Ellen C. Merrill received grants from both the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and the National Park Service to research this book. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Newcomb College in 1957 and spent three years in Europe at the University of Heidelberg, where she earned a diploma from the School of Translators and Interpreters. She returned to the States to obtain her doctorate in German language and literature from Tulane University. She has taught at Dillard University, Nicholls State University, and the University of New Orleans and has served as the director of the German archive at the Historic New Orleans Collection.