New Orleans Recreation Department: programs, press releases, and camp materials, 1978-1981, undated

The Elliot Von Joseph Beal papers include correspondence, scrapbooks, invitations, clippings, programs, photographs, sheet music, financial records, and honors and awards generated by the career of New Orleans teacher and musician Elliot Von Joseph Beal. A few personal items are included, such as Orleans Parish School Board teaching certificates, family photographs, materials about social clubs in which Beal held membership, and materials about his McDonogh #35 high school class. Items about his wife, Ida, a beautician and milliner, are also included.

Other musicians represented in the collection include Edwin Hogan and Mahalia Jackson. Approximately one third of the papers include items about Jackson, with whom Beal toured on several occassions as accompanist. Items about community and church choirs directed by Beal, including the New Orleans Recreation Depatment choir are included, as are documents pertaining to the Austerlitz Baptist Church, and a social organization known as Les Camarades des Bouteilles (or The Jug Buddies).