Female Enterprise: Women Business and Property Owners in New Orleans, 1819-1927. Louisiana Division. New Orleans Public Library

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M. CELESTE TAYLOR M. Celeste Taylor kept a boarding house at 2 South Street during the 1880s. This should have been an excellent location, right on Lafayette Square in what was described in a newspaper advertisement as “a palatial three-story residence with a three-story fancy iron verandah in front.” Due to losses over the previous three years, the general depression in business, heavy expenses ($200 per month rent included), and small revenues, she was unable to continue in business and had to file suit against her creditors.
	The record in that suit includes a detailed inventory of the furnishings in her boarding house. It shows the value of her assets, including the contents of the house, as $1800. Her liabilities, alas, far outweighed her assets, totaling $4570. (Miss M.C. Taylor vs. Her Creditors. Orleans Parish Civil District Court, #24888)