Oak Alley is a plantation from the antebellum south. It was a sugar plantation and still is today sitting on the Mississippi river west of New Orleans. Oak Alley is one of the more popular plantations used in film and other events today. You will probably think you have seen some of the pictures before and you have. I got there when they first opened, so not many people, but by the time I left there were buses bringing in people.
Again we know the history of plantations and slavery, but to see the main house in its spender that has been romanticized in film in person against the ugliness of its history should have an effect on you. The original slave cabins were destroyed in the 1900’s but re-built, so they do reflect how the slave lived. In the jim crow era the slaves became share croppers, being paid in tokens from the company store, a way to control them. This common practice was also done in the coal mines at the time. You were not allowed to take pictures inside the house, but it had period furniture so there wasn’t anything really different compared to other similar period homes.
