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Curated by
The Ponderosa Stomp Foundation

Benevolent Society / Social Aid & Pleasure Club Tour

Video Clips Images Audio Clips

Benevolent societies and social aid and pleasure clubs (SAPCs) were integral to the birth of jazz and the evolution of New Orleans’ brass band tradition. This tour includes sites associated with these organizations over the last 200 years.

Surviving structures associated with early benevolent societies tend to come from those formed by Creoles of color who had the means to build their own meeting halls. These societies were among the first patrons of jazz bands, which played at Economy Hall, Francs Amis Hall, Perseverance Society Hall, Society of Inseparable Friends Hall, and the Autocrat Club (another one on this tour, the San Jacinto Club, was demolished by the city in the late 1960s).

Some European immigrant communities formed similar mutual aid organizations, and the Unione Italiana and New Lusitanos Benevolent Association presented lived music in their halls.

Hunter’s Field, the Treme Community Center, and the Charbonnet-Labat-Glapion Funeral Home are still gathering points for jazz funerals and second lines today.

The Backstreet Cultural Museum and The House of Dance and Feathers hold artifacts and photographs of benevolent societies and SAPCs in their collections, though the latter is temporarily closed in 2o22. Treme’s Petit Jazz Museum, run by Al Jackson, a member of the Black Men of Labor Social Aid and Pleasure Club, includes second line memorabilia as well.

Read more about the role of benevolent societies and social aid and pleasure clubs in the development of New Orleans music.

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Places in this Tour

  1. Eagle Saloon / Odd Fellows and Masonic Hall
  2. San Jacinto Club
  3. Treme Community Center
  4. Backstreet Cultural Museum
  5. Society of Inseparable Friends Hall
  6. Charbonnet-Labat-Glapion Funeral Home
  7. Economy Hall
  8. Treme's Petit Jazz Museum
  9. Unione Italiana (aka Italian Hall)
  10. The Autocrat Club
  11. Hunter's Field
  12. Perseverance Society Hall
  13. Francs Amis Hall
  14. Lusitania Dance Hall/New Lusitanos Benevolent Association
  15. Second Line Mural on St. Claude
  16. The House of Dance and Feathers

Videos

"Showing Love: Parades, Mutual Aid, and the Importance of Place" from the Historic New Orleans Collection in partnership with the Neighborhood Story Project

Video by The Historic New Orleans Collection.

"Showing Love: Parades, Mutual Aid, and the Importance of Place" from the Historic New Orleans Collection in partnership with the Neighborhood Story Project

"When You Hear That Beat: Tradition and Change in the New Orleans Brass Band" from the Historic New Orleans Collection

Video by The Historic New Orleans Collection.

"When You Hear That Beat: Tradition and Change in the New Orleans Brass Band" from the Historic New Orleans Collection

Images

1909 poster for a dance given by the Lilac Social and Pleasure Club at Economy Hall, headquarters of the Société d’Economie et d’Assistance Mutuelle since 1857.
Courtesy of William Russell Photographic Collection, William Russell Jazz Collection, MSS 520, Williams Research Center, The Historic New Orleans Collection.
Perseverance Hall in 1942. Headquarters of La Société de la Perseverance, a mutual aid association formed by Creoles of color before the Civil War, it hosted concerts by Buddy Bolden and other jazz pioneers in the early 1900s.
Courtesy of the William Russell Photographic Collection, Williams Research Center, The Historic New Orleans Collection.
The San Jacinto Club was founded by elite Creoles of color in 1903. This was the rooftop of its headquarters in the 1920s, when it hosted concerts by the city's top bands.
Courtesy of Hogan Jazz Archive, Special Collections, Howard-Tilton Memorial Library, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA. Photo by Villard Paddio.
A parade ca. 1950, likely the Young Men Olympian Junior Benevolent Association, which was established in 1884.
Courtesy of the William Russell Jazz Collection at The Historic New Orleans Collection. Photo by William Russell.
Parade held by an unidentified African American benevolent society or social club in 1951.
Courtesy of the William Russell Jazz Collection, The Historic New Orleans Collection. Photo by Dr. Alden Ashforth
Jazz Funeral led by the Tambourine & Fan Club, circa 1977.
The funeral for Eugene Harris with members of the Tambourine & Fan Club ca. 1977. Tambourine and Fan raised consciousness of the social value of New Orleans' parading traditions.
Photograph by Michael P. Smith ©The Historic New Orleans Collection, 2007.0103.4.418. Photo by Michael P. Smith.
From 2010, members of the Hot 8 Brass Band, including leader Bennie Pete on sousaphone, outside of the Autocrat Club.
From 2010, members of the Hot 8 Brass Band, including leader Bennie Pete on sousaphone, outside of the Autocrat Club.
Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Infrogmation.
The Dumaine Street Gang at their 2021 second line in Treme. Left to right: Moonie, Dwight, Antonio Condley, Nathaniel Jackson, and Clifford Dexter.
Courtesy of India Sever and WWOZ. Photo by India Sever.

Audio Clips

"High Society" by Jelly Roll Morton's New Orleans Jazzmen featuring Sidney Bechet (1939)
Buy on iTunes
"Didn't He Ramble" by Dejan's Olympia Brass Band (1974)
Buy on iTunes
"Take It To The Street" by Rebirth Brass Band (1992)
Buy on iTunes