Antique 1888 VERY EARLY HALLOWEEN WITCH!! VEILED PROPHET BALL Invitation! Yeakle
This came from an amazing collection belonging to the Yeakle family, spanning over 200 years from before the American Revolution to WWII. We have more for sale from this collection in ourother sales. This is a very rare collection that will peak the interest of many types of collectors—don’t miss out! See more info about the collection this came from at the end of the listing.
Up for sale is an EXTREMELY RARE antique 1888 (ninth) Annual Festival of the Veiled Prophet invitation with A VERY EARLY DEPICTION OF A HALLOWEEN WITCH!
Though the festival doesn’t necessarily pertain to Halloween, the witch is certainly a Halloween image, and we believe this may be one the the very earliest depictions of a Halloween witch! It is very difficult to find an earlier piece of Halloween ephemera, making this a exceedingly rare, historic and collectible item!!
This amazing, very elaborate invitation is in excellent condition and comes with its original envelope!The invitation consists of a folded circular colorful paper art piece that unfolds to reveal different images depending on how the flaps are folded! Inside there is a SECOND separate folding piece that unfolds with its own set of images!
An old note written in pencil on the envelope reads“This beautiful Veiled Prophet invitation to the Ball was saved by Mahlon M. Yeakle Jr. while he was in business in St. Louis Mo. in 1888.\"
The Veiled Prophet ball still goes on today! The ballcommonly referred to as the VP Ball, is a dance held each December in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, by a secret society named the \"Veiled Prophet Organization\", first founded by prominent St. Louisans in 1878. See more info about it’s origins below.
Approximate dimensions: 6¼” in diameter when folded. The envelope measures 6⅞” x 6¼”.
Condition: It is overall in excellent condition!! There are a few areas of wear and creasing, but they are very minor especially considering it is nearly 130 years old! Please view the photos for additional details and please ask any questionsbefore offerding.
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Veiled Prophet Ball
The Veiled Prophet Ball (commonly referred to as the VP Ball) is a dance held each December in St. Louis, Missouri, USA, by a secret society named the \"Veiled Prophet Organization\" (often referred to as \"the VP\"), first founded by prominent St. Louisans in 1878. The founders\' intent was to create an annual local celebration similar to Mardi Gras in New Orleans, eventually to include pageantry and costuming as well as a parade with floats. Each year, one member of the Veiled Prophet Organization is chosen to serve as the \"Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,\" to preside over the VP Ball. Five of the debutantes who attend the ball (all attend by invitation only) are chosen by secret process to make up the \"Veiled Prophet\'s Court of Honor.\" One is chosen to be crowned the \"Queen of Love and Beauty\" by the Veiled Prophet.
Events also included the Veiled Prophet Fair (or \"VP Fair\"). In the face of increasing criticism of using civic resources to support a socially exclusive organization, this was renamed as Fair St. Louis in 1992 and broadened in appeal. The Fair was moved from the riverfront to Forest Park in 2014 and 2015 due to construction in the area around the Gateway Memorial Arch and reworking of roadways and the park.
Origins
The original figure of the Veiled Prophet emphasized force with shotgun and pistol in hand (and another shotgun at the ready). A few years later, the imagery (below) was still resolutely patriarchal.
Program title page, Sixth Veiled Prophet Festival, 1883, produced by the Compton Litho Company
The event had its roots in the St. Louis Agricultural and Mechanical Fair, an annual harvest festival which had been held in St. Louis since 1856. It attracted agricultural crops, crafts, demonstrations and attendees from throughout the region. In the economic difficulties after the American Civil War in the 1870s, such events declined. City boosters devised the Veiled Prophet Fair in an attempt to reclaim from the rapidly growing city of Chicago, pre-eminence for St. Louis as a manufacturing center and agricultural shipping point.
On March 20, 1878, Charles Slayback, a grain broker and former Confederate cavalryman (who had spent several years in New Orleans after the Civil War and become acquainted with its Mardi Gras traditions) called a meeting of local business leaders at the Lindell Hotel. Together with his brother Alonzo, Slayback created a mythology for a secret elite society, whose public demonstrations would coincide with the annual fair. From Irish poet Thomas Moore, the Slaybacks borrowed the name of the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan; they also incorporated features from the Mystick Krewe of Comus of New Orleans. In their version, the Prophet was a world traveler who had made St. Louis his home base. The first parade, attracting over 50,000 spectators, and grand ball were staged that year on October 8, 1878.
The fair was also intended to re-assert the social hierarchy which had been challenged by the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. Historian Thomas M. Spencer said this was the first and most successful strike of its type, and unusual for involving large numbers of African American workmen as well as ethnic whites. Though the fair has regularly been characterized as \"a way of healing the wounds of a bitter labor-management fight,\" Spencer suggests \"the first Veiled Prophet parade was more a show of force than a gesture of healing.\"
He commented on the early imagery of the Veiled Prophet (see image above), dressed in a hood and robe similar to members of the Ku Klux Klan and being armed with pistol and rifle, thus referring to issues of the white supremacist South. At the time, the Missouri Republican commented, \"It will be readily observed from the accoutrements of the Prophet that the procession is not likely to be stopped by street cars or anything else.\"(October 6, 1878) Historian Spencer interpreted the reference of the Republican to \"streetcars\" as related to the 1877 labor strike. Lucy Ferriss wrote about the VP events in her memoir, characterizing St. Louis as \"the northwest outpost of the Confederacy.\"
The Prophet was selected secretly from among male members, who were made up of St. Louis\' business and civic elite. The first prophet was Police Commissioner John G. Priest (who had been energetic in suppressing the 1877 strikers\' attempt to prevent strikebreakers from taking their jobs). Although the identity of a given year\'s Grand Oracle, or Veiled Prophet, was officially a secret, early holders of the office were reported to include Col. Alonzo W. Slayback, Capt. Frank Gaiennie, John A. Scudder, Henry C. Haarstick, George Bain, Robert P. Tansey, George H. Morgan, Col. J. C. Normile, Wallace Delafield, John B. Maude, Dr. D. P. Rowland, Charles E. Slayback, Leigh I. Knapp, David B. Gould, Henry Paschell, H. I. Kent, Dr. E. Pretorious, Win. H. Thompson, and Win. A. Hargadine. In the 21st century, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch still speculates each year on the identity of the Veiled Prophet.
The Queen of Love and Beauty, and later maids of honor, were to be selected by the Veiled Prophet from among the debutantes who had received invitations to the ball. (The list of invitees was determined by a process never made public. The supply of tickets was limited to members of the VP organization, which had a secret constitution, and the assignment of these non-transferrable tickets required the organization\'s approval.) The Veiled Prophet would dance the \"Royal Quadrille\" with the Queen, and then award her some keepsake of the occasion. Over the years, the Queens and their courts received pearl necklaces or silver tiaras, which became family heirlooms (as did the elaborate invitations themselves).
The 1928 Veiled Prophet Ball illustrates how seriously the event was regarded as an instrument of social control. The 50th anniversary celebration records show \"no queen.\" Mary Ambrose Smith, who was selected as Queen, was found to have secretly married Dr. Thomas Birdsall days earlier, violating the rule that the Queen of Love and Beauty must be a \"maiden.\" In a 1979 interview with the St. Louis Times, Smith recalled how the Veiled Prophet
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_gsrx_vers_795 (GS 7.0.7 (795))
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