A copy of "Memories of the Old Plantation Home" by the plantation's namesake, Laura Locoul Gore, and the DVD "Reconstructing Creole," an unflinching view of culture, race and history on one Louisiana Creole plantation. This DVD won the 2007 Hollywood HD/DV Festival for best documentary feature and documents the memoires of the 19th century plantation mistress and the restoration of her old plantation manor.
About the Laura Plantation: Nestled on River Road between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, the Laura Plantation complex is located just upriver from the west bank community of Vacherie. The plantation is significant for its raised Creole plantation "big house" and its rare collection of outbuildings, including six slave quarters, that illustrate the development of a sugar cane plantation from the antebellum period well into the 20th century. The land on which Laura plantation stands was originally obtained through a French royal land grant in 1755. -- Although Creole residences once dominated the rural landscape of central and southern Louisiana, today perhaps only 300 to 400 examples of these buildings remain standing outside New Orleans. Little attention has been given to preserving the coterie of dependencies that were the "workhorses" of cotton and sugar production on Louisiana plantations. Thus, it is a very important visual reminder of the large agricultural enterprise common in antebellum and post-war Louisiana.