NEW ORLEANS (AP) - For author and historian Margo Moscou, the decision to research New Orleans cabinetmakers who were free men of color started at the cradle.

Not hers, but an antique cradle at Oak Alley plantation.

Moscou, a native of Boulder, Colo., was visiting friends for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival in 2003 and took a side trip to the Vacherie estate, where she saw the piece.

"The guide ... pithily pointed out a beautifully carved cradle that, he said, was made by a plantation slave whose name remained lost to history," Moscou writes in her recently released book, New Orleans' Free-Men-of-Color Cabinet Makers in the New Orleans Furniture Trade, 1800-1850 ($18.95, Xavier Review Press).

"I could not forget that cradle. In fact, what was a fleeting tour-guide moment set me on a course of research that consumed the next five years of my professional life."

After her trip to Jazz Fest, Moscou went to London for two years to work on a master's degree in fine and decorative arts. When it came time to choose a topic for her thesis, the memory of the exquisite cradle and its forgotten maker led her to New Orleans.

"I thought to myself, 'Where can I go that has a bit of a European feel, that has fine and decorative arts, and that interests me as well?' And I thought, 'Well, I'll just go to New Orleans,'" she recalled. "It was all rather serendipitous. That visit to Oak Alley came up again when I was trying to decide what my thesis topic would be."

That topic would be the class of prosperous free-men-of-color craftsmen during New Orleans' antebellum period, she decided. And though obscurity is a virtue of the highest order in postgraduate work, Moscou was not prepared for the challenge that lay ahead in her research.

Some librarians denied ever having heard of a free-black artisan class. One took offense to her use of the term ``free men of color,'' despite it being a historical reference, Moscou said.

Documented pieces of furniture supporting her thesis were few and far between. Slowly but surely, however, Moscou amassed a collection of archived data and identified furniture pieces to bring the picture of the free-black craftsman to life. Armoires were among the staples of the day made by black artisans.

"It just became this sort of domino effect," she said. "I eventually spoke to all the right people, who were really excited about this topic, and said, 'Yes, you have to do this.'"

Historian and author Sally Reeves directed Moscou to records of the notaries that free-men-of-color craftsmen used to certify their work. Public records gave her pieces of the puzzle, such as the high number of black apprenticeship contracts, 82, between 1809 and 1830, compared with those of white cabinetmakers, 52.

According to the New Orleans City Directory for 1822, free-men-of-color cabinetmakers made up more than a quarter of the total cabinetmaker industry. (Free blacks were denoted in the directory by "f.m.c.," for "free man of color," or f.w.c., for "free woman of color," after their names.)

Moscou found 10 labeled pieces - armoires, a day bed, a dressing table - over her three years of research. The pieces fall in with the dominant furniture styles of the day, showing the typical Cabrio legs and flush panels of the early Creole style, or the dramatic S curves and chunky grandeur of the Greek and Classical revivals.

So what made the role of free-men-of-color furniture makers so difficult to find? Post-Reconstruction racism and the era of Jim Crow laws helped to bury their legacy, Moscou said.

"They were lost in the crowd," she said. "As they say, history is written by the victors."

That is, until history is unearthed by the graduate researcher who couldn't forget a cradle.

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Information from: The Times-Picayune,
http://www.timespicayune.com

Copyright 2009 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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