Historic Baton Rouge

An illustrated history of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, paired with histories of the local companies.

Sylvia Frank Rodrigue

Sylvia Frank Rodrigue, proprietor of Sylverlining editorial consulting, is executive editor for Southern Illinois University Press, for which she acquires Civil War and Reconstruction manuscripts.  Other projects in progress include the Louisiana Encyclopedia, of which she is coeditor, and Historic Baton Rouge, of which she is coauthor.  She serves on the board of the United States Civil War Center and is a member of the following organizations: Louisiana Historical Association, Organization of American Historians, Society of Civil War Historians, Society for Women and the Civil War, Southern Association for Women Historians, and Southern Historical Association.  Rodrigue was editor of “Beyond Face Value:  Depictions of Slavery in Confederate Currency,” an exhibit of the U.S. Civil War Center located online at www.cwc.lsu.edu/BeyondFaceValue.

For eight years Rodrigue worked at Louisiana State University Press, where over the course of her tenure she served as acquisitions editor, executive editor, and editor-in-chief.  She acquired for LSU Press more than 180 books of history, political science, literary criticism, and poetry, including fourteen award winners.  Prior to starting her job at LSU Press in 1996 she was managing editor at Stackpole Books in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. During her five years at Stackpole she worked on approximately 100 books in various subject areas, including history, gardening, cooking, and travel.

Rodrigue grew up in Hollis, New Hampshire, and attended Messiah College and Temple University in Pennsylvania.  She is married to John C. Rodrigue, associate professor of history at Louisiana State University.  They live in Baton Rouge. 

Faye Phillips

Faye Phillips is Associate Dean of Libraries for Special Collections at Louisiana State University. She has worked in various positions at the LSU Libraries Special Collections since 1986 and has over thirty years experience in special collections, libraries, and archives.  She is the author of Congressional Papers: Collecting, Appraising, Arranging and Describing (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, Publishers, 1996); and Local History Collections in Libraries (Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited, 1995). She is one of the Co-editors of the CD-ROM edition, 1994, Historical Collections of Louisiana, edited by B. F. French, New York,1846 (Baton Rouge, LA, LSU Libraries). Phillips is Past-President of the Society of Southwest Archivists, the Louisiana Archives and Manuscripts Association and the Society of Georgia Archivists.  She is also active with the Louisiana Historical Association, the Society of American Archivists, the Southeastern Library Network, and the Louisiana Historical Records Advisory Board. Phillips has served as project director for numerous state and national grants relating to archives, local history, and digital libraries and has published many journal articles on those topics. Previous to coming to LSU Phillips was an archivist at the United States Senate, the National Archives, Georgia State University, and the Atlanta Historical Society;  an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and director of the Troup County, Georgia Archives.

She is a native of Canton, Georgia and received B.A. and M.A. degrees from Georgia State University and a Master’s Degree in Library  Science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.  She lives in Baton Rouge.