NOTES

Carlos Detres 12/5/17 Carlos Detres 12/5/17

Documenting Yellow Fever in New Orleans...112 years later

Photos and illustrations from the yellow fever scourge that terrified New Orleans for 110 years and how it fits into my project about this era in our city's history.

I don’t know why I’m so drawn to this topic but I’ve been fascinated by it for some time. I kept returning to the idea of shooting documentary photo project about the scourge of yellow fever and the “lingering”, black mark that it left on the history New Orleans. But what was I to shoot? Pictures? Mass burial sites? Crypts with “yellow fever” inscribed on it? The only “lingering” I’ve noticed is the echo from the voice of a tour guide, briefly touching upon the effect of the pestilence that last happened over a hundred years ago.

My friend, Brian is an archaeologist who shared my interest in the history of yellow fever in New Orleans. He invited me last May to photograph the condition of several former quarantine camps near the Rigolets in southern Louisiana, about an hour or so outside of New Orleans. The land in which these sites sit have eroded due to climate change and storms and have become overgrown with grass, leaving almost nothing of what was once there. But if you picked through the soil a bit, you’d find some interesting artifacts that would tell you a bit about the history of the people who lived and died while in quarantine.

Brian and I were thrilled with the what was found but it wasn’t enough for me to build a photography project on. I wanted to go deeper into the psychology and I found a way through research I had done on the effects of yellow fever on the body. A book written by a doctor who had treated numerous people with some success described hallucinations accompanying a patient’s high fever often before death. I wondered what visions would they have described? That is what I decided to document.

Several pieces have been completed or amended to fit the theme of my project. Information about the exhibition of two of the pieces can be found HERE. I’ll share more news as the project continues. Also, there’s email signup form at the very bottom of this post.

Here are some of the artifacts and photos that I’ve been looking at from various times throughout the years of the yellow fever epidemics (1795-1905):

(Click to view description)

A mourning veil (1860 Louisiana State Museum)

Black dots indicate homes where victims had died from yellow fever.

Mourning jewelry made with hair of a deceased loved one.

Illustration of yellow fever victims.

Bleeding from mucous membranes and a yellowing of the tongue were common symptoms of yellow fever victims.

Yellow fever was spread by the female mosquito of the Aedis aegypti species.

Yellow fever was known by many names including "Yellow Jack", which was after ships carrying victims of the pestilence were required to display a yellow flag.

An illustration from the late 1800s.

The names of three children who were entombed at Lafayette Cemetery after dying within a few years apart. This was the stone that started it all for me.

Once thought to be spread through miasma, fires of tar were made to cleanse cities of yellow fever. This plate is an illustration of a tar fire in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Carlos Detres 11/28/17 Carlos Detres 11/28/17

My 19th Century Plague-Inspired Photos to be Exhibited

Two photos from yellow fever epidemic-inspired collection to be exhibited in Texas.

I recently received word from the A Smith Gallery in Johnson City, Texas that two of my photographs, “The Anxiety of Love” and “In Memory of My Children, New Orleans 1853” were accepted into a group exhibition.

Both of these prints are part of a collection that has been tentatively called *New Orleans 1853*, which is about the effects of the Yellow Fever epidemic that beat the South to pieces during the years between 1795 and 1905. The project was inspired by a tragedy I discovered during a walk through one of my favorite local cemeteries.

While visiting Lafayette Cemetery in the Garden District, I happened to stop in front of a crypt with a list of names of young children belonging to the same family. They had all died within 3-5 years of each other. I couldn’t say for sure whether they had died from Yellow Fever but the years corresponded with one of the many epidemics that had struck the area. Above the names of these children were those of a husband and wife -- the father and mother. I couldn’t imagine the great tragedy that had befallen this family. To lose so many young ones to an enemy that could not be fought.

These photographs are a fictional interpretation of these historical events. On the pages of books, the Yellow Fever is described with a distant voice; a recount of history. I want to bring the details, to life and resurrect the dead to allow them to share their story. The photographs will be accompanied by visual documentation of actual Yellow Fever quarantine sites that are accessible only by boat. I’ll be working alongside archaeologist Brian Oshtahowski who has identified these villages through old records and maps. The artifacts left behind provide a haunting coda to an understated event, perhaps too terrible in the memory of our country to recount in grammar school history lessons.

Framed prints of “The Anxiety of Love” and “In Memory of My Children” will be available for sale at the gallery. It is a soft debut for this project, which I hope will eventually see many more showings within the next few years.

Here are the pertinent dates for this group exhibition, just in case you find yourself in the Austin/Johnson City, Texas area:

**A Smith Gallery**
103 N. Nugent Avenue
#175
Johnson City, Texas

Exhibition: December 22, 2017
Reception: January 27, 2018
Last Day: February 11, 2018

*“The Anxiety of Love” has been published by Musee Magazine, The Coffin Factory (who awarded it with a first prize in their photography competition). The print, “In Memory of My Children, New Orleans 1853” has not yet been released, which makes is making its debut for any medium.*