An Untractable Country: The History of Kenner, Louisiana

An Untractable Country: The History of Kenner, Louisiana

by Craig Bauer

Louisiana’s sixth largest city, Kenner, is often looked upon simply as a suburb of New Orleans and home to Louis Armstrong International Airport. An Untractable Country: The History of Kenner, Louisiana, reveals that Kenner has its own unique and dynamic history separate from that of New Orleans. This is the first book-length narrative of the three-hundred- year-long story of the people and events that transformed an area located along the Mississippi River, approximately thirteen miles upriver from the Crescent City, from a grassy Indian hunting ground to one of Louisiana’s largest municipalities. From its earliest times as the colonial settlement of Cannes Brûlées, through its incarnation as the small antebellum town of Kennerville, to its rapid growth as a suburban bedroom community during the second half of the twentieth century, the story of Kenner exemplifies life in communities across the state and fills an important void in the greater mosaic of the story of Louisiana.

Craig Bauer is Professor of History at the University of Holy Cross in New Orleans, where he currently holds the Nancy O’Neill Endowed Professorship III in History. In addition to An Untractable Country: The History of Kenner, Louisiana, he is author of the books Creole Genesis: The Bringier Family and Antebellum Plantation Life in Louisiana, published in 2011, and A Leader Among Peers: The Life and Times of Duncan Farrar Kenner, published in 1993. He has also published several journal and periodical articles on Louisiana history and the juvenile justice system.

ISBN: 9781935754848

Softcover, 341 pp., ©2016

Release date: September 20, 2016