by Paul R. Spitzzeri
As the four days of parades and pageants featuring pupils from the Los Angeles city and county schools neared at the beginning of June 1915, as the completion of the Panama Canal was being celebrated and tourism and immigration eagerly promoted, the Angel City’s press were in full-on promotion mode.
The Los Angeles Express of the 1st claimed that “School Fete Arouses All U.S.” and stated that “school children of Los Angeles city and county are liable to leap into international fame” because “not only are the larger moving picture studios of the Southland making ready to take miles of films” but “boards of education are sitting up and taking notice.”
The article continued that the program focused on “the march of civilization around the world from its beginning in Far East China to its arrival on the West coast of the United States,” meaning California. With the combined efforts of boards of education, students and teachers (though implicit was the intense involvement of business interests through the 1915 General Committee led by banker Motley H. Flint), moreover,” it was believed that “the vast undertaking is attracting attention in remote parts of the country.”
The Los Angeles Times of the same day remarked that “ten thousand years of history is the theme” and it added that “with civilizations that passed to dust in the dim twilight of the world reinvested once more with brief, transitory life,” the parade and pageant “will sweep as a tableau down the ages to the Southern California of today.” Additionally, the parade “will be a portrayal of the glories of the Southland—its flowers and its children.”
The following day’s edition of the paper mentioned that there’d be 70 floats in the two-mile parade through downtown. The Express published a photo of one of these, depicting the footwear from “The Old Woman in the Shoe” with children peaking out from holes and the opening, as it began by observing that “life—the spirit of life—typical of the ages through which humanity has come to its present step in the evolution of mankind” was represented.
Moreover, it claimed, that the effort of the children “is the most splendid and glorious spectacle so far presented to the admiring gaze of the multitudes that line the streets” thanks to “their vivid imaginations projecting into the future and casting a glamor over the past.” Even for a city used to large-scale events, this was deemed different and the Express rhapsodized that,
It is more than a feast for the eyes—this pageant typifying Los Angeles, the Garden of Youth—it is more than a glittering array of flowers and fairies—it is a definite picture of humanity since the day of the cave man.
It is a passing story of living men and women who have accomplished lasting good for mankind; it is emblematic of the spirit of life—the higher spirit, which has prevailed down the ages and civilized human kind.
It also opined that “it is to the school children civilization must look for lasting peace and contentment” as the pupils “have caught the good and beautiful from all the epochs of life” and many thousands lining the streets “greeted the pageant with shouts and wild applause.” One float, the “Rose Fairy” from Rose Hill Grammar School, today’s Huntington Drive Elementary in the neighborhood between Lincoln Heights and El Sereno, “created a sensation because of its loveliness,” thanks to 3,000 roses and 2,000 carnations, other flowers, and students dressed as fairies that led the paper to comment that “the spectacle was one of the most beautiful of the entire pageant.”
The state Normal School’s juxtaposition of war and peace was represented by “twenty somber figures on black horses” for the former and “150 beautiful young women bearing laurel wreaths” for the latter. The floral theme brought 20 floats from local grammar schools and which “evoked applause all along the line of march.” For the “School’s Gift to Youth” section, the Express observed that “a day nursery with real babies caused a wild craning of necks and a truancy float brought loud laughter.”
The Los Angeles Record, also of the 2nd, remarked that “in a mighty cavalcade . . . the school children of Los Angeles today made proud their teachers, parents, citizens generally and visitors” and that “the pictorial procession presented vividly the relation of the fair southland to its future rulers.” Additionally, reported the paper, the crowd “applause swept the throngs like great waves as each succeeding school entry passed.”
In its issue of the 3rd, the Los Angeles Tribune proclaimed that the “Child Pageant Dazzles Thousands” and that “Romance, [and] History in Bright Review” as it added, “inspiring, vivid—with a human touch of the gracious and beautiful in the life of all the ages; original, ingenuous, expressive—the school children of Los Angeles scored yesterday in a pageant that passed along the downtown streets between massed thousands of a wildly cheering multitude.”
Stating that the parade went to the heart and mind, along with “the finer sensibilities,” not just to the eyes, the paper insisted that the parade “was such a spectacle as probably never has been produced by the school children of any city in the world.” Beyond this, it was unusual in the region, “which has become famous the world over for its gorgeous and dazzling fiestas, flower tournaments and parades.” The four-day event was also determined to be a view of “the ideal home of the child bespeaking the beneficence of nature” and as having “portrayed the variety of opportunities offered to the boys and girls of Los Angeles” as well as “a striking testimonial to their own civic enterprise and spirit.”
