Manila Carnival was an annual

carnival Carnival is a Catholic Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typi ...

festival held in

Manila Manila ( , ; fil, Maynila, ), officially the City of Manila ( fil, Lungsod ng Maynila, ), is the capital of the Philippines, and its second-most populous city. It is highly urbanized and, as of 2019, was the world's most densely populate ...

during the early

American colonial period The Thirteen Colonies, also known as the Thirteen British Colonies, the Thirteen American Colonies, or later as the United Colonies, were a group of British colonies on the Atlantic coast of North America. Founded in the 17th and 18th centur ...

up to the time before the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It was organized by the American colonial administration to celebrate harmonious US and Philippine relations. The

Carnival Carnival is a Catholic Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typi ...

also showcased the commercial, industrial and agricultural progress of the

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

. The highlight of the event is the crowning of the Carnival Queens.

History

The fabled Manila Carnival was first held on February 1908. The carnival's original organizer was an American colonel named Captain George T. Langhorne who asked the

Philippine Assembly The Philippine Assembly (sometimes called the Philippine National Assembly) was the lower house of the Philippine Legislature from 1907 to 1916, when it was renamed the House of Representatives of the Philippines. The Philippine Assembly wa ...

for 50,000 pesos to build a cockpit, exhibit "half-naked"

Igorot The indigenous peoples of the Cordillera Mountain Range of northern Luzon, Philippines are often referred to using the exonym Igorot people, or more recently, as the Cordilleran peoples. There are nine main ethnolinguistic groups whose domains ar ...

tribesmen and set up curiosities. Horrified by the plan of the proposed carnival, Governor General James Smith transformed the planned

freak show A freak show, also known as a creep show, is an exhibition of biological rarities, referred to in popular culture as "freaks of nature". Typical features would be physically unusual humans, such as those uncommonly large or small, those with ...

into a ritual celebrating the Philippine-American progress in the islands. Secretary of Commerce Cameron Forbes took charge of the preparation and asked 15,000 instead of 50,000 from the

Assembly Assembly may refer to: Organisations and meetings * Deliberative assembly, a gathering of members who use parliamentary procedure for making decisions * General assembly, an official meeting of the members of an organization or of their representa ...

. He planned to raise another 15,000 by private subscription campaigns such as the Carnival Queen contest. The site of the Manila Carnival was the old Wallace Field that was just off the present

Luneta Park Rizal Park ( fil, Liwasang Rizal, es, link=no, Parque Rizal), also known as Luneta Park or simply Luneta, is a historic urban park located in Ermita, Manila. It is considered one of the largest urban parks in the Philippines, covering an area ...

; occupied by the present-day

National Library of the Philippines The National Library of the Philippines ( fil, Pambansang Aklatan ng Pilipinas or ''Aklatang Pambansa ng Pilipinas'', abbreviated NLP, es, Biblioteca Nacional de Filipinas) is the official national library of the Philippines. The complex is l ...

. During those two weeks of carnival, Wallace Field was walled with

sawali Amakan, also known as sawali in the northern Philippines, is a type of traditional woven split-bamboo mats used as walls, paneling, or wall cladding in the Philippines. They are woven into various intricate traditional patterns, often resulting ...

and given a decorative facade brilliant with lights and adornments. A variety of shows were presented like

circus A circus is a company of performers who put on diverse entertainment shows that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, dancers, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, magicians, ventriloquists, and unicyclist ...

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

slapstick Slapstick is a style of humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy. Slapstick may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such a ...

comedies, and the grand theatrical presentation of Borromeo Lou, the great impresario of the era. Such stars as

Atang de la Rama Honorata de la Rama-Hernandez (January 11, 1902 – July 11, 1991), commonly known as Atang de la Rama, was a singer and bodabil performer who became the first Filipina film actress. Atang de la Rama was born in Pandacan, Manila on January 11, 1 ...

Katy de la Cruz Katy de la Cruz (born Catalina de la Cruz; February 13, 1907 – November 10, 2004) was a leading Filipina singer who specialized in jazz vocals and torch songs in a hon career that lasted eight decades. Hailed as "The Queen of Filipino Jazz" ...

Canuplin Canuto Francia (January 28, 1904 – September 4, 1979), better known as Canuplin, was a Filipino stage performer and magician who gained fame for his impersonation of Charlie Chaplin in Filipino movies and the local bodabil circuit. Biography C ...

, Dionisia Castro, often staged performances that audiences loved. The entrance fee range from 50 centavos and up and one can buy at the gate a mask, a horn and a bag of confetti. The children wore a

harlequin Harlequin (; it, Arlecchino ; lmo, Arlechin, Bergamasque dialect, Bergamasque pronunciation ) is the best-known of the ''zanni'' or comic servant characters from the Italian language, Italian ''commedia dell'arte'', associated with the city o ...

