A group of University of New Orleans professors is teaming up with colleagues from other local universities for a collaborative research project on the closing of the Avondale Shipyard.
For more than 70 years, the Avondale Shipyard has been an economic engine for the West Bank, metro New Orleans and the entire Gulf Coast. Avondale was, and still is, central to the area’s economic, cultural, social and political life. The Avondale Shipyard Research Project will help inform the public discussion on the future of the shipyard by studying its significance to the region.
Vern Baxter, professor of sociology; Michael Mizell-Nelson, professor of history; and Steve Striffler, professor of anthropology, are the UNO faculty members who are participating in the project. They will collaborate with colleagues from Tulane University, Loyola University New Orleans and Southern University at New Orleans.
Baxter and Striffler are working with two Loyola faculty members on a project that examines how Avondale has been central to the creation of a middle class in New Orleans during the post-World War II era. Avondale has served as a crucial means for the region’s working poor to enter the middle class. Mizell-Nelson is exploring the history of Avondale from its origins in the 1930s through today. He will focus on its central role during World War II, its historical importance to the New Orleans business community and its intimate connections to local educational institutions.
The scholars gathered for the Avondale Shipyard Research Project represent diverse disciplines and approaches. They will work collectively to analyze and evaluate Avondale’s history and its influence on the community’s social fabric. The researchers are committed to sharing the research in both public and academic venues. They hope that their professional work will contribute to one of the most important public policy discussions taking place today.