Vol. 4, No. 2, Fall 2005

[p. 108]

Christopher J. Anderson

The Wayfarer: Early 20th Century Foreign Missions Pageantry

In 1919, over one million people visited the State Fairgrounds in Columbus, Ohio to attend the Centenary Celebration of American Methodist Missions. This twenty-four day Methodist world's fair and Protestant missionary exposition featured international pavilions, live ethnographic exhibits, the latest technology for the local church, and a miniature Midway complete with a Ferris wheel, lemonade stands, and Methodist restaurants. The exposition also included recreated battles between World War One airplanes in the skies above Columbus and the first 'sermon in the air' preached by a Methodist seminary professor from the gondola of a military dirigible hundreds of feet above the racetrack grandstands. Entertainment was a significant component of the missionary exposition as Methodist cowboys rode bucking broncos in the Wild West exhibit, audiences watched silent films on a ten-story motion picture screen, and thousands of Protestants packed the coliseum to attend a theatrical performance called The Wayfarer: A Pageant of the Kingdom.

The use of pageantry as religious theater at the Centenary Celebration connected American Methodists with Christian missionaries and political heroes from history. My essay explores The Wayfarer as an example of early twentieth-century foreign missions pageantry which closely linked historic Christianity with American Methodist fairgoers in an effort to propagate the spread of foreign missions around the world. When viewed at the missionary festival The Wayfarer served as a visual springboard to enhance interconnectedness within the American Methodist community, to motivate audiences toward careers in missionary service, and to garner financial support to assist foreign missionary forces with the spread of Christianity to distant lands.

Early 20th Century US Pageantry

In 1905, historical pageantry as a form of popular entertainment and community involvement appeared in the United States with the production and presentation of The Gods [p. 109] and the Golden Bowl in Cornish, New Hampshire.(1) For over twenty years this type of American theater attempted to instill a sense of community participation and societal reform through the creation of interactive spaces for all classes of society to collaborate together toward social transformation. Everyone in a city or borough could participate in a pageant and local townspeople would often meet together for months to rehearse lines, choreograph dance selections, and practice hymns in preparation for an opening performance. Pageants during this era provided audiences with rousing renditions of American patriotism, community pride, religious duty and inexpensive entertainment. These performances presented audiences with a snapshot of history 'live' on stage – albeit a largely constructed and carefully crafted 'history' based upon who authored a particular pageant.

David Glassberg in American Historical Pageantry suggests the use of public orations and pageantry was an attempt to transfer history into a staged "dramatic public ritual" whereby local townspeople or organizations through performance of a particular show helped shape historical narratives into "future social and political transformations" for their contemporary audiences.(2) For Glassberg, early twentieth-century pageants were public celebrations and pageant directors often incorporated material objects and imagery from history to link ideals from the past in order to provide meaning for those watching the performance in the present.(3) When actors reinforced these notions onstage producers and directors of pageants hoped audience members watching historical events unfold before their eyes would replicate these ideals in their own neighborhoods and towns.

The production and performance of pageantry required the creative genius of many people within a local community or national organization. Pageants would range in cost of production from a few thousand dollars to over one hundred thousand dollars and pageant directors or 'masters' often received salaries ranging from $1000 to $2000 per event.(4) The ultimate quest of many pageant masters was to use pageantry as a medium to improve societal [p. 110] conditions and to connect rural and urban communities with various organizations at a national level.(5) Agencies such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Women's Party, and the Playground Association of America sponsored pageants across the country in such locations as Grand Forks, North Dakota and Boston, Massachusetts. Thus pageant masters, national organizations, and local communities worked together to improve towns and cities by staging pageants on contemporary issues including racial discrimination, women's rights, and the construction of local playgrounds and recreation centers.