The Tribune concluded that,
With no unlovely experiences to curb their clear and lively imaginations, the school children of the city gave expression to the spirit of love and good will, the spirit of peace and estheticism, the spirit of poetry and of those things which have marked the progress of civilization from the day of the cavemen to the day of the wireless and the flying machine.
For the Times, strangely, given the horrors being visited upon the nations enmeshed in trench warfare in Europe as World War I dragged on, though America was, for the time being, neutral, the “Boy And Girl Army Crowns Los Angeles The Garden Of Youth.” It published several images of floats and marchers during the parade, while also taking an unusual tack about the parade; namely that, as there were undoubtedly some in ancient Greece who criticized the unknown sculptor of a Venus de Milo, some “cantankerous individuals” probably had negative views on the parade.
The paper asserted that “no better advertisement of the schools of the city could have been devised” than the event, which left everyone feeling that they should hug one of the participants, while the joy of the pupils was highlighted. As to whether it was the best parade in Los Angeles history, it was a matter of “to argue the case with mildness of emphasis,” because it was bigger than La Fiesta de Las Flores, the annual event dating back to 1894 and which was held in early May, and as striking as the recent Queen Flora electrical pageant, organized by Fawcett Robinson and which was to be part of the last day of the school event.
The contents of the school offerings in the parade “seemed to have drifted out of the land of dreams, but were held to earth by some of the prettiest girls and huskiest boys that the sun ever shone on in this or any other age.” The well-behaved nature of the crowd was mentioned and it was added that “it was everybody’s parade, not yours nor mine, but the fellow’s next door, and the man in Boyle Heights as well as the man in Wilshire,” though “more than all, it was the mothers’ parade—a lifting of the lid on the school system of the city to disclose what is being done, any why.”
As other accounts suggested, the Times called the parade perfect on several levels, including historical accuracy in terms of costume and even the breed of dog accompanying the young man playing Daniel Boone. An unnamed insider in the planning of the event told the paper, “children are natural born borrowers. Why, most of this stuff was borrowed from persons that you and I couldn’t get it from for love or money. One boy, for instance, borrowed a couple of vases for one float that are valued at $1000.”
The last division was also touted as representative of the school district’s efforts with its pupils and “was a most poignant contribution to the whole.” This included the boat building theme from San Pedro High School, the mechanical contributions from Los Angeles Poly High and the day nursery float. Again, it was asserted that this was “a lifting of the lid off school work” as well as a “lesson that went home to all who have or expect to have children in school here.” The paper also provided some detail on every school entry under the heading of “Youthful Ingenuity’s Remarkable Showing.”
In its coverage of the pageant, the Express reported that “with high hopes in the hearts . . . and graceful with the natural grace of childhood and youth,” the 6,500 participating pupils made their way around Los Angeles Stadium, now the site of Jefferson High School, and were lustily cheered while “everywhere there is present the spirit of youth and happiness.” Even “the ‘grown-ups’ are entering into the prevailing enthusiasm and are indeed children once again.”
The Tribune of the 4th averred that, when it came to the pageant,
If a trumpeter should ride through the streets of Los Angeles on a white steed and proclaim in clarion tones that the great jewel of all the ages had been discovered, Los Angeles to man would follow the trumpeter.
If a herald announced that the Fountain of Youth had been found, every middle-aged and elderly person in the city would hobble after him!
If a crier should shout that the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow had been placed just outside the city limits, the multitude would pursue him!
Yet in special scarlet cars, moving swiftly along the streets, the school children of Los Angeles waved their hands from the windows yesterday—and only a small portion of Los Angeles followed them.
The paper calculated the crowd at up to 6,000 and they saw the the school children of the metropolis as having “resembled a great mosaic in the center of the city” and which “flashed forth like a veritable jewel that scintillated in the sunlight.” The “romance of civilization” presented by the 6,500 students constituted, so said the Tribune, “the awakening of the world” and the transference of civilized attributes to America and “where in dazzling splendor at the end of the rainbow, California, the pot of gold, caused men to pause in amazement and in delight—here to abide forever.”
