MUMMERS

2022 Mummers Parade postponed one day due to weather

Posted: Dec 31, 2021 / 01:16 PM EST
Updated: Dec 31, 2021 / 02:21 PM EST

In an effort to give the 2022 Mummers Parade a better weather window the 2022 parade has been postponed one day. The annual Philadelphia Mummers Parade will begin at 9am on Sunday January 2, 2022. You can stream the parade here. 2022 Mummers Parade Web Stream.

The Fancy Brigade show will still occur at its regularly scheduled broadcast time, January 1, 2022 on PHL17 and PHL17.com web stream.

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Mummers Parade



A String Band in the Mummers Parade

Date(s): New Year's Day
Frequency: Annual
Location(s): Philadelphia

Inaugurated: 1 January 1901 (first official parade)
Most recent: January 1 2021
Website: phillymummers.com

The Mummers Parade is held each New Year's Day in Philadelphia. Local clubs ( usually called "New Years Associations" ) compete in one of five categories (Comics, Wench Brigades, Fancies, String Bands, and Fancy Brigades). They prepare elaborate costumes, performance routines, and movable scenery, which take months to complete. This is done in clubhouses – many of which are on or near 2nd Street (called "Two Street" by some local residents) in the Pennsport neighborhood of the city's South Philadelphia section – which also serve as social gathering places for members.

The parade has been broadcast since 1993 on WPHL-TV, which has also live streamed the event on its website since 2011. After a national campaign to get the parade nationally televised, an edited two-hour broadcast of the parade was picked up by WGN America and WGN-TV; the broadcast debuted January 3, 2009.

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History



A few members of the Holy Rollers N.Y.B. in the 2008 parade presenting their theme "Our Hearts are Wild for Diamonds"



A few members of the Aqua String Band in the 2005 parade presenting their theme "Just Plain Dead"



A "fancy" mummer in the 2005 parade



Golden Sunrise Fancy Club members participate in the 2007 parade

The parade traces back to mid-17th-century roots, blending elements from Swedish, Finnish, Irish, English, German, and other European heritages, as well as African heritage. The parade is related to the Mummers Play tradition from Britain and Ireland. Revivals of this tradition are still celebrated annually in South Gloucestershire, England on Boxing Day along with other locations in England and in parts of Ireland on St. Stephen's Day and also in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador around Christmas.

Swedes and Finns, the first European colonists in the Philadelphia area, brought the custom of visiting neighbors on "Second Day Christmas" (December 26) with them to Tinicum. This was soon extended through New Year's Day with costumed celebrants loudly parading through the city. They appointed a "speech director", who performed a special dance with a traditional rhyme:

Here we stand before your door,
As we stood the year before;
Give us whiskey; give us gin,
Open the door and let us in.
Or give us something nice and hot
Like a steaming hot bowl of pepper pot!

The Mummers derive their name from the Mummers' plays performed in Philadelphia in the 18th century as part of a wide variety of working class street celebrations around Christmas. By the early 19th century, these coalesced with earlier Swedish customs, including the Christmas neighbor visits and possibly shooting firearms on New Year's Day (although this was common in other countries as well) as well as the Pennsylvania German custom of "belsnickling," where adults in disguise questioned children about their behavior during the previous year.

U.S. President George Washington carried on the official custom of New Year's Day calls during the seven years he occupied President's House in Philadelphia. The Mummers continued their traditions of comic verse in exchange for cakes and ale. Small groups of up to twenty mummers, their faces blackened, went door to door, shooting and shouting, and adapting the English Mummer's play by replacing the character of "King George" with that of "General Washington."

Through the 19th century, large groups of disguised (often in blackface) working class young men roamed the streets on New Year's Day, organizing "riotous" processions, firing weapons into the air, demanding free drinks in taverns, and generally challenging middle and upper-class notions of order and decorum.

