1313 Eighth St
New Orleans, LA 70115, USA

George Washington Cable House - National Register of Historic Places

Statement of Significance:

This cottage in the Garden District was built under Cable's direction in 1874, when the New Orleans writer was just coming into national prominence. While in this house he produced some of his better-known works, Including his first novel. The Grandissimes. which was published serially in Scribner's Magazine in 1879. In the summer of 1884, Cable left New Orleans to make his home in New England where he would be able to become a part of an active literary circle, His early years spent in this house, however, formed the style and set the content of his work for the remainder of his life.

HISTORY
George Washington Cable was born in New Orleans in 1844. In 1863 the family left the occupied city and Cable joined the 4th Mississippi Cavalry in which he served for the remainder of the war. When the war was over, he found employment on the state survey of the levees along the Atchafalaya River. Soon after, however, he contracted malarial fever, which kept him from physical labor for almost two years.

It was during this period that he began to write a weekly column of miscellany in the New Orleans Picayune under the heading "Drop Shot." The success of the column led to its being made a dally feature. In 'i«cabd-® was made a staff reporter but when he refused to report theatrical performances, he was fired.

A.C. Blac^ and Company, cotton factors, employed him as an accountant and correspondence clerk. While so employed, his scholarly interest continued: He mastered French and then began to explore the old records in the city archives fascinated by the strange romance he found in them. At first he had no thought of further writing but he eventually began to put the information into narratives of his own.

A chance encounter with Edward King, sent by Scribner's Monthly on a tour of the South in 1872, resulted in Cable sending some of his stories to J.G. Holland, editor of the monthly. In October 1873, his short story, "Sieur George" was published, followed by five others in the next three years. Then in 1879 these appeared in book form under the title of Old Creole Days. When the firm of A.C. Black and Company dissolved. Cable turned to writing as his full-time profession.

A year later, after it had run serially in Scribner's, he published The Grandissimes, 1884, an ambitious historical romance, followed by Madame Delphine. In the summer of that year. Cable left New Orleans to make his home in New England. Active in political reform, he turned his talents to efforts to gain prison reform, changes in election laws, abolition of the contract labor system and justice for the Negro. His outspoken views, especially in the series of papers later collected under the title "The Silent South, 1885, aroused the resentment of his native region against him. About this time, he began a series of lecture tours, reading from his own works. Cable also made several tours with Mark Twain.

Throughout his life. Cable's Interest varied widely. As a philanthropist, reformer and religious leader, he contributed much to his country. The titles of some of his later books show the range of his interests: The Negro Question, 1888; The Southern Struggle for Pure Government, 1890; The Busy Man's Bible and How to Teach It. 1893; The Amateur Gardener.1914. But his lasting recognition and major contribution remain in the area of "local color" writing in his tales of New Orleans life.