Veiled Prophet Parade and Ball
[18] Before World War II, the African-American community in St. Louis crowned its own "Veiled Prophet Queen," who included Ernestine Steele in 1939 and Blanche Vashon (later Sinkler), Georgia Williams, and Evelyn Hilliard.
Five years ago, Mrs. Zenobia Shoulders Johnson, one of the city's most active church and civic workers, conceived the idea of a style show which would culminate in the crowning of the "Veiled Prophet's Queen," someone representative of real St. Louis culture and society, much in the same manner of the original event.
Is it merely "cute," or are we witnessing the honest to God cult of the affluent with its prophets, queens, attending angels, heavenly courts taken seriously and paid for dearly by the educated business and professional men of the community?
[24] On October 1, 1967, a "small group of marchers," led by Patrick Dougherty, a St. Louis University professor, contended in the suburb of Clayton, Missouri, that the VP Ball and Parade were "offensive to the Negro community" and should be transformed into a children's event.
)[32] The next day, Barbara Torrence, Ruth Poland, and Mary Ann Kerstetter were arrested for lying in the street in front of the Veiled Prophet Parade in protest of alleged racial discrimination.
[28] Cadigan responded that he "holds no brief for the Veiled Prophet Ball and Parade, and it may well be a serious affront to the nonaffluent members of the St. Louis community," but, he said, the two clergymen "vastly overrated" the VP's significance, devoting "great energy, but little skill, in attacking it.
[42] Percy Green, Melvin Carr, Florence Jarrett, Ralph Brown, and Gina Scott were arrested on December 22, 1971, on a charge of general peace disturbance when they attempted to enter Kiel Auditorium with no tickets.
[7] On March 20, 1878, Charles Slayback, a grain broker who had spent several Reconstruction years in New Orleans after the Civil War and become acquainted with its Mardi Gras traditions, called a meeting of local business leaders at the Lindell Hotel.
[56] He and his brother Alonzo, a former colonel with a Missouri Cavalry Regiment which fought for the Confederates, created a mythology for a secret elite society, whose public demonstrations would coincide with the annual St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Fair.
[59] In a 1956 promotional book by Vincent H. Sanders and Theodore D. Drury Jr., the Prophet was a world traveler who chose to bless St. Louis;[60] reporter Walter E. Orthwein of the Globe-Democrat wrote in 1958 that the VP was conceived as "a kind of Santa Claus for grownups.
[63] The identity of a given year's leader has ostensibly been a secret, but the earliest members of the Veiled Prophet organization (in 1878) were reported in 1964 to have included Alonzo W. Slayback, Frank Gaiennie, John A. Scudder, Henry C. Haarstick, George Bain, Robert P. Tansey, George H. Morgan, Wallace Delafield, John B. Maude, D. P. Rowland, Leigh I. Knapp, David B. Gould, Henry Paschell, H. I. Kent, E. Pretorious, William H. Thompson, and William A. Hargadine, H.B.
[64][better source needed] As for the leadership, public records showed in 2021 that "the executive officers remain some of the region's most powerful businessmen and dynastic patricians[,] with surnames such as Schnucks (grocery stores), Desloge (lead mining), Maritz (employee incentives and corporate travel) and Kemper (banking).
Fierce and warlike guards, with breastplates of brass and steel and helmets of the same metals, kept watchful eyes upon the sacred precincts of the Prophet.In 1882 the Globe-Democrat described the same giant dummy as a "huge masked figure staring sphinx-like at the crowd."
Theme: A Day-Dream in the Woodland[102] or Insect Life[103] Fifteen hundred tickets were printed in Paris, France, with "friends of the order" each able to reserve ten of them, and "a lady counts for as much as a gentleman in the list of names.
"[111]The rules required "full evening dress" for attendees, which for women meant that "low neck and short sleeves" would not be "insisted upon, but the wearing of hats or bonnets will not be countenanced... it is expected that ladies will appear in an elaborate coiffure.
