Patricia Brady is a social and cultural historian who has published extensively on women, 

free people of color, cemeteries, literature, and the arts in the South.  She received the 

Ph.D. from Tulane University and taught history at Dillard University in New Orleans.  

She founded and was director of the publications department at the Historic New 

Orleans Collection for twenty years.

      Her biography, Martha Washington: An American Life, was published by Viking 

Penguin in 2005; other books include Nelly Custis Lewis’s Housekeeping Book  and 

George Washington’s Beautiful Nelly.  Chapters or introductions by Dr. Brady appear in 

the reprint edition of The WPA Guide to New Orleans, Southern Travels: Journal of John 

H. B. Latrobe, Louisiana Women Writers, Cross, Crozier, & Crucible: A Volume 

Celebrating the Bicentennial of a Catholic Diocese in Louisiana, American First Ladies: 

Their Lives and Legacy, Elysium: A Gathering of Souls, Literary New Orleans, Queen of 

the South: New Orleans, 1853-1862, American First Ladies, Report to the First Lady, The 

Presidential Companions: Readings on the First Ladies, and Louisiana Women.  She 

edited the Encyclopedia of New Orleans Artists, 1718-1918, Haunter of Ruins: The 

Photography of Clarence John Laughlin, Jazz Scrapbook: Bill Russell and Some Highly 

Musical Friends, and Louisiana: An Illustrated History.  

      Dr. Brady has produced three history videos: Queen of the South: New Orleans in 

the 1850s, In Search of Yesterday’s Gardens, and The Louisiana Purchase Story: 

Jefferson, Napoleon, and The Letter That Bought a Continent.  Active in numerous 

professional and civic organizations, she is past president and a fellow of the Louisiana 

Historical Association and president of the board of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans 

Literary Association.