The Old Southern Carnival: Gender, Race, and Connections to the "Old South"
By Ava Allen
The year was 1939. The sun had set, and a large crowd was gathered in Farris Stadium at Centre College. It was time for the main event of Centre's Carnival tradition: the coronation of the Carnival King and Queen. Members of the student body and the "C" Club had elected the Queen, and this year it was Mary Munn, a sophomore whose late father had been a professor at Centre College. She stood on the porch of a recreated version of her ancestors' Georgian plantation home, a property known today as St. Elmo. Surrounded by white columns, Spanish moss, and her maids in colorful dresses, she knelt in front of the previous year’s Queen and received her tiara. The audience applauded. After being crowned, the new Queen placed a laurel crown on the 1939 King, James German. The final ceremony in the coronation was the Grand March out of the field. As the Centre College royalty walked away, a photographer snapped a photo of the procession. In the picture, we see Colonel Vernon Richardson leading the Grand March as he had since 1904. At his side is Mary Munn in her white, satin gown and cloth-of-gold cape and James German in a formal suit. The Queen’s maid of honor, Nancy Bean, was caught in the photograph as well, and she dressed in full 19th-century southern-belle attire. The Kentucky Advocate newspaper reported that Bean wore, "a white net gown, with hooped skirt, pantalettes, and poke bonnet." All of the Queen’s maids were dressed in this fashion.[i] The Danville Daily Messenger featured this sentence in an article about Munn’s selection, “Miss Munn is strictly a southerner and is proud of the fact.”[ii] The history of Carnival is a reflection of Centre College’s fascination with its southern identity. It is also a reflection of how gender and race played a part in what roles people played in this collegiate ceremony during the first three-quarters of the 20th century.
Since 1903, Carnival has been an end-of-year activity for the college. Once part of commencement activities, it now takes place in April and lacks many of its original features. In its first year, an instructor in physical education, H.R. Edmunds, proposed the spring social event to raise money for the Athletic Association.[iii] The first Carnival featured a track meet and booths sponsored by student organizations. In 1904, Centre saw the beginning of the royal court tradition, in which Louise Vanwinkle and Pitt Green[iv] were named King and Queen. Vanwinkle was elected by the “C” Club, an association of Centre male athletes. The Queen was usually chosen by the all-male “C” Club or Men’s Student Congress, but in later years the selection process became a campus-wide election.[v] Green won his crown through an inter-class track meet. It is interesting to note that the women were chosen based on qualifications that they could not control and the opinion of their male peers, while the men were chosen based on physical prowess in the early years. Because of this rule, the Queen had no King to crown in the year 1905 due to rain.[vi] Male athleticism was a prominent part of Centre College in the early 20th century, and it was rewarded after the coronation ceremony when the most athletic men on campus received letter “C”s. As the years progressed, the college would incorporate activities such as pageants, plays, dances, and sing-offs.[vii] Being selected as royalty or as part of the royal court was considered an honor by the Centre and Danville community. Queens and Kings were highlighted in local papers, with the most attention being paid to the Queens' backgrounds and physical appearances. The glamour of the coronation event drew large crowds to the campus. Sometimes the crowd would reach more than 5,000 people.[viii] The social importance of the event meant that it required a lot of planning, and the young Queen would take on much of this responsibility.
Until 1941, the costs of Carnival were supported almost entirely by the elected Carnival Queen and her family. She had to be a Danville native and come from a substantial financial background to cover the celebration costs. As a result, there was a limited number of women that qualified for the role.[ix] In 1937, the editor of the Cento, James Patrick Hanratty,[x] wrote that he believed this policy to be unfair. He wrote, “So much does it cost to be queen it is usually true that the queen’s parents find themselves near paupers after the finery of the Carnival has passed away.”[xi] Four years later, Centre was covering the cost of the festival with a 10-cent admission fee to the coronation.[xii] Based on primary sources, it appears that the King did not contribute as much to the ceremony as the Queen. In normal circumstances, the King and Queen would preside together over her maids and his attendants, all of which made up the royal court. The Queen and her maids were on display for the entire town while the King and his attendants took a more passive role in the coronation. This event was used not just to showcase the Queen's work, but also to honor the athletic achievements of her male peers and to raise money for athletic programs. An exception was during World War I when the money raised from Carnival was used toward the war effort.[xiii] Male recognition and visibility stemmed from athletic prowess that they could show off throughout the school year. The elected Queen's status depended upon her looks, approval of the male students, and ability to plan a social event—all things that would have made a good wife in a nuclear family arrangement. Being elevated to the position of Queen was a special, one-time thing, and it granted the student increased control over her environment for a brief period of time. Even when the election became open to the entire student body, there is evidence that the Carnival was still overseen by the Queen while her male counterpart just experienced the festivities. On page 32 of the 1960-61 student handbook, it states, “A queen is elected by the student body to reign over the carnival festivities, while the "C” Club elects the King.”[xiv]
