Essays on American Pageant

A pageant is a public entertainment consisting of a procession of people in costumes, often lavishly decorated floats or cars, representing some historical or cultural scene. Pageants are held for a variety of purposes, including to celebrate important events, to commemorate persons or events of historical significance, or simply to entertain the populace.In medieval England, pageants were a popular form of entertainment, often sponsored by the church or nobility. They typically consisted of tableaux vivants, in which people in elaborate costumes would enact scenes from Bible stories or classical mythology. Other popular pageants included pageants of local history or folklore, in which townspeople would dress up in costumes and enact scenes from the town's history.Pageants fell out of fashion in the early modern period, but experienced a revival in the Victorian era. Queen Victoria herself was a great lover of pageants, and her Diamond Jubilee in 1897 was celebrated with a grand pageant in London. This pageant, and others like it, helped to keep the tradition alive into the 20th century.Today, pageants are still held in many parts of the world. They often have a educational or cultural purpose, such as the Rose Parade in Pasadena, California, which celebrates the city's history and culture, or the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City, which celebrates Americana.