Naima Prevots in American Pageantry suggests the citizens of local communities played important roles in the planning, production and performance of pageants. These staged events developed as a "response to the country's problems" and united communities together as one - driven toward social reform and the elimination of "ideological differences and barriers of race and class."(6) While the reduction of racial discrimination certainly did not take place in every community across America, pageantry provoked people toward the betterment of self and society and with the founding of the American Pageant Association in 1913 many hoped these art forms would not only entertain but promote educational awareness which in turn might help reduce the racial and class barriers in place throughout the United States.(7)

During the late nineteenth-century earlier versions of what would become pageantry emerged with tableaux vivants, self-contained staged episodes in which costumed actors posed without movement to recreate a famous painting or moment from history.(8) By the second decade of the twentieth-century American pageants were sweeping in scope, often performed in large open arenas or fields with hundreds of participants reenacting a particular moment or ideal from history. As spectators viewed these performances they better understood the history and current needs of the performers and the organization which produced and presented the [p. 111] pageant.(9) In this way, American Methodists who gathered in the Columbus coliseum were also informed of the historical connection of the Methodist Episcopal Church with missionary movements from history while at the same time the pageant moved persons toward pressing needs concerning foreign missions and the quest to Christianize the world. As a result, The Wayfarer provided audiences with a pageant designed and performed as a theatrical performance on American Methodist foreign missions.

American Methodist Theater

In 1919, The Book of Discipline, the official rulebook of the Methodist Episcopal Church, strongly restricted American Methodists from attending performances at a theater. These forms of entertainment were considered "imprudent conduct" and unbefitting Methodist churchgoers supposedly more interested in things not of this world. Yet, a slippage of language in the Discipline gave Methodists permission to use such "diversions" as the theater for their own work as long as the performance was used for purposes of honoring "the name of the Lord Jesus."(10) Thus, plays or pageants held within the confines of a Methodist sanctuary, church auditorium, or any public space which had been transformed into a 'church' were often supported by denominational executives. These pageants and plays with a spiritual or religious purpose differed from the shows held at local town theaters and thus found acceptance in Methodist circles.

Officials of the Methodist Episcopal Church believed it was important to use pageants in order to educate and entertain visitors at the Columbus exposition. Throughout the duration of the fair dozens of pageants, from W.E.B. DuBois' celebration of African American heritage The [p. 112] Star of Ethiopia to The Wayfarer by Seattle minister James E. Crowther, provided audiences with a form of theater created to connect historical narrative and imagery with contemporary stage performance.(11) Crowther's work was representative of the desire of Methodist exposition organizers to not only entertain fair visitors through pageantry but also to impress upon the minds of those in attendance the current need for American Methodists interested in foreign missions. Through a series of historical scenes, stunning backdrops, and rousing hymns set to Handel's Messiah the pageant sought to garner support for the future expansion of Christianity through world missions.

Nancye Van Brunt's essay, "Pageantry at the Methodist Centenary" analyzes the use of The Wayfarer in Columbus and suggests that by 1919 leadership within the Methodist Episcopal Church realized the popularity of pageantry in the United States and decided to incorporate these art forms at Columbus as venues of entertainment with a purpose.(12) Van Brunt notes the use of pageantry by Methodists at the exposition was a "fitting means of observing both their hundred years of missions work and a motivating force for future work" in global missionary outreach.(13) In this way Methodists used The Wayfarer as a memorial and recruitment tool to present usable ideas from the past and to give certain meanings for those in the present in order to motivate people to act in progressive ways for world missions in the future. Thus it was [p. 113] thought the incorporation of a professionally written, produced, and performed pageant within the larger missionary exposition might promote an understanding of denominational heritage and historical continuity from early Christian history to the contemporary Methodist Church.

The production and performance of The Wayfarer required three thousand professional and volunteer participants including fifteen-hundred actors, one thousand chorus members and seventy-five instrumentalists from the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.(14) George A. McCurdy, a chief electrical technician with Broadway experience from New York City, provided illumination for the pageant by choreographing over three hundred spot lights and backlights which showcased scenes of World War One, the crucifixion of Jesus, and the visit by angelic messengers in dazzling shades of blue, red and purple. McCurdy, at times overwhelmed with the scope of the Methodist project, exclaimed to a reporter from a local newspaper that the pageant was "the biggest job he has ever tackled" and compared his experience with The Wayfarer to his Broadway work in New York.(15) The scenery for the pageant included hundreds of interconnecting sections which required the original stage to be built in the auditorium of the New York Metropolitan Opera House and later shipped in ten railroad cars to Columbus.(16) Unfortunately for those involved in constructing the stage and scenery at the coliseum many of the props and some of the costumes did not arrive from New York in time for the June 20th opening performance.

