Rising from the Ashes: Mardi Gras Past and Present
Ash Wednesday. The day following Mardi Gras. Or the day that traditionally has been celebrated for centuries, with exuberant indulgence, and over-indulgence, before the letting go of Lent and its forty-day period of restraint.
But back up one day, to the day before the ashes: that day of over-the-top celebration, the day of Carnival, parades, magnificent balls, King Cake, and beads, beads, and more beads. In the United States, we tend to connect Mardi Gras, not with the day itself, but with the very city of New Orleans, with its grand and glorious parades, the fantastical floats and costumes, celebratory crowds, and fancy balls.
This year, facing the pandemic of Covid-19, those gatherings were canceled. What happened then? The ever-creative citizens of New Orleans turned their houses and businesses into stationary “floats.” They organized distanced pedestrian “parades,” pulling toy tractors that, in turn, pulled embellished toy floats, sang and marched to the beat of drums and horns marching with them at safe distances. NOLA, despite hurricanes and pandemics, continues its cherished traditions.
Let’s go back now a century or more; those traditions had a beginning. They originated with the organization of “krewes,” close-knit men’s organizations. Membership was a special honor, as it is still. Before the turn of the last century, in the late 1800’s, the men sponsored magnificent balls, in which the women were accessories of a sort, waiting to be called out for a dance after the Grand March.
My yet-to-be titled historical novel, a psychological mystery, is wrapped the festivities of Les Mysterieuses' second ball in 1900, also a Leap Year, giving these ambitious women a reason to once again reverse roles. There were minimal parades at that time, but the balls were elaborate, requiring both money and the finest of design and couturier skills.
“In this pioneering and unpredictable setting, fate brings together two highly creative women in the wake of a terrible death. Is it murder, suicide, or an accident?”
In this pioneering and unpredictable setting, fate brings together two highly creative women in the wake of a terrible death. Is it murder, suicide, or an accident? There is abundant evidence for any of those verdicts. A young widow, burdened by the weight of guilt and the unknown, struggles to move forward with the demands of her life, including her husband’s gambling debts and the social demands for the ball of Les Mysterieuses. A skilled. young seamstress, a stranger to New Orleans, penniless, pregnant, abandoned by her husband, manages to make her skills essential in this new world of Mardi Gras pageantry. In doing so, she will uncover secrets that threaten to tear her new life and world apart.
For a time after Hurricane Katrina, I was fortunate to have an apartment in the French Quarter. Last year I was invited to speak at The Faulkner Festival about my novel, The Abolitionist's Daughter. I experienced the excitement of riding on my friend’s float in the Krewe of Iris parade, a modern all women’s krewe. It was only natural that New Orleans and the history-making beginning of women’s krewes should form the heart of this new historical mystery.
“Research is always both the joy of revelation and the frustration of digging after those fine details that manage to hide themselves in the most obscure places.”
Research is always both the joy of revelation and the frustration of digging after those fine details that manage to hide themselves in the most obscure places. In days spent reading and researching the abundant materials of the great university and city libraries in New Orleans and visiting the historical museums in the Cabildo, I gathered rich troves of material, from costume design to an actual invitation to that Les Mysterieuses ball. I found sketches of the tableaux for the ball. In the Marigny, I walked the streets, absorbing what trees lined the streets, the architecture of the closely situated houses, and the old churches’ command of the corners. Of course, I visited the graves of the cemeteries, necessarily above ground because of the water table.
The turn of the last century marked a time of immense change. The frustration of searching for specific detail most often caught me in simple details of everyday life. Would transportation be by horse and carriage or horse-less carriage? I wrote an entire scene based on a woman daring to drive a gas-powered vehicle, mastering the clutch and gear shift, only to discover when I searched for a make and model that in 1900 all such vehicles were electric with no gears. A character might prepare to cook something and suddenly, I needed to ascertain the kind of stove, wood or gas, and how many sources did any meal require. What were the bathrooms like? What games did the children play and what were their toys? With the element of Mardi Gras costuming, I needed to understand the mechanisms of early sewing machines and how much one might cost. What were the fabrics most used and how would they fall when cut and assembled, on the straight or the bias? Luckily, these machines turned out to be not so different from the treadles I learned on myself as a girl.
Mardi Gras in 1900, for women, was an experiment and a successful one. The outcome of their social initiative into greater independence was one more step in the direction of greater independence and the vote. Les Mysterieuses grand ball was a creative victory over the limitations and the odds. Those spirited women said, “We can do this.” In 2021, although Mardi Gras was officially cancelled, the people of New Orleans looked at the limitations and the odds and said, “Geaux, NOLA. We can do this!” And they did.
Diane C. McPhail is an artist, writer, minister and author of The Abolitionist's Daughter. She is also the author of a forthcoming untitled historical suspense/crime novel from Kensington Publishing. In addition to holding an M.F.A., an M.A., and D.Min., she has studied at the University of Iowa distance learning and the Yale Writers’ Workshop, among others. Diane is a member of North Carolina Writers' Network and the Historical Novel Society. She lives in Highlands, North Carolina, with her husband, and her dog, Pepper.
THE SOUTHERN LITERARY TRADITION in conversation with Diane C. McPhail about her well-received debut novel, THE ABOLITIONIST’S DAUGHTER. Thursday, April 8 at 2:00 PM EST. Free webinar registration.