In this episode we discuss the educational opportunities available to Creole women--both free and enslaved--and the way they evolved over time. These include convents, governesses, private schools, and public schools. Religion and language were key elements in the instruction of Creole women in the colonial and antebellum eras, but after the Civil War this would change. Formerly enslaved children and adults learned to read and write at schools established by the Freedmen's Bureau after the Civil War. With the end of Reconstruction, many of those educational opportunities came to an end. Not until 1952 did Black children growing up on Laura Plantation have access to a high school.

Laura Plantation was owned and operated by women at various times spanning four generations. Nanette Duparc took over after her husband’s death and established the business. Her daughter Elisabeth Locoul inherited the plantation during the Civil War and ran it until she donated the property to her children. After Emile Locoul’s death, his wife Desirée and their daughter Laura were instrumental in making decisions about the management of the plantation. How was this possible?

Louisiana’s legal system enabled Creole women to maintain a certain amount of autonomy after marriage. This episode explores the differences between Louisiana's legal system, based on civil law, and that present in the rest of the nation, based on common law, and the impact this had upon women.

Joseph and Katy discuss Women's History Month topics, including enslaved women, Nanette's role in the early days of Laura Plantation, Louisiana exceptionalism in women's property laws, and social mores of different eras. They also touch upon International French Language Month and the significance of French not only to Louisiana's cultural heritage but also in the process of studying and researching all aspects of Louisiana history.

Harry Minor was one of two million enslaved individuals sold from the Upper South to the Lower South through the interstate slave trade. He was forcibly brought to Laura Plantation and made to assimilate into the Creole community. Hear his story, along with his own words, in this episode.

This episode is centered around the 1829 donation of the plantation. Nanette Duparc donated the plantation and seventy-seven enslaved people to her children, Louis, Flagy, and Elisabeth, and her son-in-law Raymond Locoul. The 1829 donation led to a corporation being founded, the Duparc Brothers and Locoul Plantation, and enslaved people became either owned by the company (mostly field hands, skilled laborers, and artisans) or privately owned by individual family members (mostly enslaved house servants). We will explore the lives of two of them---Lucy Moore Jones, enslaved as a house servant and nurse for the Locoul family, and her husband, Marius Jones, an enslaved laborer for the company who appears on the inventory made at the time of the 1829 donation.