, a clown's costume, or a dunce cap, while the elder ones wore dominoes or similar attractive attires. The scene was like New Year's Eve with all the gaiety, laughter and gossips in old

circling around. Everyone seemed to be tooting horns or throwing confetti.

Parades

There were five parades during the carnival season: 1. The opening day parade, which was mostly

clown A clown is a person who performs comedy and arts in a state of open-mindedness using physical comedy, typically while wearing distinct makeup or costuming and reversing folkway-norms. History The most ancient clowns have been found in ...

and

2. The military parade, mostly Americans and Scouts
3. The civic educational parade in which the public schools of Manila participated, and wherein each school compete for the best and most original floats
4. The business and industrial parade in which the international community participated
5. The floral parade, which is the highlight parade of the carnival. The parade featured the competing carnival beauties as well as the newly crowned Carnival Queen, her consort, and her court.

Carnival Queens

The highlight of the Manila Carnival is the crowning of the Carnival Queen by the Carnival mascot

Billiken The Billiken is a charm doll created by an American art teacher and illustrator, Florence Pretz of Kansas City, Missouri, who is said to have seen the mysterious figure in a dream. It is believed that Pretz found the name Billiken in Bliss Carm ...

. Cameron Forbes and the carnival promoters established the Carnival Queen contest. The Queen will be selected through purchase of ballots through newspaper clippings. Initially, Forbes decided to restrict the contest to the daughters of the wealthiest families from the capital city of Manila but eventually accepted entries from different parts of the country. The Queen was voted through a system of money ballots or magazine coupons. Philippine magazines like

Liwayway ''Liwayway''''Liwayway''
Komiklopedia, The Philippine Komiks Encyclopedia, Komiklopedia.wor ...

, Telembang and Lipang Kalabaw had such coupons inserted in their pages. The Carnival Queens dressed the most beautiful costumes of the parade, ranging from

Egyptian Egyptian describes something of, from, or related to Egypt. Egyptian or Egyptians may refer to: Nations and ethnic groups * Egyptians, a national group in North Africa ** Egyptian culture, a complex and stable culture with thousands of years of ...

inspired to Siamese to that of the Arabian

Scheherazade Scheherazade () is a major female character and the storyteller in the frame narrative of the Middle Eastern collection of tales known as the ''One Thousand and One Nights''. Name According to modern scholarship, the name ''Scheherazade'' deri ...

. The first Manila Carnival in 1908 elected two queens representing the Oriental beauty and the Western beauty (called ''Occident'') – Pura Villanueva from

Iloilo City Iloilo City, officially the City of Iloilo ( hil, Siyudad/Dakbanwa sang Iloilo; fil, Lungsod ng Iloilo), is a 1st class highly urbanized city in the Western Visayas region of the Philippines on the island of Panay. It is the capital city of t ...

Iloilo Iloilo (), officially the Province of Iloilo ( hil, Kapuoran sang Iloilo; krj, Kapuoran kang Iloilo; tl, Lalawigan ng Iloilo), is a province in the Philippines located in the Western Visayas region. Its capital is the City of Iloilo, the ...

(Queen of the Orient) and Marjorie Radcliffe Colton from Galesburg,

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolita ...

(Queen of the Occident). The only other time this happened was in 1920 Manila Carnival. In 1912, for the first time aside from the carnival queen the contest chose four ladies to represent

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...

Visayas The Visayas ( ), or the Visayan Islands (Bisayan languages, Visayan: ''Kabisay-an'', ; tl, Kabisayaan ), are one of the three Island groups of the Philippines, principal geographical divisions of the Philippines, along with Luzon and Mindanao ...

Mindanao Mindanao ( ) ( Jawi: مينداناو) is the second-largest island in the Philippines, after Luzon, and seventh-most populous island in the world. Located in the southern region of the archipelago, the island is part of an island group of ...

and American homeland. In 1913, three women representing

and

were named as co-winners of the Manila Carnival. The first and only American woman to solely win as Carnival Queen was Mela Kamakee Fairchild (born in Oakland, California in 1898) in the 1917 Manila Carnival. Two queens were also chosen in 1926 to elect the last to be called as the Carnival Queen (Socorro Henson) and the very first Miss Philippines (Anita Agoncillo Noble) Manila Carnival Queen is the precursor of various national pageants in the Philippines.

Titleholders

National Beauty Contest

These are the candidates for the national beauty contests of the Manila Carnival.

1st National Beauty Contest

2nd National Beauty Contest

References

External links

{{Commons category, Manila Carnival
Manila Carnivals 1908–1939, A Pictorial History of the "Greatest Annual Event in the Orient". Alex R. Castro

Manila Carnival Royalty

Manila Carnivals 1908–1939 Flickr Group

Manila Carnival Tumblr
Carnivals in the Philippines Beauty pageants in the Philippines History of Manila Culture in Manila Recurring events established in 1908 Recurring events disestablished in 1939