{"title":"Home page","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"the-old-french-market-new-orleans","title":"The Old French Market, New Orleans, c. 1890","description":"\u003cp\u003eA line of loaded wagons fills the roadway and comes on toward the camera, piled high above the wheels with bulky sacked and baled goods. Two drivers ride on top of their loads in broad-brimmed hats. At the right a team of mules stands in harness beside an empty flatbed dray with tall spoked wheels, a man on the boards with the reins in his hand. Under the market colonnade at the left, another man walks toward the lens in a dark suit and cap. The Library of Congress describes the whole scene in a single line: a procession of delivery wagons going to market.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-1\"\u003e1\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe photograph dates itself from inside the frame. Painted in one continuous band across the shopfronts on the right are the words \"227 HARDWARE STOVES\" and, on the building beside them, \"\u0026amp; SHIP CHANDLERY 229.\" New Orleans changed to its present hundred-block street numbering in the early 1890s, and numbers in the 220s belong to the older system; read against the conversion table kept by the New Orleans Public Library, those two shopfronts fall in what is now the 900 block of Decatur Street.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-2\"\u003e2\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e That is a reading of the painted numbers, not a statement from the archive. Across the street a long board carries the name Salatich \u0026amp; Baccich, a grocery and commission house whose partnership had ended by the middle of the same decade.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-3\"\u003e3\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Painted signs outlive the firms that pay for them, so neither detail is proof on its own. Both point to the earlier part of the bracket the Library gives, 1880 to 1897.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-1\"\u003e1\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cfigure class=\"pic-print__detail\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_1060\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-signs.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_420\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-signs.jpg 420w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_640\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-signs.jpg 640w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_840\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-signs.jpg 840w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_1060\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-signs.jpg 1060w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_1210\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-signs.jpg 1210w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1100px) 1060px, (min-width: 750px) calc(100vw - 40px), calc(100vw - 56px)\" width=\"1060\" height=\"420\" alt=\"Detail from the plate: the painted shopfront band reading 227 Hardware Stoves and Ship Chandlery 229\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\u003e\u003cfigcaption\u003e227 and 229, in the old street numbering: the painted band that helps place and date the frame.\u003c\/figcaption\u003e\u003c\/figure\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe market itself is the oldest of its kind in the United States.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-8\"\u003e8\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e A market was built on this ground in 1791, and the oldest structures standing there date to about 1813, when the building went up as the city's meat market.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-8\"\u003e8\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-4\"\u003e4\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e By the time this plate was exposed the market was not one building but several: the old meat market, a vegetable market built in two phases from the 1820s, the Red Stores, and a bazaar market added around 1872, the whole run under city rules for stallholders and sanitation.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-4\"\u003e4\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e This picture is not about any of those buildings. It is about what fed them, arriving by mule cart before most of the city was awake.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cfigure class=\"pic-print__detail pic-print__detail--narrow\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_420\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-driver.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_280\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-driver.jpg 280w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_420\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-driver.jpg 420w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_560\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-driver.jpg 560w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_830\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-driver.jpg 830w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 476px) 420px, calc(100vw - 56px)\" width=\"420\" height=\"339\" alt=\"Detail from the plate: a driver in a broad-brimmed hat riding on top of his loaded wagon\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\u003e\u003cfigcaption\u003eA driver rides his load in toward the market, high above the wheels.\u003c\/figcaption\u003e\u003c\/figure\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe signs also record who was doing the selling. Salatich \u0026amp; Baccich were Dalmatian; Blaise Peter Salatich came to New Orleans from Ragusa on the Adriatic, today Dubrovnik, as a young man, clerked in a mercantile house, and then set up on his own.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-3\"\u003e3\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e By the 1890s the market had a pronounced Sicilian character as well.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-6\"\u003e6\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Sicilian immigrants worked the stalls, came to dominate the city's fruit trade, handled the unloading at the docks where that fruit arrived, and built import houses of their own.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-6\"\u003e6\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e The market's reputation as a place where several languages crossed a single counter was not decoration; it was the ordinary condition of this block. It was not a safe one. Eleven Italian men were lynched in New Orleans in 1891, inside the years this photograph could have been made.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-6\"\u003e6\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cfigure class=\"pic-print__detail\"\u003e\u003cimg src=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_640\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-salatich.jpg\" srcset=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_420\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-salatich.jpg 420w, https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/dz7q7hk2q\/image\/upload\/f_auto,q_auto,c_limit,w_640\/pastincolor\/details\/frenchmarket-salatich.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"(min-width: 1100px) 1060px, (min-width: 750px) calc(100vw - 40px), calc(100vw - 56px)\" width=\"640\" height=\"400\" alt=\"Detail from the plate: the painted board reading Salatich and Baccich above the market crowd\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\"\u003e\u003cfigcaption\u003eSalatich \u0026amp; Baccich: Blaise Peter Salatich came from Ragusa on the Adriatic, clerked in a mercantile house, and set up on his own.\u003c\/figcaption\u003e\u003c\/figure\u003e\u003cfigure class=\"pic-quote\"\u003e\u003cblockquote\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnder its roof every language is spoken.