Mary Munn’s power as Queen is why 1939 was a year with a plantation-style coronation, but she was not the only person to use this theme. As mentioned earlier, there was a distinctly “Southern” element to the festivities of Centre College. The years 1939, 1953, 1954, 1956, and 1958 are all confirmed to have had an Old South theme in some way.[xv] There were several times when people built sets to mimic plantation homes, and on some occasions, events took place at real locations. More concerning than the setting of the Carnival of 1939 in particular was the roles that people were made to play. While young, white collegians were experiencing a collegiate coronation, hired entertainers were playing characters from the Jim Crow Era. The Carnival planners used children as “pickaninny” entertainment, with a woman playing the character of “mammy”.[xvi] The movie, “Gone with the Wind” would be released that year and it also had a “mammy” character.[xvii] The “pickaninny” was supposed to represent a Black child that was not adequately socialized or cared for, thus representing either the corruption that slavery wrought on Black children, or the neglect of their Black parents.[xviii] These children stood behind a Black man named Samuel Ransom, who did a tap performance in overalls and a straw hat.[xix]
A newspaper clipping from Lexington, KY showed a picture of Ransom and a white girl pretending to be the Carnival Queen with the caption, “Little Miss Sarah Jones Bishop is shown as she played “make-believe” queen on the royal throne after the carnival had been concluded. Samuel Ransom, Negro, of North Middletown, who entertained as a tap-dancer during the program, looks on approvingly—Lexington Herald-Leader.”[xx] Most of the artifacts that we still have from the Carnivals from 1904 into the 1970s do not mention Black participants. Most of what we have includes descriptions of the decorations, dresses, and white participants. When Black people did take part in the celebrations, their race was at the forefront of their role in Carnival. There was a narrative that the white people involved in Carnival wanted to tell about the Old South. It romanticized the days of slavery. The ceremony used stereotypes as jokes that thousands of people were supposed to appreciate, and it played into the “Lost Cause” narrative of the South. It was a narrative that claimed that there was a lost honor and beauty to the antebellum South, and it neglected to address the wrongs of slavery.[xxi] Mary Munn was proud to be a southerner, and appreciating historical fashion is one thing, but it is revealing that she used Black people as props in her antebellum fantasy.
The degree to which race played a part in Carnival is less clear as we examine it in the 1960s and 70s. Again, there is not much recorded about the Black participants. However, we do have an oral interview from Sharon Morisi, class of 1974. In it, she said:
There were also a lot of questions about the roles the Black people in the community held and the racism. I think at one point they did away with Carnival because it was expected that the townspeople would participate, but more as the slaves or underlings of the town. I know... I was really uncomfortable when I went to several different places for dinner and they were older kind of large mansions and the staff that were serving us were all Black with white gloves and all of that and I was like gee this doesn't feel... feels rather creepy…[xxii]
The same year that Morisi graduated, Centre College neglected to have a coronation ceremony for the first time since World War I. There was no royal court. In the 1974 Olde Centre yearbook, an author wrote, “Instead of a Carnival Queen, apathy reigned over the Spring Weekend. The long-standing tradition of pageantry and regal courts disappeared from Centre.”[xxiii] Perhaps the rise of Women's Liberation and the trauma of the recent Vietnam War made the pageantry of Carnival seem trivial or outdated. Maybe the students of Centre were taking a stand against racism in the Carnival ceremonies. There could have been a mixture of apathy, as Olde Centre claimed, and social consciousness among the student body. In an interview between Gus Crow and Crit Luallen, class of 1974, Luallen described a changing campus. The students were rejecting many of the formalities of the past by dressing more casually, and they saw a future their parents never imagined.[xxiv] However, it does seem that at least some Centre students wanted a say in whether the pageantry continued. In the 1975 version of Olde Centre, an author wrote, “WITHOUT EVER announcing the results of a vote taken to determine the student body's preference, the Social Board abolished the Centre tradition of Carnival with king and queen and formal court.”[xxv] There seems to be some bitterness there. The King and Queen tradition picked up again in 1976[xxvi], and the last Carnival royalty was mentioned in the 1991 Olde Centre Yearbook as Debbie Massey and Pat O'Leary[xxvii]. By the time Centre College entered the 1980s, the coronation ceremonies had become much less significant and formal. Pictures in the Olde Centre yearbook from this period usually show a man and woman in casual clothing sitting or standing together.[xxviii] Carnival began to revolve less around the King and Queen and more around Greek Life. Sing-offs between various chapters became an important part of the fun. By the 1990s, the tradition was a family event.[xxix]
