Charles V. Booth COLLECTION

 

 

(Mss 292)

 

 

Inventory

 

 

Earl K. Long Library

University of New Orleans

 

April 1998

 

 

Contents

 

 

Summary

 

Historical Note

 

Series, Subseries, and Descriptions

 

Container List

 

Index Terms

 

Procedures for Requesting Special Collections Materials

 

 

 

Summary

 

 

Size:                          33 linear feet

 

Geographic

locations:                 Greater New Orleans (La.) area

 

Inclusive dates:      1935-1990

 

Bulk dates:              1963-1988

 

Summary:                Materials pertaining to the New Orleans Carnival, especially to truck parades; includes doubloons, carnival club histories, designs for trucks and doubloons, photographs, and general records and correspondence of the Elks Krewe of Orleanians and the Elks Krewe of Jeffersonians.

 

Related

collections:              Carnival Ball Programs Collection (Mss 88), Richard Dixon Collection (Mss 94); New Orleans Carnival Collection (Mss 122), Telling-Grandon Collection (Mss 128), Judge John Minor Wisdom Collection (Mss 197)

 

Source:                     Gift, 1989

 

Access:                     No restrictions

 

Copyright:                Physical rights are retained by the Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans.

 

Citation:                    Charles V. Booth Collection, Earl K. Long Library, University of New Orleans

 

 

 

Historical Note

 

 

            The first organized Mardi Gras truck parade in New Orleans followed Rex down Canal Street on March 5, 1935, when fifty-six different groups riding on decorated trucks banded together to form the Elks Krewe of Orleanians.  Many of the participants were members of fraternities, sororities, neighborhood social clubs, and schools.  In addition to the Elks trucks, numerous other decorated trucks were sponsored by independent carnival clubs, for a total of nearly one hundred vehicles in the first truck parade.

 

            In New Orleans, street celebrations have commemorated Mardi Gras at least since February 24, 1857, when the Mistick Krewe of Comus held its inaugural parade.  The routes of the major parades included St. Charles Avenue, Canal Street, Royal Street, and other principal streets in downtown New Orleans and the French Quarter.  After World War I, some maskers, who had theretofore celebrated as they walked and danced through the streets, formed groups to ride on home-decorated trucks of various description.  The parade routes were heavily policed, however, and the trucks were not permitted to parade on major streets.  As time passed, the number of trucks and the quality of their decoration increased, and something of a competition burgeoned among the truck groups.  By the late 1920s and early 1930s, decorations were becoming increasingly elaborate.

 

            After riding on a decorated truck sponsored by the local Lodge #30 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks in 1933, Chris R. Valley conceived the idea of organizing the independent trucks into a parade which would follow Rex on the established parade route.  On September 6, 1934, an Elks Carnival Committee was formed within the lodge, with Valley as its chairman.  On January 18, 1935, the group began publicizing the plan in the newspaper.  Given impetus by local columnists such as Mel Washburn and F. Edward Hebert, by the Elks committee, and by the general enthusiasm for Carnival, the idea caught on, and the Elks Krewe of Orleanians was born.  Valley, who remained active with the group for thirty years, gathered many of the materials in the collection.

 

            As time passed, the Elks Krewe of Orleanians grew, generally sponsoring forty-five to one hundred trucks annually from 1935 to 1955, one hundred fifty trucks through 1965, one hundred eighty trucks through 1971, and one hundred fifty trucks since 1971.  In 1946, Russell Calonge formed the Krewe of Crescent City, a parade of fifty to seventy-five trucks which follows the Elks Krewe of Orleanians.  Two additional truck parades began in the mid-1970s to follow the Krewe of Argus parade in Metairie, Louisiana (Jefferson Parish): the Krewe of Jefferson, founded by William H. Aitken, and the Elks Krewe of Jeffersonians, sponsored by B.P.O.E. Lodge #30.  Together they contribute some one hundred trucks, and the Elks Krewe of Gretna on the West Bank provides about sixty-five more.  Another dozen or so trucks follow the Krewe of St. Bernard parade in St. Bernard Parish.  Each truck is sponsored by an individual carnival club consisting of ten to fifteen families.  On average, forty persons ride on each truck.

