John James Audubon: The Bird Man Who Found His Wings in New Orleans
The Bird Man of New OrleansJohn James Audubon arrived in New Orleans in 1821, broke, desperate, and carrying a portfolio of bird paintings that nobody wanted to buy. He was 36 years old, his busine...
Alton Ochsner: The New Orleans Doctor Who Took On Big Tobacco
The Doctor Who Knew Cigarettes Were Killing PeopleIn 1939, a surgeon at Tulane University named Alton Ochsner noticed something alarming. He was seeing more and more patients with lung cancer — a d...
Sal Khan: The Metairie Kid Who Gave the World Free Education
The Man Who Put a Classroom in Every PocketSal Khan was born in Metairie, Louisiana, in 1976, the son of Bangladeshi and Indian immigrants. He grew up in the suburbs of New Orleans, attended public...
Michael DeBakey: The New Orleans Med Student Who Saved a Million Hearts
The Man Who Fixed the Human HeartMichael Ellis DeBakey was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in 1908, the son of Lebanese immigrants who had settled in the Cajun prairie. He came to New Orleans for ...
Brené Brown: New Orleans Raised the Queen of Vulnerability
The Vulnerability Researcher Who Became a PhenomenonBrené Brown grew up in New Orleans — a city that, if you think about it, is the perfect incubator for someone who would spend her career studying...
Stephen Ambrose: The Historian Who Gave New Orleans Its Greatest Museum
The Historian Who Made History Feel Like a StoryStephen Ambrose arrived at the University of New Orleans in 1971 and spent the next three decades turning the city into a headquarters for popular Am...
Dutch Morial: The Man Who Was First in Everything
First in EverythingErnest Nathan "Dutch" Morial was born in New Orleans on October 9, 1929, into a Creole family in the Seventh Ward — the neighborhood that has been the heart of Black Creole cultu...
Donna Brazile: The Kenner Kid Who Ran a Presidential Campaign
The Girl Who Organized Her First Campaign at Nine Years OldDonna Lease Brazile was born on December 15, 1959, in New Orleans, the third of nine children in a working-class family in Kenner. She gre...
P.G.T. Beauregard: The Creole General Who Fired the First Shot of the Civil War
The Creole General Who Fired the First ShotPierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard was born on May 28, 1818, in St. Bernard Parish, just downriver from New Orleans, into one of the oldest and most promin...
Cokie Roberts: The New Orleans Political Dynasty That Shaped American Journalism
Born Into Power, Built Her OwnMary Martha Corinne Morrison Claiborne Boggs — Cokie Roberts to the world — was born in New Orleans on December 27, 1943, into the most prominent political family in L...
Hoda Kotb: How New Orleans Made America's Favorite Morning Anchor
America's Morning Anchor Started in New OrleansHoda Kotb was born in Norman, Oklahoma, in 1964, to Egyptian immigrant parents, but New Orleans is where she became Hoda. She attended St. Martin's Ep...
John Larroquette: The Carrollton Kid Who Won Four Emmys
Four Emmys and a New Orleans AccentJohn Edgar Larroquette was born in New Orleans on November 25, 1947, and grew up in the Carrollton neighborhood — the uptown area where the streetcar makes its tu...
Dorothy Lamour: The New Orleans Beauty Who Ruled Golden Age Hollywood
The Sarong Girl from New OrleansMary Leta Dorothy Slaton was born in New Orleans on December 10, 1914, and grew up in a modest household in the city. She was crowned Miss New Orleans in 1931, at se...
Tyler Perry: From Homeless in New Orleans to Hollywood's First Black Studio Mogul
From Homeless in New Orleans to Hollywood BillionaireEmmitt Perry Jr. was born in New Orleans on September 13, 1969, and grew up in a household defined by poverty and abuse. His father beat him. Hi...
Sandra Bullock: How Hollywood's Biggest Star Became a Garden District Mom
Hollywood's Biggest Star Chose New OrleansSandra Bullock wasn't born in New Orleans. She was born in Arlington, Virginia, raised partly in Germany, and became famous in Hollywood. But she chose New...
The Axeman of New Orleans: The Serial Killer Who Demanded Jazz
The Jazz-Loving Serial Killer Nobody Ever CaughtBetween May 1918 and October 1919, someone terrorized New Orleans with an axe. The killer — who was never identified, never caught, and never definit...
Baroness Pontalba: Shot Four Times, Then She Built Jackson Square
The Woman Who Made Jackson Square BeautifulMicaela Leonarda Antonia Almonester, Baroness de Pontalba, was born in New Orleans in 1795, the daughter of Don Andrés Almonester y Rojas, the wealthiest ...
George Herriman: The Secret Creole Behind America's Greatest Comic Strip
The Secret Creole Who Created America's Greatest Comic StripGeorge Joseph Herriman was born in New Orleans on August 22, 1880, into a mixed-race Creole family. His birth certificate classified him ...
Lafcadio Hearn: The Writer Who Showed the World What New Orleans Was
The Writer Who Introduced New Orleans to the WorldLafcadio Hearn arrived in New Orleans in 1877, a half-blind, penniless, Greek-Irish journalist who had been run out of Cincinnati after a scandal i...
Walter Isaacson: The Broadmoor Kid Who Wrote the World's Biggest Biographies
New Orleans' Favorite BiographerWalter Isaacson was born in New Orleans in 1952 and grew up in Broadmoor, a middle-class neighborhood between Uptown and Mid-City that floods reliably and produces o...
