Patricia Brady

Patricia Brady is a social and cultural historian who has published extensively on first ladies, women, free people of color, cemeteries, literature, and the arts in the South. A Texan, she came to New Orleans in 1961 to attend Newcomb College and has lived in the city ever since. She received the Ph.D. from Tulane University and taught history at Dillard University. She founded and was director of the publications department at the Historic New Orleans Collection for twenty years. Just published in 2011 are two books, A Being So Gentle: The Frontier Love Story of Rachel and Andrew Jackson (Palgrave Macmillan) and “Julien Hudson: The Life of a Creole Artist” in In Search of Julien Hudson (The Historic New Orleans Collection). Her biography, Martha Washington: An American Life, was published by Viking Penguin in 2005; other books about the Washington family include Nelly Custis Lewis’s Housekeeping Book and George Washington’s Beautiful Nelly. The forthcoming Blackwell Guide to George Washington, edited by Edward Lengel, will include her “George Washington’s Family.” Chapters or introductions by Dr. Brady appear in the reprint edition of The WPA Guide to New Orleans, Southern Travels: Journal of John H. B. Latrobe, Louisiana Women Writers, Cross, Crozier, & Crucible: A Volume Celebrating the Bicentennial of a Catholic Diocese in Louisiana, American First Ladies: Their Lives and Legacy, Elysium: A Gathering of Souls, Literary New Orleans, Queen of the South: New Orleans, 1853-1862, American First Ladies, Report to the First Lady, The Presidential Companions: Readings on the First Ladies, and Louisiana Women. She edited the Encyclopedia of New Orleans Artists, 1718-1918, Haunter of Ruins: The Photography of Clarence John Laughlin, Jazz Scrapbook: Bill Russell and Some Highly Musical Friends, and Louisiana: An Illustrated History. Dr. Brady has produced three history videos: Queen of the South: New Orleans in the 1850s, In Search of Yesterday’s Gardens, and The Louisiana Purchase Story: Jefferson, Napoleon, and The Letter That Bought a Continent. Active in numerous professional and civic organizations, she is past president of the Louisiana Historical Association, the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival, and the New Orleans/Gulf South Booksellers Association.