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003c\/blockquote\u003e\n\u003cfigcaption\u003eThe Picayune's Guide to New Orleans, 1900\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-9\"\u003e9\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003c\/figcaption\u003e\u003c\/figure\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe infrastructure in the frame is the working end of a riverfront system. The roadway is laid in stone setts, wet and reflective in places, with a deep open gutter and a granite curb along the left side and a plank thrown across it for anyone on foot. A heavy wooden utility pole stands in the left foreground and carries a bracket and wires out across the street. Electric arc lighting had reached the Quarter's riverfront by 1882, though what those particular wires carried cannot be told from the plate.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-5\"\u003e5\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e A short walk behind the camera lay the levee, where Lugger's Landing took in the small boats bringing oysters and other market goods and a wide wooden wharf carried carts, dray horses, laborers, stevedores and traders.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-5\"\u003e5\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e The ship chandlery lettered on the building opposite was selling to vessels tied up within sight of its own front door.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNot all of this was as old as it looks. The bazaar market had been added to the complex around 1872, and the arc lighting on the riverfront dated to 1882.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-4\"\u003e4\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-5\"\u003e5\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e What the camera found was not a picturesque row of stalls but an established market set inside a working warehouse and transport district, and the wagon line is the evidence for it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe men on those wagons could not know how much of this was near its end. The riverfront that supplied them was rebuilt around them over the following generation, and the sugar refining work near the river moved out to suburban Arabi in 1912.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-5\"\u003e5\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e On September 29, 1915, a hurricane came ashore and partly demolished the French Market.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-7\"\u003e7\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e Between that storm, the rebuilding after it, and the renovation of 1936 and 1937, the market a visitor walks through today is not the one in this frame.\u003csup class=\"pic-ref\"\u003e\u003ca href=\"#src-8\"\u003e8\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/sup\u003e The photograph records an ordinary morning at the start of an ordinary working day. Nothing in it suggests that any of the arrangement was temporary.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eEvery detail is the original photograph. Only the color is new. It is restored using modern professional digital techniques and transferred onto the scan of the original glass negative. Nothing is redrawn, sharpened, or invented.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePrints are available as premium luster posters, on canvas, and framed. Each one is made to order, produced close to where it ships, and sent with tracking. Shipping is free in the United States and the European Union. The edition is small, its size is stated on this page, and it will not be reprinted. Questions are welcome at support@pastincolor.com.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eSources\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003col class=\"pic-sources\"\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-1\"\u003eLibrary of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, catalog record for \"The old French Market, New Orleans,\" LC-D418-8113, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/det1994023520\/PP\/\"\u003ehttps:\/\/www.loc.gov\/pictures\/item\/det1994023520\/PP\/\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-2\"\u003eNew Orleans Public Library, City Archives and Special Collections, \"Changes in Street Numbers,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/nolacityarchives.org\/changes-in-street-numbers\/\"\u003ehttps:\/\/nolacityarchives.org\/changes-in-street-numbers\/\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-3\"\u003eAlcee Fortier, ed., Louisiana: Comprising Sketches of Parishes, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, vol. 3 (1914), biography recording Blaise Peter Salatich and the firm Salatich \u0026amp; Baccich, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.lagenweb.org\/orleans\/bios\/ST\/salatichPeterB.html\"\u003ehttps:\/\/www.lagenweb.org\/orleans\/bios\/ST\/salatichPeterB.html\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-4\"\u003eFrench Market Corporation, \"History, French Market District,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.frenchmarket.org\/history\/\"\u003ehttps:\/\/www.frenchmarket.org\/history\/\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-5\"\u003eJohn Magill, French Quarterly Magazine, \"Down by the Riverfront in the French Quarter,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/frenchquarterly.com\/history\/down-riverfront-french-quarter\"\u003ehttps:\/\/frenchquarterly.com\/history\/down-riverfront-french-quarter\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-6\"\u003eEmily Perkins, The Historic New Orleans Collection, \"Coming to New Orleans, Part III,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/hnoc.org\/publishing\/first-draft\/coming-new-orleans-six-items-tell-story-immigration-between-civil-war-and\"\u003ehttps:\/\/hnoc.org\/publishing\/first-draft\/coming-new-orleans-six-items-tell-story-immigration-between-civil-war-and\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-7\"\u003eNOAA Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory, \"100th Anniversary of the Great New Orleans Hurricane,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/www.aoml.noaa.gov\/hurricane_blog\/100th-anniversary-of-the-great-new-orleans-hurricane\/\"\u003ehttps:\/\/www.aoml.noaa.gov\/hurricane_blog\/100th-anniversary-of-the-great-new-orleans-hurricane\/\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-8\"\u003eNew Orleans Historical, \"French Market,\" \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/neworleanshistorical.org\/items\/show\/1395\"\u003ehttps:\/\/neworleanshistorical.org\/items\/show\/1395\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli id=\"src-9\"\u003eThe Picayune's Guide to New Orleans, The Daily Picayune, 1900, \u003ca href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/download\/picayunesguideto00unse_0\/picayunesguideto00unse_0.pdf\"\u003ehttps:\/\/archive.org\/download\/picayunesguideto00unse_0\/picayunesguideto00unse_0.pdf\u003c\/a\u003e\n\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ol\u003e","brand":"Past in Color","offers":[{"title":"Luster poster \/ 12 x 18 in","offer_id":58385426415999,"sku":null,"price":115.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Luster poster \/ 18 x 24 in","offer_id":58385426448767,"sku":null,"price":130.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Luster poster \/ 24 x 36 in","offer_id":58385426481535,"sku":null,"price":185.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false},{"title":"Canvas \/ 24 x 36 in","offer_id":58385426514303,"sku":null,"price":375.0,"currency_code":"EUR","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1029\/2802\/3935\/files\/french-market.jpg?v=1788844046"}],"url":"https:\/\/pastincolor.com\/collections\/frontpage.oembed","provider":"Past in Color","version":"1.0","type":"link"}