Casket girls

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A Casket Girl refers to one of the women brought from France to New Orleans to marry. The name Casket Girl derives from the small chests (cassettes) in which they carried their clothes. They were conspicuous by reason of their virtue. Normally women were supplied to the colonists by raking the streets of Paris for undesirables, or by emptying the houses of correction. The Casket Girls, however, were recruited from church charitable institutions and, although poor, were practically guaranteed to be virgins. For this reason it later became a matter of pride in Louisiana to show descent from them rather than from the more numerous prostitutes.

The first consignment reached Biloxi in 1719; and New Orleans in 1727-1728. They inspired Victor Herbert to write Naughty Marietta.

[edit] Reference

Dictionary of American History by James Truslow Adams, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940