In my interview with Mary-Clyde Hardin, class of 1962, she said:
KCW and Centre at that time was somewhere between a ladies’ finishing school and a women’s college. And it was--it still had its formalities and its Old-World mayday things and Carnival and…very archaic now. But it was the way it was.[xxx]
Betty Holtzclaw, class of 1966, remarked about the tradition, “It was fun, I don't know when they stopped doing carnival.”[xxxi] Jane Skidmore, class of 1964, said:
Our Carnival Queen had all of the senior women invite all of the senior women to be in her court. And so, everybody wore a long white dress. And there was a parade and a ceremony and she was crowned and the king was crowned. It was really neat. And then there was a dance. That was a really fun weekend…That's the reason she was queen. She was sweet and wonderful. She was also homecoming queen. So, a favorite of everyone.[xxxii]
Centre College for many years was a rather homogenous place. Still, everyone’s experience is different. How we perceive traditions is filtered through the lens of our life experiences. For some Centre students, Carnival was an archaic, but neat event. For others, it was a chance to experience the kindness of another student who let the entire senior class of women walk with her. There are likely plenty of Centre Alumni who have fond memories of the tradition. The above analysis of Carnival’s history is not meant to discredit the experiences of those who enjoyed the tradition. It is meant to shed some light on the different manifestations of the tradition over the years, and how it is a reflection of Centre’s changing values. Though they are special events, ceremonies follow the script of our everyday beliefs. Centre College had experienced a great deal of change from 1904 to the present day, and the tradition of Carnival has changed with it.
Footnotes
[i] “Thirty Fifth Annual Centre Carnival One of the Most Brilliant of All.” Kentucky Advocate. June 5, 1939.
[ii] “Miss Mary Munn is Elected Queen.” Danville Daily Messenger. May 1, 1939.
[iii] “Carnival.” CentreCyclopedia . Centre College. Accessed May 1, 2021.
[iv] “The Royalty of Centre.” Kentucky Advocate. June 6, 1932.
[v] “The Carnival Coronations,” CC-45, Folder 1, Centre College Special Collections and Archives, Danville, Kentucky.
[vi] “Carnival Royalty 1904-1924,” CC-45, Folder 1, Centre College Special Collections and Archives, Danville, Kentucky.
[vii] “Carnival Events,” CC-45, Folder 1, Centre College Special Collections and Archives, Danville, Kentucky.
[viii] “Centre College 35th Carnival is Held Friday.” Danville Advocate Messenger. June 5, 1939.
[ix] “New Policy for Centre Carnival.” Danville Advocate Messenger. May 9, 1941.
[x] “Olde Centre 1937,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed May 10, 2021.
[xi] “Cento Suggests Lowering Cost of College Fete.” Kentucky Advocate. April 17, 1937.
[xii] “New Policy.” Danville Advocate Messenger. May 9, 1941.
[xiii] “Carnival Coronations,” CC-45, Centre College Special Collections and Archives.
[xiv] George Robinson, editor, “Centre College Student Handbook 1961-1962,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed May 18, 2021
[xv] “The Carnival Coronations,” CC-45, Centre College Special Collections and Archives.
[xvi] “Centre College 35th Carnival is Held Friday.” Danville Advocate Messenger. June 5, 1939.
[xvii] Bauer, Patricia. “Gone with the Wind.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., July 13, 2017.
[xviii] “The Picaninny Caricature.” Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. Ferris State University. Accessed March 20, 2021.
[xix] Danville Advocate Messenger. June 5, 1939.
[xx] Lexington Herald-Leader. June 4, 1939, p. 8. Newspapers.com
[xxi] Landrieu, Mitch. “How I Learned About the ‘Cult of the Lost Cause.’” Smithsonian. Smithsonian Institution, March 12, 2018.
[xxii] Sharon Morisi, interview by Caroline Lancaster, March 10, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[xxiii] “Olde Centre 1974,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed May 18, 2021
[xxiv] Crit Luallen, interview by Gus Crow, March 11, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[xxv] “Olde Centre 1975,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed May 18, 2021
[xxvi] “Olde Centre 1976,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed May 18, 2021
[xxvii] “Olde Centre 1991,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed May 18, 2021
[xxviii] “Olde Centre 1982,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed May 18, 2021
[xxix] “Olde Centre 1992,” Centre College Digital Archives, accessed May 18, 2021
[xxx] Mary-Clyde Hardin, interview by Ava Allen, March 8, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[xxxi] Betty Holtzclaw, interview by Elizabeth Joiner, March 1, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.
[xxxii] Jane Skidmore, interview by Kiley Short, March 15, 2021, Centre College Digital Archives, Grace Doherty Library, Centre College, Danville, Kentucky.