Historical Pageants
The early twentieth century was an era of historical self-consciousness in the United States and Europe in which pageants were held to commemorate the founding of cities and towns and celebrate the contributions of political, religious, and educational institutions. In the United States, pageantry promoted the reforms of the City Beautiful movement by instilling civic pride and social unity in urban residents. In 1906, the completion of the new Pennsylvania State Capitol building in Harrisburg with a decorative program focused on the founding of the state drew attention to the importance of Philadelphia in local and national history. A weeklong pageant in honor of the 226th anniversary of William Penn’s founding of the city was planned for 1908. The pageant-master, historian Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, “insisted that the public regard his historical extravaganza as patriotic and civic education, not entertainment.”1
Oberholtzer recruited Violet Oakley, whose mural series in the Governor's Grand Executive Reception Room in the capitol, The Founding of the State of Liberty Spiritual, had recently been reproduced in local newspapers, to design the pageant’s parade floats. Oakley conceived of the floats as tableaux vivant of her murals in the capitol. She supervised the construction and painted details on the stage sets where Philadelphia citizens dressed in costumes from the collection of her mentor, Howard Pyle, would act the parts of historical figures.2
On October 8, crowds lined the streets to see floats like William Penn on the Ship Welcome sail down Broad Street. The press praised her work. “It is a mark of intelligent interest that an artist of Miss Oakley’s distinguished talent should be asked to collaborate in a public attempt at decorative commemoration,” wrote the New York Times. “We have only to look back to the days of Duerer [sic] or Callot to realize the great talents that have been freely spent in this form of art with the fortunate result of directly raising the taste of the public.”3 Oakley also designed the official brochure of the pageant with an image of the young William Penn returning from the past on horseback accompanied by two trumpeting heralds.
Pageantry appealed to Oakley’s passion for history and her love of the dramatic arts. She accepted the invitation of Bronxville real estate developer William Van Duzer Lawrence, who later founded Sarah Lawrence College in his wife’s name, to organize the Westchester County Historical Pageant in 1909. She produced the Westchester pageant as a series of one-act costumed plays. She also wrote and illustrated the program brochure, The Book of the Words: Westchester County Historical Pageant 1614–1846 (later published as a book), and the pageant poster “Queen Elizabeth Listening to Tales of the Strange New World Beyond the Sea” that was reproduced on the cover of The Craftsman in August 1909. For the dedication ceremony of her altarpiece The Great Wonder: A Vision of the Apocalypse at Vassar College Alumni House in 1924, Oakley organized a medieval pageant and designed the costumes, props, and script.
1 Oberholzer refused to allow the New Year’s mummer brigades to join the parade. David Glassberg, American Historical Pageantry: The Uses of Tradition in the Early Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1990): 47-50.
2 Ibid. 68.
3 “Art at Home and Abroad,” New York Times, December 13, 1908.