Cajun Document: Acadiana, 1973-74

by Douglas Baz, Charles H. Traub

For six months in 1974, two young photographers, fresh out of art school in Chicago, traveled through Cajun country, documenting the people, festivals, material culture, and haunting landscapes of Acadiana and its coastal outposts. Never before published or exhibited as a group, the 163 black-and-white images in Cajun Document illuminate south-central Louisiana as it stood poised on the verge of enormous change. Coastal erosion, a boom in oil and natural gas production, and worldwide interest in Cajun music and Cajun food would shortly transform the landscape, the economy, and the culture of Acadiana forever. Douglas Baz and Charles H. Traub’s sensitive, insightful photographs preserve an image of Cajun country less well known and less subject to outside influences than it would ever be again. Distributed for the Historic New Orleans Collection

164 pages, Hardcover

Published April 1, 2020

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Similarly, the rise of tourism in southern Louisiana over the past forty years has done much to rehabilitate the public perception of Cajuns. But today’s interest in these photographs is not only, or even primarily, nostalgic. Baz and Traub approached their subjects first and foremost as visual artists, but, through the descriptive information they captured on film, their work is also broadly informative on topics ranging from sociology and economics to folkways and ecology. As a group and as individual images, Cajun Document goes a long way in contributing to today’s more nuanced understanding of Louisiana’s Cajuns.

--“Foreword” by John H. Lawrence

It was clear that we had to go back. We left our jobs and returned for six months to photograph what we believed was still undocumented and unseen by the larger public. In January 1974, we set out on the road again, renting a small apartment in Breaux Bridge, within striking distance of everything in Cajun country.

--“Preface” by Douglas Baz and Charles Traub

Baz and Traub’s black and white photographs of Cajun country in 1974 are definitely a trip down memory lane—but they are also a “document” of the people and experiences of Cajun culture. While they are careful to note in their preface they make no claims on capturing Cajun culture completely, they definitely capture memorable examples of a variety of Cajun characters and lives. They participate in the traditional Courir de Mardi Gras in Mamou, capture the piles of Schlitz beer cans in the gutter of downtown Breaux Bridge during the Crawfish Festival, ride through and over the Atchafalaya Basin, are tempted by a waved link of boudin by a driver of a Volkswagen Beetle. Each photograph captures a moment, tells a story. I highly recommend viewing Baz and Traub’s Cajun Document.