"[125][126] In conjunction with the 1889 removal of the VP Ball from the Merchants Exchange to a new site at the Music Hall, the program was changed that year from a March and Veiled Prophet's Quadrille to "a series of magnificent tableaux" with "elegantly costumed" participants.
[161] Because the Prophets were supposed to be nameless, "every effort" was made to keep the matter quiet, but Soulie filed suit against Priest, president; Frank Galennie, secretary; Daniel Carrol, superintendent; Charles E. Slayback and Preston T.
In the second year of the pageant, the Post-Dispatch reported that the "dazzling display" would cost some seventy thousand dollars, that "seats are being erected at every available corner, and [that] fabulous prices are being paid for rooms along the proposed route.
In this connection it may be stated that the hackmen who stand around the Court-house square, having been requested to vacate the place tonight in order not to obscure the view of the occupants of seats in the court yard, refuse to do so, saying the city gives them permission to stand around the square, and they will not forego it for the accommodation of those who purchase tickets to the inclosures.Further dissension arose when it was reported that Mayor Henry Overstolz and city officials would view the pageant from a room in the courthouse,[166] thus "controlling the Court-house" on the evening of the parade.
It stood dim and grim against the evening sky, with not a luminous line or brilliant knot-hole to be seen against its gloomy walls until 7 o'clock, when the yard gate to the east of the building suddenly opened and displayed to view an array of torch-bearers ready to march forward at a moment's notice.
They got down flat on their stomachs at the bottom of the corrugated iron doors and tried to get a look at his mysterious Majesty's splendors.The Stroh Brothers purchased the Walnut Street property in 1924, to replace the Den with a large garage for "trucks and passenger cars.
Seated on boxes, barrels, benches, chair; perched on the rails of fences and the roofs of houses; grouped on balconies, gathered on door-steps and sitting astride the branches of trees .
The theme illustrated "the leading characteristics of the principal nations of Asia, Europe and Africa, and giving a special tableau of American scenes, representing the ballot box, the Indian on the plains, life on southern plantations and the western rivers.
"[212] Alonzo Slayback replied that the message of the "first procession" in 1878 had gone "over the heads of the spectators" and since then "we found that a float which aimed rather to convey a pleasant bit of fun pleased the people much better[,] and we have carried out this idea ever since.
"[212] The day this quotation appeared in the morning Post-Dispatch, Slayback stopped in the office of managing editor John A. Cockerill to request that the latter "suppress all mention of the action of certain citizens regarding the Irish float.
In addition, a statement from the Veiled Prophet organization said: "At the same time the Order announces that the float entitled 'Schnitzelbank' has been changed to 'Harvest Moon,'" which the Star-Times said was done "to forestall possible criticism arising out of the recent European developments.
The first parade was lit by a thousand torchbearers, all dressed in brown habits, with cowls, "priest fashion," walking beside the floats, carrying gasoline lanterns with three burners each, the affairs looking not unlike sections of the footlights in a small theater in a town where the gas was uncertain as to brilliancy.
"[225] The Daily Commonwealth of Topeka, Kansas, said the 1878 procession, under the light of various colors thrown upon it, and the glare of illuminated buildings along the route, presented one of the most gorgeous sights imaginable, and elicited almost deafening and continuous applause from the greatest crowd of people ever seen in St. Louis .
[234] The St. Louis Daily Globe-Democrat noted in 1906 that "The nightly street illumination will remind all who witness its strange and brilliant combination of the wonderful recent advance in lighting the avenues and in rendering the darkness eloquent with various devices.
Three or four fire-glowing planets wandering in and out among gleaming pillars send a shower of gold down upon the radiant raiment of the assembled Prophets and light up the picture in a manner that makes a circus poster look like a postage stamp.
The representation of the King of the Jinns , with an outstretched arm, first float, is bearing the Veiled Prophet and his attendants, beneath umbrellas . Second is "The Fairy of Poetry and Romance," with two giraffe representations, and, passing in front of the Old Courthouse (St. Louis) is a float with the theme "The Modern Story-Teller of the Orient ". On the street, torchbearers carry lanterns. [ 5 ] [ 6 ]
'foolish old boys'
