By Tiana Wilson On September 15, 2018, I attended Monroe, winner of the Austin Playhouse’s Festival of New Texas Plays, staged at the Austin Playhouse. The playwright, Lisa B. Thompson based the piece on her family’s history prior to their move to California in the 1940s. Situating the narrative in 1946 Monroe, Louisiana, Thompson places […]
Pipelines along Uncle Tom’s Cabin: Standard Oil in Louisiana
This issue of The Lamp, which Standard Oil-NJ sent to its employees, stockholders, and outside subscribers, tries to assuage contemporary anxieties over big business by celebrating the economic development and social uplift occurring in Louisiana. Thanks to company investment, a productive and modern industry is replacing fallow cotton fields and the primitive, old ways they represent.