Dudley J. LeBlanc

Dudley J. LeBlanc (August 16, 1894–October 22, 1971) was an American entrepreneur and politician.

Early life Dudley J. LeBlanc was born on August 16, 1894 in Capitan, Louisiana, to Noemie and Numa Dulze LeBlanc. His father was a blacksmith, and they raised Dudley in Erath, Louisiana. At age 18, LeBlanc graduated from Southwestern Louisiana Institute (today's University of Louisiana at Lafayette). While he was in school, he started an ironing business, which grew into a tailoring store.

Political career

State representative (1924–1926)

LeBlanc was elected to serve in the Louisiana House of Representatives from 1924 to 1928. He served half a term, and then he was elected to one of the three seats on the Louisiana Public Service Commission.

During his short tenure as state representative, LeBlanc introduced several notable pieces of legislation. Louisiana Rice Warehouse Commission: LeBlanc's bill created this commission to promote buying graded rice, which aimed to benefit rice farmers who previously had to sell all their rice at a single price regardless of grade. alt=Photo is taken from the edge of a bricked porch with a bright yellow and green balcony, a historic home at the park. The sun is low in the blue sky, and the garden is in view beyond the porch. Large trees draped in Spanish moss cast long shadows across the grounds and the picket-fence perimeter. Evangeline State Park: A state park district was created in 1922 to establish a park in the congressional district; LeBlanc's bill appropriated $15,000 (equivalent to $292,000 in 2026) to buy park land in honor of Acadians. The state bought the Pierre Olivier du Clozel plantation in the outskirts of St. Martinville. Olivier (1782–1840) was a French nobleman. Susan Walker Anding, who like LeBlanc formed groups of "Evangeline Girls," promoted making the Acadian memorial park specifically a monument to Longfellow and the Evangeline poem. Protection for indebted tenant farmers and sharecroppers during the interwar farm crisis: LeBlanc's bill prohibited lenders from seizing a farmer's seeds and plants (their "tools of the trade"), effectively destroying their livelihood and forcing small landowners off their property.

Member of Louisiana Public Service Commission (1926–1932)

French was widely spoken as the primary language in many southern Louisiana communities, while people in northern Louisiana mostly spoke English. By the late 1800s, French speakers in Louisiana were discriminated against, and in 1921 the Louisiana Constitution effectively established English as the official language by banning French in public schools. Teachers physically punished students for speaking French. It was in this climate that LeBlanc campaigned in both languages, gaining national attention and winning one of the then-three seats on the Louisiana Public Service Commission.

While he served as a member of the commission, he also wrote his first book, The True Story of the Acadians.

State senator (1940–1944, 1948–1952, 1964–1968, 1968–1971)

LeBlanc served four terms in Louisiana's state senate, dying in his last term.

In early 1951, LeBlanc was a guest on Groucho Marx's show, You Bet Your Life. He talked about representing the needs of the poor and working-class, told a joke in French, and made a quip about Hadacol.

Acadian and Cajun advocacy

LeBlanc was interested in the forced mass deportation of French settlers from the Canadian Maritime provinces by British Authorities in the mid-1700s. Some of these Acadians ultimately arrived in Spanish-held Louisiana where they founded today's Cajun community. LeBlanc went to Europe and Canada to research this history from primary sources, and translated those sources from French to English. He also researched his own genealogy, a notary public at Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia whose family was torn apart in the Expulsion, and who died in exile in Philadelphia. René LeBlanc also appears in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's 1847 poem, Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie as the wise old notary who arrives to prepare Evangeline and Gabriel's marriage contract. The Acadians in Louisiana celebrated this poem as an important fictional epic story of their own beginnings and the poem's Evangeline became a symbol for Acadian perseverance.

In 1926, as state representative, LeBlanc introduced legislation that appropriated the funds needed to buy a park to honor Acadians; today that park is the Longfellow-Evangeline State Historic Site. At this time, he also began campaigning for political office in French as well as English, winning a seat on the Louisiana Public Service Commission. In 1927, he published The True Story of the Acadians. to increase ethnic pride and cultural awareness, stopping at the White House to meet Presidents Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and John F. Kennedy on these trips.