 

            Maskers riding on trucks are known for the generosity with which they toss favors, known as “throws,” into the crowds of spectators.  This custom began during the earliest Mardi Gras celebrations with the throwing of foodstuffs, candies, and cookies, and evolved into today’s assortment of beads, plastic toys and cups, and doubloons.  The last of these, a 1˝”, lightweight aluminum medallion, was originated by H. Alvin Sharpe.  First used by Rex in 1960, doubloons had spread by 1963 to the truck parades.  The first truck doubloon was a ceramic disc distributed by the Verbenas Carnival Club, followed in 1964 by a wooden nickel thrown by the Trabs Carnival Club.  Beginning in 1965, truck doubloons proliferated so rapidly that by 1969, some one hundred seventeen trucks out of a total of two hundred seventy in Greater New Orleans were throwing their own truck doubloons.  By 1969, however, interest in truck doubloons was diminishing.  During their glory years, however, some two hundred twenty carnival clubs were responsible for the minting of three thousand different medallions, for a total of more than twenty-five million truck doubloons.

 

            The collection was donated to the Earl K. Long Library by Charles V. Booth (b. 1923), a collector of Mardi Gras, truck, and doubloon history.

 

Sources:

            Booth, Charles V.  “50th Anniversary Elk’s Truck Parade.”  1983.

            Booth, Charles V.  “Truck Doubloons.”  1988.

 

 

 

Series, Subseries, and Descriptions

 

 

Series I.         Carnival Throws and Memorabilia

 

                        Subseries I.1:    Doubloons

 

                        Subseries I.2:    Other throws

                        Plastic cups, panties, cap

 

                        Subseries I.3:    Memorabilia

                        Medallions, krewe favors

 

 

Series II.        Historical Background

 

                        Subseries II.1:   Truck parades

 

                        Subseries II.2:   Carnival clubs

 

 

Series III.       Visual Materials

 

                        Subseries III.1:  Photographs of trucks

 

                        Subseries III.2: Designs for trucks, costumes, etc.

 

                        Subseries III.3: Designs for doubloons

 

                        Subseries III.4:  Miscellaneous photographs

 

 

Series IV.      Papers

 

                        Subseries IV.1: Elks Krewe of Orleanians general records and cor­res­pond­ence

 

                        Subseries IV.2: Elks Krewe of Orleanians doubloon records

 

                        Subseries IV.3: Elks Krewe of Jeffersonians

 

                        Subseries IV.4: Miscellany

 

 

Series V.       Publications

 

                        Subseries V.1: Newspapers

                        Clippings and excerpts on subjects relating to Carnival, from New Orleans newspapers.

 

                        Subseries V.2:   Carnival calendars

 

                        Subseries V.3:  Truck krewe publications

 

                        Subseries V.4:  Other krewe publications

 

                        Subseries V.5:  Publications pertaining to doubloons

 

                        Subseries V.6:  Miscellaneous publications

 

                        Subseries V.7:  Recordings

 

 

 

Container List

 

 

Series I.  Carnival Throws

 

                        Subseries I.1: Doubloons

 

292-1              Ceramic truck doubloons, 1963-1970 (27 items, framed together)

 

                                    1963 (800) Three designs

 

                                           Smiling mask

 

                                                Light gray-blue (turquoise)

 

                                                Green and gold painted on white

 

                                                (Also issued, but lacking: light purple; dark blue on white)

 

                                           Frowning mask

 

                                                Green and gold on white

 

                                                (Also issued, but lacking: light gray-blue; light purple)

 

                                           Clown

 

                                                Dark to medium purple

 

                                                (Also issued, but lacking: green and gold on white)

 

                                    1964 (1200) Clown design only

 

                                                Medium blue green

 

                                                Green and gold on white

 

                                                (Also issued, but lacking: light purple; dark purple)

 

292-1                          1965 (1800) Clown design only

 

                                                Dark green

 

                                                Light purple

 

                                                (Also issued, but lacking: dark purple; medium bluish green; green and gold on white)

 

                                    1966 (1800) Clown design only

 

                                                Dark purple

 

                                                Green and gold on white

 

                                                (Also issued, but lacking: medium purple; dark green; light purplish gray; light purplish gray with flecks of gold)

 

                                    1967 (1800) Clown design only

 

                                                Medium green

 

                                                Medium purple

 

                                                1967 Truck #25, “Golden Harvest,” won honorable mention

 

                                                Green and gold on white with the word “Verbenas” on the obverse

 

                                    1968 (800) 16 Three-petaled flower with clown face in the center

 

                                                Gold (almost orange)

 

                                                Medium green

 

                                                Medium purple

 

                                                Purple, gold, and green petals with pink face on white

 

292-1                          1969 (800) Clown with top hat

 

                                                Yellow

 

                                                Light green

 

                                                Light purple

 

                                                Purple, gold, and green on white

 

                                    1970 (400) Clown design only

 

                                                Speckled red