The Spirit of Frances Willard: A Pageant

The Spirit of Frances Willard: A Pageant

Doris Smith’s “pageant play of Health and Temperance” was written “particularly for Frances Willard Day in our public schools.” Frances Willard is to be played by “a girl with clear sweet voice, rather spiritual in type, from twelve to twenty years.” Willard is presented quite literally as a saintly figure, wearing “flowing white robes, with gold band on the head, long white veil, trimmings of gold on gown.” The other young cast members serve as singers and narrators, or assume allegorical characters, including the Spirits of Truth, Happiness, Prosperity, Service, and Health, Poverty, and Crime. A boy portraying “Mankind” wears a “black crown with ‘BEER’ printed on it… About him are wrapped heavy ropes and a chain.” His two children are “smaller in size… weak, pale and poorly dressed,” forming a classic stage picture that harkens back to George Arnold’s 1858 temperance tableaux.

Doris Smith

Doris Smith, The Spirit of Frances Willard: A Pageant (Evanston, Illinois: National W.C.T.U. Publishing House, 1923).

National WCTU Publishing House

1923