Scott’s Role in the Renaissance

After the war, Natalie contributed to the restoration of the dilapidated French Quarter in 1920. This led to the formation of a significant intellectual community of artists, painters, academics, performers, and journalists. This period is referred to as the French Quarter Renaissance.

Natalie often wrote for the New Orleans States and her colorful, humorous Sunday columns are invaluable for tracing the 1920s careers of Sherwood Anderson, William Spratling, and William Faulker. Her work detailed the city’s social and charitable causes and the lives of the Vieux Carré inhabitants. Her column also advocated causes such as woman’s suffrage, the League of Nations, and fundraising for the war’s victims, the blind, and the disabled.

Recognizing the French Quarter’s architectural and aesthetic value, she acquired and restored crumbling historic properties, such as the Court of Two Sisters. She made three of her properties refuges where creative people could settle in affordable studio apartments in the heart of the Vieux Carré. Spratling, Faulkner, and Oliver LaFarge were among those who moved in.

She also wrote award winning plays, performed on stage, wrote magazine articles, and published popular cookbooks on New Orleans cuisine. As she traveled across the world, her newspaper column kept her readers entertained, and her activities abroad were frequently the subject of front page newspaper stories