Restaging the Past: Historical Pageants, Culture and Society in Modern Britain

TY - BOOK

T1 - Restaging the Past

T2 - Historical Pageants, Culture and Society in Modern Britain

A2 - Bartie, Angela

A2 - Fleming, Linda

A2 - Freeman, Mark

A2 - Hutton, Alexander

A2 - Readman, Paul

PY - 2020/8/17

Y1 - 2020/8/17

N2 - Restaging the Past is the first edited collection devoted to the study of pageants in Britain, ranging from its Edwardian origins to the present day.Across Britain in the twentieth century, people succumbed to ‘pageant fever’. Thousands dressed up in historical costumes and performed scenes from the history of the places where they lived, and hundreds of thousands more watched them. These pageants were one of the most significant aspects of popular engagement with the past between the 1900s and the 1970s: they took place in large cities, small towns and tiny villages, and engaged a whole range of different organised groups, from Women’s Institutes to political parties to schools, churches and youth organisations.Pageants were community events, bringing large numbers of people together in a shared celebration and performance of the past; they also involved many prominent novelists, professional historians and other writers, as well as featuring repeatedly in popular and highbrow literature. Although the pageant tradition has largely died out, it deserves to be acknowledged as a key aspect of community history during a period of great social and political change. Indeed, as this book shows, some traces of ‘pageant fever’ remain in evidence today.

AB - Restaging the Past is the first edited collection devoted to the study of pageants in Britain, ranging from its Edwardian origins to the present day.Across Britain in the twentieth century, people succumbed to ‘pageant fever’. Thousands dressed up in historical costumes and performed scenes from the history of the places where they lived, and hundreds of thousands more watched them. These pageants were one of the most significant aspects of popular engagement with the past between the 1900s and the 1970s: they took place in large cities, small towns and tiny villages, and engaged a whole range of different organised groups, from Women’s Institutes to political parties to schools, churches and youth organisations.Pageants were community events, bringing large numbers of people together in a shared celebration and performance of the past; they also involved many prominent novelists, professional historians and other writers, as well as featuring repeatedly in popular and highbrow literature. Although the pageant tradition has largely died out, it deserves to be acknowledged as a key aspect of community history during a period of great social and political change. Indeed, as this book shows, some traces of ‘pageant fever’ remain in evidence today.

KW - Pageants

KW - Social life and customs

KW - Manners and customs

KW - Great Britain

KW - History

KW - 20th century

U2 - 10.14324/111.9781787354050

DO - 10.14324/111.9781787354050

M3 - Book

SN - 9781787354050

BT - Restaging the Past

PB - UCL Press

CY - London

ER -