At the exposition The Wayfarer was both very popular and highly controversial. Local newspapers proclaimed the success of the pageant as reported by those who attended opening night at the fairgrounds. R. C. Saunders, a reporter for The Columbus Citizen acknowledged, "The first nighters fairly gasped with astonishment at the magnitude of the production" and later noted "the spectacular religious drama cannot be compared to anything ever presented in Columbus - or for that matter in any other city in the United States."(17) Based on the reaction of this visitor, Methodists viewed The Wayfarer with intrigue - as one of the most impressive religious spectacles ever created for members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

[p. 114] While The Wayfarer received accolades from persons able to get tickets into the pageant some disgruntled theatergoers expressed dissatisfaction with the circus style accommodations, the seemingly unethical approach to the distribution of coliseum tickets, and the pompous attitudes of the personnel. On more than one occasion Centenary Cadets, the local Methodist militia unit in charge of providing security for the exposition, were called to break up arguments between brawling Methodists or arrest scalpers attempting to sell tickets at twice the face value. Scathing editorials in Columbus newspapers gave voice to frustrated exposition visitors. A man from Delaware, Ohio wrote a letter to the editor of The Ohio State Journal and complained, "My memory of the centenary pageant is tainted with the smell of peanuts, ice cream cones, pop and 'whistle,' and the inspired music of 'The Messiah' rings in my ears, accompanied by the crack of pop bottles, rattle of program salesboys and conversation among the disturbed auditors."(18)

The pageant became such a popular draw at the exposition that many Methodists stood in line as early as five in the morning in order to secure a coliseum ticket to the evening performance.(19) This riled many visitors who needed to return to their jobs before the evening show. One Methodist declared to a reporter from The Columbus Citizen that he objected having to pay the fifty cent entrance fee to get into the fairgrounds to stand in line to buy a ticket only to have to pay another half dollar to get back into the exposition later in the day for the evening performance.(20) Another dissatisfied Methodist complained to the editor of the Columbus Evening Dispatch concerning persons in charge, "The chief usher at the Grand Stand seems to think well of himself. The writer heard him giving orders to his sub-ushers not to permit this or that. It is simply silly. It would be a much better fitness of things if he could only drop that [p. 115] unnecessary job and help some farmer make hay."(21) Yet even though some Methodists complained about the circus atmosphere of the coliseum setting, the lack of financial ethics by exposition organizers, and the dozens of ticket scalpers buying up available tickets only to resell them at prices above cost, the pageant received excellent reviews and played for six weeks from December 1919 to January 1920 at New York's Madison Square Garden.

The souvenir program for The Wayfarer included a preface written by pageant director James E. Crowther indicating he created the show for "pageant-loving folks" with the purpose to "exalt Christ, foster the love for great music, and further the presentation of truth in dramatic form."(22) Crowther hoped his pageant would encourage more Methodists to embrace forms of pageantry by opening wide the doors of the church for future theatrical productions. To make this a reality Crowther wrapped the entertainment element of the pageant with a distinctly progressive "heart-gripping" and "soul-refining" Christian and Protestant expansionist message.(23) The world was emerging out of the chaos and destruction of the Great War and many Protestant Americans, including Reverend Crowther, believed distant nations affected by global turmoil needed the assistance of Christians and more specifically the Methodist Episcopal Church to help reconstruct the destroyed landscapes of the world and offer a sense of hope and direction for humanity. For Crowther and Methodist executives The Wayfarer demonstrated this approach through the use of significant characters from the history of Christianity and by informing Methodists how they might help reconstruct the world and bring order from chaos through the spread of Christianity and American democracy to foreign nations.

Crowther grouped the individual scenes of The Wayfarer into three larger episodes. Van Brunt indicates the first scene of The Wayfarer was set during World War One and included a bombed-out landscape scene of Flanders which emphasized for audiences the destruction and futility of war. By the end of the three hour pageant audiences witnessed a final scene of jubilee as children from countries impacted by Methodist missionaries, U.S. military soldiers, and [p. 116] actors playing the parts of ex-U.S. presidents including George Washington and Abraham Lincoln gathered onstage in a climactic interweaving of nation, military and Christian missions.(24) To help us better understand what The Wayfarer might have meant for early twentieth-century exposition visitors an assessment of the pageant is necessary at this juncture.