The Philadelphia Mummers: Building Community Through Play

by Patricia Masters

Overview

Every New Year's Day since 1901, the Philadelphia Mummers have presented a spectacular show of shows that raucously snakes and shimmies its way through city streets. The Mummers Parade features music, dance, comedy, and mime, along with dazzling costumes and floats. Although the lavish event is now televised to a wide audience, it is still rooted in the same neighborhoods where it began.

This book explores the community created and annually reaffirmed by the Philadelphia Mummers. The author spent more than five years with the Mummers, observing their lives and rituals as she took part in their preparations and parades. Writing with the fascination of a sociologist and the excitement of a participant, Masters examines the Mummers from their beginnings. Through the prism of their century-long history, we can see how communities retain their identities and how they are affected by larger cultural trends.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781592136117
Publisher:	Temple University Press
Publication date:	08/13/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	256
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Patricia Anne Masters is Term Assistant Professor of Sociology and Director of the Undergraduate Program in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, George Mason University.

Table of Contents

Contents
List of Illustrations and Maps    
 iii
Acknowledgments      
   iv
Introduction      
  1
Chapter 1.  From Play to Play Community: 
         The Early Years of the Mummers Parade     22
Chapter 2.  Expanding the Play Community:
           The Contemporary Parade  
     60 
Chapter 3.  Blacks, Women, and the ANewA Immigrants:
         The Mummers and Diversity      
96 
Chapter 4.  AGoing Up the Street@:
The Experience of the Parade      
138 
Chapter 5.  Rituals and the Play Community               166
Chapter 6.  Family, Club, and Neighborhood               190
Chapter 7.  The Experience of Play                       245
Chapter 8.  Play and Community: The Mummers
 Past and Future                              283
Appendix 1.  Research Methods and Materials:
                     The Ethnographic Challenge    289
 
Notes                                              298
A Note on Sources and References                  
319           
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Masters offers an unbiased and circumspective perspective on the anthropological issues that shape the mumming tradition and a persuasive argument for understanding the phenomenon as a play community."
—Western Folklore

"With her ethnographic detail, Masters offers up a tremendous amount of information useful to students and scholars interested in urban culture and art."
—The American Journal of Sociology

From the Publisher