Cora Slocomb di Brazzà, Queen of Carnival in 1881: An Artisan of Peace and Social Justice

The Louisiana State Museum at the Presbytère will present a lecture exploring the intriguing life of Cora Slocomb, Queen of Carnival in 1881 on Sunday, November 19, 2023. Slocomb’s great-granddaughter, Idanna Pucci, will share insights into her ancestor’s life as an Italian countess and her participation in progressive politics and social causes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. 

Pucci’s lecture, entitled Cora Slocomb di Brazzà, Queen of Carnival in 1881: An Artisan of Peace and Social Justice,is inspired by her book, The Lady of Sing Sing: An American Countess, an Italian Immigrant, and Their Epic Battle for Justice in New York’s Gilded Age, published by Simon & Schuster in 2020. The book recounts the compelling story of young Maria Barbella, a young Italian immigrant in New York who became the first woman sentenced to the electric chair in 1895, and Pucci’s great grandmother, Cora Slocomb, by then the Countess Detalmo Savorgnan di Brazzà, who waged the first campaign against the death penalty in the United States in order to save the twenty-two-year-old Italian immigrant. Pucci will sign copies of her book after the lecture.

Rex Organization Historian Emeritus, Dr. Stephen Hales, will also share information about early Queens of Carnival not discovered until after the publication of his 2021 book, Rex: 150 Years of the School of Design, and the opening of the Louisiana State Museum exhibition, Rex: The 150th Anniversary of the School of Design, which debuted in January 2022  at the Presbytère. Among other stories, Dr. Hales will share the search for the “missing queen” of 1878,  the only Queen of Carnival not born in the United States, and her return to her native Scotland and disappearance from the public record until recently.

This program is presented in connection with the current exhibition Rex: The 150th Anniversary of the School of Design. It is hosted in partnership with the Louisiana Museum Foundation and Friends of the Cabildo, and made possible with generous support from IBERIABANK | First Horizon and many other donors. The program is free and open to the public and will take place at the Presbytère, 751 Chartres Street, on Jackson Square on Sunday, November 19, 2023, from 3:00-5:00 p.m..

Rex: The 150th Anniversary of the School of Design will remain on display to the public in the Presbytère through December 10, 2023. 

About the Panelists

Idanna Pucci was born in Florence, Italy, the great granddaughter of New Orleans-born Cora Slocomb, who reigned as Queen of Carnival in 1881. Pucci studied Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She is the author of The Epic of Life, a classic on Balinese culture, and Brazzà in Congo: A Life and Legacy that inspired her award-winning documentary, “Black Africa White Marble,” shedding light on Central Africa’s colonial past and its troubled present. She also produced “Talk Radio Tehran,” focusing on intrepid women who fulfill their aspirations in Iran’s gender-apartheid. Pucci’s book, The Lady of Sing Sing: An American Countess, an Italian Immigrant, and Their Epic Battle for Justice in New York’s Gilded Age, published by Simon & Schuster in 2020, serves as a biography of her great grandmother and draws on original research and documents from the U.S. and Italy. The dramatic page-turner, interwoven with twists and unexpected turns, grapples with the tragedy of turn-of-the-century immigration, capital punishment, ethnic prejudice, criminal justice, corporate greed, violence against women, and a woman’s right to reject the role of victim. Pucci lives between Florence and New York.

Dr. Stephen Hales is the Rex Organization’s Historian Emeritus and was King of Carnival in 2017. He is the author of Rex: An Illustrated History of the School of Design (2011) and Rex: 150 Years of the School of Design (2021), written for Rex’s sesquicentennial. Dr. Hales is the founder of Hales Pediatrics and serves on the boards of the Pro Bono Publico Foundation, Children’s Hospital, LCMC Health, the Anti-Defamation League and New Schools for New Orleans. He is vice-chair of the Board of Fidelity Bank.