2019 Caffery Award Winner
Mon, 04/29/2019 - 10:32am
Kelsey Couvillon has been named the winner of the 2019 Jefferson Caffery Research Award. She authored “Attakapas Vigilante Committees: Race, Class, and Extrajudicial Violence in Antebellum Louisiana.” It examines the factors that motivated organized vigilantes in the region now known as Acadiana in the years prior to the Civil War. Kelsey found Barde’s book, Histoire des Comités de Vigilance aux Attakapas, in Special Collections. Other materials held in the archives were vital to her study as well. The Lucile Mouton Griffin Papers (Collection 26) and the Paul DeBallion Papers (Collection 7) provided important background information on vigilante committee members.
Kelsey is pursuing a master’s degree in history.
UL Lafayette Office of Communications and Marketing has written a story about Kelsey's award-winning paper.
View Caffery Competition to learn more about the annual Jefferson Caffery Research Award.
Photo caption: Kelsey Couvillon, winner of the Jefferson Caffery Research Award, and Zachary Stein, Head of Special Collections at Edith Garland Dupré Library
Photo credit: Doug Dugas | University of Louisiana at Lafayette