Biography

Hans Rasmussen received an MA degree in history from Louisiana State University and an MLIS degree in archives and records enterprise from the University of Texas at Austin. He worked as an archivist and catalog librarian at the University of Southern Mississippi until 2006 when he joined the Louisiana State University Libraries. He has served as Head of Special Collections Technical Services in the LSU Libraries since 2013.

Schedule

10:30 am to 11:15 am
State Capitol, Senate Committee Room E
A Literary Giant and an Ordinary Girl: Old New Orleans through Different Eyes
with Hans Rasmussen and Stefan Schöberlein

11:30 am to 12:15 pm
Cavalier House Books Tent
Book Signing

A Girl's Life in New Orleans: The Diary of Ella Grunewald, 1884–1886

A Girl’s Life in New Orleans presents the diary of Ella Grunewald, an upper-middle-class teenager in New Orleans at the end of the nineteenth century. Grunewald, the daughter of one of the Crescent City’s leading music dealers, used her journal to record the major events of her day-to-day life, documenting family, friendships, schooling, musical education, and social activities. Her entries frequently describe illness, death, and other tragedies. Though attentive to the city’s classical music scene, Grunewald also recounts theater shows, Carnival balls and parades, Catholic religious observances, and the World’s Fair that the city hosted in 1884.

Expertly annotated and introduced by Hans Rasmussen, Grunewald’s journal is a rare window on the life of a young woman in the South between 1884 and 1886. Adding depth to that account, Rasmussen includes a shorter journal Grunewald kept of her family’s travels in Italy and Germany in the spring of 1890. In it, she describes visits to Catholic churches, museums, Roman ruins, and other tourist attractions. Tragically, Grunewald contracted malaria during the latter part of the journey and died overseas at age twenty-two.