Echoing some of the remarks of its contemporaries, the paper professed to think that “the most wonderful and astounding part of the whole glorious pageant was the fact that it was a truthful portrayal of the various epochs of man’s progress—that it was indeed a spiritual realization of history.” The exclamations then followed of: “Los Angeles has discovered a new spectacle!” and “the school children of Los Angeles have come into their own!” Moreover, the effect of the pageant was said to be such that “every person in it who saw them in The March of Empire [will] remember forever the picture of splendor.”
The plaudits continued as the Tribune gushed that “such a stupendous vizualization [sic] of all time could be presented in a circle around a modern out-of-doors theater seems almost impossible and incredible,” while from start to finish during the pageant “there was not a moment but that the eye as beholding some new and inspiring sight.”
Notably, the Chinese and Japanese divisions were described in positive terms, even though people from those nations in Los Angeles and California since the Gold Rush were subjected to intense racism and discrimination, including the Alien Land Law of 1913 which banned the ownership or long-term leases to Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Korean people. Hollywood High’s depiction of Spain was lionized with “imagine if you can a spectacle such as this—costumed absolutely true to the period and costuming of that day!”
For the Grand Finale, the rhapsodic account concluded that it was
a moving finale suggestive of the poetry of motion and the color scheme of the world, the splendor of the ages and the gladness of the flower of life was there presented—a mosaic perfect in color, conception and design—a living mosaic—a flashing jewel in the center of the City of the Angels.
The Times of the same day characterized the pageant as “Cycles Of History Unrolled Again Under Childish Hands” and as a “Panorama of the Ages Wrought in Brilliant Pantomime.” It asserted that “this was the pageant of pageants” and that it was as if all the figures in the great paintings at Versailles “had come to life under a Southland sun” and insisted that, in comparison, “it had Barnum & Bailey’s, Sells-Floto [these both circuses] and the ‘movies’ backed clear off the boards, conclusively, finally and irrevocably.”
The paper went so far as to claim that,
Not only is “The March of Empire” the greatest pageant that was ever produced in this country [region?], numbers participating alone considered, but it is the most ambitious attempt to present history in living tableaux. Not only have the great motion picture companies never attempted anything along this line, but they probably never will attempt it, for the reason that the expense would drain even the longest pocketbook.
It was only through the schools that such an effort could be undertaken, the Times propounded, and “they are giving a million-dollar show by and for Los Angeles, and, whether you have a child or not, you should go.” A cartoon in the paper by Edmund “Ted” Gale showed a gent shocked by the appearance of Roman, Chinese, Greek and African figures, the latter shown in blackface, until he stumbled upon a broadside for the pageant and realized what he’d seen.
In its issue of the 4th, the Express called the event a “Gorgeous Pageant” and a “Wonder Fete” and exclaimed that “the schoolchildren of this city have accomplished what may well be termed the impossible!” The achievement was that “they have brought down to earth and made real their fancies caught from the pages of history” and put together an event “of such glowing splendor” that putting it into words was like “trying to describe the miracle of a sunset over the Pacific.”
The paper asserted that the pageant and parade “will live long after the filmiest costume and the heaviest cloak have become dust and, much like the Tribune, it waxed poetic about the dual elements being “like the spirit of love and the highest conception of the immortals” as well as “a perfect painting . . . against a background of California sky.” With all the elevated language, the Express also averred that “best of all the children have faithfully and truthfully presented the march of civilization down through the ages.”
We’ll return with a third part of this post carrying the narrative to the final events of the festivities, so check back for that.
As noted in these two parts of the post, flowers and children were central themes in Los Angeles during the early 20th century. These themes were celebrated through parades, city landscaping efforts, and the distribution of seeds to residents. Both flowers and children symbolized vitality, growth, and a promising future – values that the city government and its citizens proudly embraced and were eager to share with the world as a warm invitation to visit.
As time has passed, however, the themes that once defined Los Angeles have gradually faded. Today, when traveling through the surrounding cities, one cannot help but notice a widespread lack of aesthetic care. Residents no longer seem to take pride in their curb appeal, and many yards are dominated by rampant weeds or artificial grass, often justified by the banners of environmental protection or climate change.
Meanwhile, the public spaces once meant to welcome visitors are now often occupied by loiterers and homeless or threatened by gang activities, driving tourists away. In stark contrast to the era of beautiful flowers and innocent children, Los Angeles today appears overwhelmed by ugliness and criminals.