These two short stories, A Carnival Jangle and Anarchy Alley, by African American writer Alice Dunbar Nelson were written in the 1890’s. They deliver a fascinating glimpse of the culture of New Orleans at this time, a wildly diverse city full of creativity and free thought. This is the New Orleans just before the explosion of Jazz music and the musical innovations of Buddy Bolden. Dunbar Nelson has been recognized for her exploration of something that came to be called the ‘Creole Condition’ - the experience of mixed race people in the era after the civil war.

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