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Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Festival of Nations organizers might want to take a look at 1906 Festival for inspiration
Tuesday, July 8, 2003
Although a valiant and creative attempt was made to financially rescue the troubled Festival Of Nations this past holiday weekend, it met with a less than enthusiastic monetary response from the citizens of Chatham-Kent. A good portion of our area's residents will flock to things that are free but once you start asking them to shell out some hard cash for some quality acts, many of them balk. We are afraid that is what happened this past weekend in Tecumseh Park.As organizers of a festival ourselves, we have nothing but sympathy and appreciation for all the countless hours, exhausting work and organization that went into the planning of this artistically successful but financially devastating event. Their work is much appreciated and a hearty "thank you" goes out to all those organizers and volunteers from all of us in Chatham-Kent. You tried your best!
Possibly the organizers of next year's festival might want to take a look back at a very similar event held in Chatham almost one hundred years ago to gain some inspiration, insight and direction.
To prove our point, come with us back through time to May of 1906 to a spot not far from Tecumseh Park and to a spectacle entitled "The Fair of Nations".
"The Fair" was organized by the PGH Ladies Assisting Society as a fund-raiser in order to help raise the $11,000.00 required for the construction of a new maternity ward. The cost of admission was 25 cents but for this you got more than your money's worth as you could have a taste, both culturally and gastronomically, of an unbelievable number of nations. According to the Chatham Daily Planet, the entire William Street Curling Club was "lavishly decorated" and set up in the form of booths with each one representing a different culture.
In the Turkish Booth, there were ladies, in appropriate costume, who served chafing-dish suppers each night. In addition, there was a smoking room attached to the Turkish Booth which allowed visitors to smoke cigars, Turkish cigarettes as well as having Turkish Delight served.
The "Scotch Booth" ,as it was called, had "an exact representation" of Robbie Burn's cottage, "picturesque and attractive and typical in every detail". Here, one could purchase "cereals, jewelry, tartan-backed playing cards, gloves, china wear, porringers, linoleums, plaid ribbons and silks from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Paisley". In addition, to add to the reality of the scene, "a Scotch piper will play at intervals, selections on the bagpipes".
The Holland Booth featured a windmill towering over their quarters, a fireplace and had young ladies dressed as "charming peasant girls" serving "cups of red hot Dutch cocoa".
The Iceland Booth (yes, there was an Iceland Booth!) was placed at "the coldest corner of the rink" and their concentration was on the serving of ice-cream, iced-drinks, sundaes and sodas. In order to stress ìthe iceî in Iceland, they had the booth decorated with special icicles specially manufactured for the booth, by the Wallaceburg Glass Factory! In addition, the people manning the booth were dressed all in white to add to the ìdelicious coolness of this alluring refreshment room.î
Ever the patriots, the ladies running "The Fair of Nations" did not forget a booth totally dedicated to Canada. The theme of the booth was "The Land of The Maple Leaf" and featured, for sale, embroideries, laces, draperies, home-spuns and fancy goods from the Canadian Handicraft Guild. The William Gray & Sons Carriage Company donated a "first class buggy" to raffle off, the McKeough & Trotter Company donated a "motor launch" to sell and the Manson Campbell Company donated "a Manson Campbell scale" for the same purpose. Needless to say, the Canadian Booth made a great deal of money on their own for the PGH Maternity Ward..
One of the highlights of the six day long Fair of the Nations was The Grand Parade of All Nations around the curling rink. According to the Chatham Daily Planet ( May 15, 1906), the procession included "wild and warlike Indians, pretty Spanish senoras, coy Irish peasants girls, merry little Japs, sturdy German girls, smart Yankee young ladies and sweet little maidens from Iceland". In short, every stereotype from every part of the world was prominently represented in outlandish spectacle.
However, the absolute highlight of "The Fair of Nations" was the excellent entertainment provided by "the Maple City Firefighters". Sometime around 7:30 P.M. on Saturday, an alarm box went off, by design, at the William Street Curling Rink and all in attendance were able to witness, first hand, "a run" by the Chatham Fire Brigade from their Sixth Street Fire Hall. According to the newspaper of the day, "the horses sprang from their stalls" at the sound of the bell, were hitched to the hose wagon and "whizzed through the open doors and tore down King Street at a maddening speed". According to the reporter covering "the run", the trip from the sound of the bell until the time the horses pulled up in front of the Curling Club took an unbelievable one minute and forty seconds!
Take "The Festival of Nations", "The Faire At The Forks", "The Highland Games" and then throw in a little bit of Disneyworld and...you have "The Fair of The Nations" of 1906. Maybe it's something for the present Festival of Nations to aspire to in future years!
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