An 1808 law decreed that "masquerades" and "masquerade halls" were "common nuisances" and that anyone participating would be subject to a fine and imprisonment. It was apparently never successfully enforced and was repealed in 1859. Henry Muhlenberg, writing in 1839, reported, "Men met on the roads in Tinicum and Kingsessing, who were disguised as clowns, shouting at the top of their voices and shooting guns.

Unable to suppress the custom, by the 1880s the city government began to pursue a policy of co-option, requiring participants to join organized groups with designated leaders who had to apply for permits and were responsible for their groups actions. The earliest documented club, the Chain Gang, had formed in 1840 and Golden Crown first marched in 1876 with cross-town rivals Silver Crown forming soon after. By 1881, a local report said "Parties of paraders" made the street "almost like a masked Ball." By 1900, these groups formed part of an organized, city-sanctioned parade with cash prizes for the best performances.

Southern plantation life's contributions include the parade's theme song, James A. Bland's "Oh, Dem Golden Slippers" (introduced in 1903), as well as the 19th-century cakewalk, dubbed the "Mummers' Strut" or the "2 Street Strut".

The first official parade was held January 1, 1901. The first string band, Trilby, was organized in 1898, first paraded in 1902, and last paraded in 2014. In the early years of the official parade, the makeshift costumes of most celebrants were gradually replaced by more elaborate outfits funded by associations' fund-raising efforts.

The official parade has been cancelled only thrice during its history. One happened in 1919 as a result of the aftermath of World War I; another occurred in 1934 due to the effects of the Great Depression and a lack of prize money; and 2021 on grounds of the COVID-19 pandemic.

As they assimilated to Philadelphia, many immigrant groups have joined the tradition. Numerous Irish immigrants and Irish-Americans from South Philadelphia became involved in the Mummers Parade as both Mummers performers and parade goers. Other ethnic groups were soon integrated into the parade through the years. Italian-Americans and Italian immigrants to South Philadelphia began to participate in the Mummers Parade in large numbers after World War II. While South Philadelphia (especially Pennsport) remains one of the most important centers for Mummers traditions and Mummers members, more recent immigrants to the neighborhood from Asia and Latin America generally have fewer ties to the parade and tradition.

While almost all parade participants are currently white, African American mummers existed in the past. The all African American Golden Eagle Club, formed in 1866, had 300 members in the 1906 parade, for example. Judges systematically discriminated against black clubs, however, and the last, the Octavius Catto Club, withdrew after receiving last place in the 1929 parade. The brass bands hired to accompany the Comic Brigades often include black musicians, but do not dress in costume and consider themselves session musicians rather than Mummers. By 1964, only one African American mummer, Willis Fluelling, remained. As of 2007, a few of the less traditional clubs, such as Spiral Q Puppet Theater's West Philadelphia Mummers Brigade, were integrated.

The comic "wenches" and other female roles in most skits are typically performed by men in drag. Women were not officially allowed in the parade until the 1970s.

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Quaker City String Band 2009 Golden Slippers
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cranjx
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Filmed at Marconi Plaza, Philadelphia, January 1, 2009 at the beginning of the Mummers Parade.

Quaker City String Band - 2015 Mummers Parade - Philadelphia Mummers
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http://www.mrmummer.com - Quaker City String Band performance in the 2015 Mummers Parade in Philadelphia, PA

The Ferko String Band - Alabama Jubilee (1955)
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Charted at #14 on Billboard Hot 100 in June 1955 and #20 on the UK Singles chart. The Ferko String Band also charted at #44 with "You Are My Sunshine" in August 1955. Original Billboard review: "With all the noise and infectious spirit of a carnival, the band gives an appealing performance of a tune on which there is certain to be consideable competition in the next few weeks. This version, at present, stands a good chance of coming out on top." Billboard rating: 80 out of 100.

This song had earlier charted at #2 in September 1915 for Arthur Collins and Byron Harlan. Red Foley charted at #28 in December 1951 with his version (#3 on the Country chart).

Written by George L. Cobb and Jack Yellen.

B-side is "Sing a Little Melody".

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at concert in Magnolia NJ 7-4-2011

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