995 and my camera malfunctioned, such that my photos of Garden District houses were lost, I've been a little obsessed with making up for that.
I'm of two minds about it. I do not know a lot of the technical terminology of architecture so sometimes I let those words wash over me. It was interesting to read about who the people really were that first built the Garden District, in the 1840s and 1850s - many of them came from the north to take advantage of business opportunities in the growing city.
Starr oddly refers to everyone who wasn't French or Spanish as 'Anglo-Saxons', which has a very unpleasant ring if you know how that inaccurate term has been used by American racists for 200 years. I'm not sure the Scots and Irish would have been best pleased by this.
The worst part, for me, was the chapter on Slaves Servants and Retainers. Starr recycles the canard that slave owners had an interest in promoting the good health and welfare of their human property because of their financial investment. And he suggests more than once that because Garden District poobahs erected nice ADUs in the back of their property for their enslaved people, those enslaved people were better off than the struggling poor who came to the city from Ireland and settled in the Irish Channel. This is also not a new apology for slavery. And it's easily disposed of, because you did not see those struggling poor selling their children or themselves into slavery to get them a better life, did you??
Once I read that chapter, I became suspicious of anything Starr said about Reconstruction and federal control of the city, and glossed over it. He was somewhat interesting about the failure of the city to recover its business and commerce after the civil war, and suggested that the southern myth of being just too refined to deign to make money became a counterproductive force hindering such recovery. He contrasts the architectural and locale choices of late 19th century wealthy New Orleanians, and their desire for, essentially, gated communities with the more communal choices made by those who built the Garden District.
If you're interested in the history of architecture, and of the development of American cities in the 19th century, this will hold a lot of information for you. Just maybe be alert to the slavery apologetics.
I'm of two minds about it. I do not know a lot of the technical terminology of architecture so sometimes I let those words wash over me. It was interesting to read about who the people really were that first built the Garden District, in the 1840s and 1850s - many of them came from the north to take advantage of business opportunities in the growing city.
Starr oddly refers to everyone who wasn't French or Spanish as 'Anglo-Saxons', which has a very unpleasant ring if you know how that inaccurate term has been used by American racists for 200 years. I'm not sure the Scots and Irish would have been best pleased by this.
The worst part, for me, was the chapter on Slaves Servants and Retainers. Starr recycles the canard that slave owners had an interest in promoting the good health and welfare of their human property because of their financial investment. And he suggests more than once that because Garden District poobahs erected nice ADUs in the back of their property for their enslaved people, those enslaved people were better off than the struggling poor who came to the city from Ireland and settled in the Irish Channel. This is also not a new apology for slavery. And it's easily disposed of, because you did not see those struggling poor selling their children or themselves into slavery to get them a better life, did you??
Once I read that chapter, I became suspicious of anything Starr said about Reconstruction and federal control of the city, and glossed over it. He was somewhat interesting about the failure of the city to recover its business and commerce after the civil war, and suggested that the southern myth of being just too refined to deign to make money became a counterproductive force hindering such recovery. He contrasts the architectural and locale choices of late 19th century wealthy New Orleanians, and their desire for, essentially, gated communities with the more communal choices made by those who built the Garden District.
If you're interested in the history of architecture, and of the development of American cities in the 19th century, this will hold a lot of information for you. Just maybe be alert to the slavery apologetics.
November 2, 2015
Like most accounts of the Garden District, this one is heavy on architecture. Yet one does come to understand the society that was built in the 1840s and its transformations through the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the economic slowdown of the 20th century. The book has a personal touch as some of the ups and downs of the area's residents are mentioned, although more anecdotes could have gone a long way. The chapter comparing Henry Howard and Lewis E. Reynolds is a real treat.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews