We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
— _
2^
': , l
n*i%*
*A *
-/4LM f^uB Za^Wlb^ co.
lustrations ; The Dispute of Nations over Boundaries; Reception to Franklin at the French Court ; Penn°s Treaty with the
Soul -stirring History of Momentous Early Days Done Over by
History repeats itself, sometimes, but it remained for the citizens of sleepy, easy-going Philadelphia to seize history by the shoulders and to drag it forcibly back. And, lest we forget, it bulks large, and, too, in the elaborate and beautiful manner that our Quaker brothers and sisters have treated the reincarnated ghosts and episodes of early days, more than a touch of resemblance has been retained. To the seeing eye and the patriotic heart, the spectacle, enacted on the lawns and under the ancient trees of Fairmount Park, on October 7 to 12, was almost, if not quite, the essence of days gone.
The inspiration for the pageant was the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of the framing of the Constitution of the United States. A committee of prominent Pennsylvanians, including John Wanamaker, ex-Governor Pennypacker, Cyrus Curtis, of the Saturday Evening Post, and Mayor Rudolph Blankenburg, guided the reins of the affair. One Ellis Paxton Oberholtzer was master of the pageant, gleaning his knowledge from English pageants and the Durbar of India. But it remains for the ladies and the working girls of Philadelphia — working cheek by jowl, inspired by a mutual spirit of pride — to receive the better part of the credit, tho they obtained not the profits of hotel-keepers nor the publicity of the committee. Their task was to obtain five thousand volunteer performers, and to design and make their cos
tumes. And this part — covering a period of nine months — they carried out to the last gift of real lace or the offering of the humblest pair of sewing hands.
Then came the rehearsing. For over two months men and women of gentle birth, many of them direct descendants of history-makers, gave their time, and took brusque orders from the directors. A series of eightyfive big dressing-tents was set up, screened behind trees. One thousand voices were trained to music of the period. As for the Indians, one hundred and fifty real ones were sent over from Carlisle Indian School.
At last the looked-for days of October came. Under the trees of the natural amphitheater, and along the reaches of the Schuylkill, winding thru it, the air became cool, clear and colorful. Stands had been built to accommodate twenty thousand citizens, but this was a mere fleabite. Philadelphia took a week off, and transplanted itself bodily to the bewildering fairyland of Fairmount Park, as large as the average city.
The pageant opened with a fanfare of silver trumpets. A single mounted knight, in shining armor — the spirit of exploration and adventure, silently crossed the broad expanse of sward. Sprites entered from the woods on all sides, and beckoned him on, while the chorus sang:
Here where the river is breaking its heart in the ocean,
26