Product Description: One of the first women's organizations to "mask" in a Mardi Gras parade, the "Million Dollar Baby Dolls" redefined the New Orleans carnival tradition. Tracing their origins from Storyville brothels and dance halls to their re-emergence in post-Katrina New Orleans, author Kim Vaz uncovers the fascinating history of the "raddy-walking, shake-dancing, cigar-smoking, money-flinging" ladies that strutted their way into a predominantly male establishment...read more

Product Description: Final installment in the Mardi Gras Treasures Series looks at the artistry and craftsmanship of scepters, crowns, mantles, and krewe favors from Carnival's Golden Age. Exquisite in design and craftsmanship, Mardi Gras jewelry, offered as favors by krewe members, are cherished gifts, proudly worn year after year by the lucky recipients...read more

Product Description: New Orleans collectibles, and especially Mardi Gras collectibles, continue to be popular worldwide. This gorgeous volume of vintage Mardi Gras ball invitations, dance cards, and admit cards shows off just what kinds of collectibles are still available...read more

With this colorful study, Reid Mitchell takes us to Mardi Gras--to a yearly ritual that sweeps the richly multicultural city of New Orleans into a frenzy of parades, pageantry, dance, drunkenness, music, sexual display, and social and political bombast. In All on a Mardi Gras Day Mitchell tells us some of the most intriguing stories of Carnival since 1804. Woven into his narrative are observations of the meaning and messages of Mardi Gras--themes of unity, exclusion, and elitism course through these tales as they do through the Crescent City. Moving through the decades, Mitchell describes the city's diverse cultures coming together to compete in Carnival performances. We observe powerful social clubs, or krewes, designing their elaborate parade displays and extravagant parties; Creoles and Americans in conflict over whose dances belong in the ballroom; enslaved Africans and African Americans preserving a sense of their heritage in processions and dances; white supremacists battling Reconstruction; working-class blacks creating the flamboyant Krewe of Zulu; the birth and reign of jazz; the gay community holding lavish balls; and of course tourists purchasing an authentic experience according to the dictates of our commercial culture. Interracial friction, nativism, Jim Crow separatism, the hippie movement--Mitchell illuminates the expression of these and other American themes in events ranging from the 1901 formation of the anti-prohibitionist Carrie Nation Club to the controversial 1991 ordinance desegregating Carnival parade krewes. Through the conflicts, Mitchell asserts, "I see in Mardi Gras much what I hear in a really good jazz band: a model for the just society, the joyous community, the heavenly city...A model for community where individual expression is the basis for social harmony and where continuity is the basis for creativity." All on a Mardi Gras Day journeys into a world where hope persists for a rare balance between diversity and unity. (view table of contents)

(view table of contents)

Discusses how Mardi Gras is run by elitist secret societies, its effects, and attempts to change it (view table of contents)

The author of Tarnished Crown goes underground in the city famous for the Mardi Gras and reveals a socially stratified town with political, social, and cultural cauldron brewing beneath its surface.

Product Description: The exciting history and color of what is universally acclaimed as "the greatest free show on earth." Leading the contemporary parade is Bacchus, the mythological god of wine. Includes one hundred photographs and illustrations and a sixteen page color section that documents the century-old traditions of Mardi Gras and the pomp and splendor of Bacchus...read more