Sugar Daddy
One of the biggest surprises I unearthed while researching my book Creole Son was the black branch of artist Edgar Degas’s Creole family tree. The revelation had nothing to do with racial intermingling, commonplace enough in nineteenth-century Louisiana, but everything to do with someone almost as famous as the Impressionist himself. In a state where miscegenation was was illegal, Degas’s great uncle Vincent Rillieux and his love, a femme de coleur libre, or free woman of color, named Constance Vivant, had no choice but to live together outside of marriage. Their union was long, happy and produced six children. Their third, Norbert, would achieve international acclaim with an invention as innovative as the cotton gin. Born in New Orleans, Norbert Rillieux was...
Read More
Recent Comments