Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) welcomes students, educators, and learners of all kinds for communal exploration and study. If you would like to partner with us on our outreach activities or learn more about TUSC programming, please contact specialcollections@tulane.edu.
For directions and hours, please see our Visitor Information page.
Cut from a Different Cloth: Fashion Selections from Tulane Special Collections
September 11, 2025 – May 29, 2026
*Opening reception September 11, 2025, 11:00am – 1:00pm.
Free and open to the public.
Refreshments will be provided.
Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) invites you to join us for our fall exhibition, Cut from a Different Cloth: Fashion Selections from Tulane Special Collections. Curated by Faye Daigle and Kevin Williams, the exhibition considers fashion, clothing, and dress as vital sources for understanding a region’s material history. Items featured offer unique insight into how individuals and communities in New Orleans have used clothing and style to navigate the city’s many cultural scenes, blur social boundaries, and adapt to its challenging climate. From Canal Street department stores to nightclubs, college stadiums, and the city streets during Carnival, New Orleans has served as a unique backdrop for its residents to express their identity, creativity, and community through dress.
On display are architectural drawings and period photographs of dress shops and department store; design drawings and pieces of costume and Carnival jewelry; items related to Tulane campus styles, including cheerleading uniforms; photos of jazz performers and audiences, including a jacket worn by musician Louis Prima; drag and LGBT material culture; fabric sample books; period ephemera; and more. We hope visitors will be encouraged to reflect on the vital role fashion relics play in preserving a city’s cultural memory and complex social histories.
Cut from a Different Cloth opens September 11, 2025 and is on view through May 29, 2026 at the Tulane University Special Collections 2nd Floor Gallery, 6801 Freret Street, Joseph Merrick Jones Hall, on Tulane University’s Uptown campus. Hours are 10am–4pm Monday-Friday. Admission is free and open to the public.
For more information contact:
Kevin Williams, Coordinator for Exhibits & Outreach,
Tulane University Special Collections
(504) 247-1836
kevinw@tulane.edu
In the Archives: Posters and New Orleans Hip Hop History
Monday, September 15, 2025
4:00 – 5:00 p.m.
Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, 7001 Freret St., at Tulane University
Room 603 (6th floor)
Register to attend
This hands-on workshop provides an introduction to archives and a lesson on hidden histories about New Orleans hip hop. Led by Melissa A. Weber, curator of the Hogan Archive of New Orleans Music and New Orleans Jazz at Tulane University Special Collections.
Registration is required at tulane.libcal.com/calendar/instruction/inthearchives-fall2025. Capacity: 16 attendees. This workshop is free and open to all. Students are encouraged to attend. Email mweber3@tulane.edu with questions.
Part of Groove @ the Library, presented by Tulane University Libraries.
Recent exhibitions include “I Shall Not Be Moved”: Black Student Life at Tulane, 1963-2023 (April - December 2023); Absolutely Unpredictable: Anne Rice in the City of Transgression (October 2022 - February 2023); Music IS the Scene": Jazz Fest's First Decade, 1970-1979 (March - May 2022); Captive Voices: Hearing, Seeing, and Imagining Angola Prison, launched as a complement to the 2019 Tulane Reading Project selection, Vengeance by Zachary Lazar; and Proteus 1892, Teunisson 1902, and Louis Armstrong 1949: Selections from the Carnival Holdings.
View highlights from the following recent exhibitions on the Tulane Libraries YouTube channel:
- Absolutely Unpredictable: Anne Rice in the City of Transgression (2022)
- "Music IS the Scene”: Jazz Fest’s First Decade, 1970-1979 (2022)
- Where We Stand: Zines from New Orleans (2020)
- Proteus 1892, Teunisson 1902, and Louis Armstrong 1949: Selections from the Carnival Holdings (2019)
- The Laurel Valley Plantation Photographs of Philip M. Denman (2018)
- Cook Dat! A Celebration of New Orleans Cuisine (2018)
TUSC staff, as well as many Tulane students, have created several digital exhibitions that feature TUSC collections. Some highlights are linked here; to view all of the TUSC digital exhibitions, please visit the Tulane Libraries portal for online exhibitions.
- Books Through Their Pages
- William Faulkner’s New Orleans
- The Treasures of Tulane
- Riverboats and Jazz
- Education: Celebrating the Artistic, Academic, Athletic, and Administrative Achievements of the Women of Tulane University
- Louisiana Women’s Collection: A History of Political Activism
- The Organic Modernism of Albert C. Ledner
- “Music IS the Scene”: Jazz Fest’s First Decade, 1970-1979
- The Extraordinary Life of Natalie Scott
Tulane University Special Collections (TUSC) welcomes loan requests from institutions with established exhibition programs and professional staff qualified to handle the materials requested. Loan requests are judged on their own merits and the final decision to loan an item is made on a case-by-case basis. TUSC will provide an agreement for approved loans and cannot sign agreements from a borrowing institution. For more information about our loan program, please email Kevin Williams, Coordinator for Exhibits & Outreach, Tulane University Special Collections, kevinw@tulane.edu.