Humanities Student Spotlight:

Researching the Past: Student Thesis Leads to Antebellum New Orleans

New Orleans, famous for the 2005 battle with Katrina and site of the 2008 BCS National Football championship is more than "in the news" for senior honors student Noel Voltz. For Voltz, restoration of the city and preservation of invaluable archival resources has taken on special significance. She has relied on access to unique primary and secondary sources of information available only in the "Big Easy," resources which were critical to completion of her research situated historically in Colonial and Pre-Civil War New Orleans, and to her thesis entitled "Black Female Agency and Sexual Exploitation: Quadroon Balls and Plaçage Relationships." Voltz, a major in African American and African Studies (AAAS) with minors in history and music, has been mentored in her research by Professor Leslie Alexander of the Department of History, and Professor Walter Rucker of the Department of African American and African Studies.

Supported in part by a university-funded research grant, Voltz conducted archival research in New Orleans and Baton Rouge in the summer of 2007. While there, she was able to view first hand a compilation of rare and very old primary sources, like records of court cases, travelers' journals, and family documents, and to capture and contextualize the circumstances of the legendary Quadroon Balls.

Within a reinvented social system of concubinage known as plaçage, the elegant Quadroon Balls of the period served as opportunities for interracial "tete-a-tete," serving the interests of white men seeking sexual liaisons in return for financial sponsorship for the fair-skinned quadroon women. Voltz contends that "quadroon" women of the era were enterprising, active agents in acquiring social status and financial security in spite of the sexual exploitation to which they were subjected.

By focusing her research on the historical analysis of the lives of Louisiana's free women of color, Voltz is contributing to the sparse historiography which touches on the topic. As Professor Rucker writes, "Ms. Voltz' research on agency and identity is as timely as it is trailblazing. Ms. Voltz has uncovered … examples which … demonstrate that Quadroon women had some measure of control over their own lives and cannot be simply seen as victims. With agency as the center of her analysis, this opens the way to tantalizing interpretations regarding identity formation … Ms. Voltz has uncovered ample evidence that Quadroon women created shared spheres and support networks … (that they) carved out a unique culture in the diverse and multifaceted milieu of Antebellum New Orleans."

Voltz plans to carry on her research in graduate school and to ultimately develop her undergraduate thesis topic into a dissertation.