This film is part of Free
Crewe Hospital Procession and Pageant (1907)
A colourful fundraising pageant in support of Crewe Cottage Hospital.
Overview
The local pageant was an Edwardian craze, kicked off in 1905. The Crewe Hospital Procession and Pageant was founded the following year to fund-raise for the Crewe Memorial Cottage Hospital. The 1907 carnival took over an hour to make its way through the town's streets. Mitchell & Kenyon made of this an 11-minute film, showing the best of those who had taken part, with a focus on the prizewinners.
This surviving footage features participants in historical and national costumes as well as cross-dressers, and features a number of troupes of 'black-faced' minstrels. These racist caricatures date back to the slavery era in the southern United States, where it was common for white (or sometimes Black) performers to present exaggerated parodies of Black culture, for the entertainment of white audiences. Imported from the USA from the mid-19th century, such figures became very popular in Britain. Also featured are a number of dancing 'golliwogs'. Clearly derivative of minstrel tradition, the similarly racist 'golliwog' was the creation of children's author Florence Upton (who was US-born, but lived in England from childhood), but gained further popularity in the Noddy books by Enid Blyton. Campaigners for women's suffrage are also sent up by one of the troupes in the film's final frames.
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