By Antonio D. French
Filed Sunday, December 23, 2007 at 8:24 AM
According to the Post-Dispatch, Katherine Remington Martin of Ladue was crowned the queen at Saturday's 123rd annual Veiled Prophet Ball. PubDef was not invited to this year's ball and we're really broken up about it (Gabe mostly).
The event is put on by the same organization that founded the V.P. Fair (now called Fair St. Louis). Watch this video we did earlier this year, an interview with activist Percy Green on the controversial history of the Veiled Prophet.
Heavy should be the head that wears the crown, Ms. Martin.
17 Comments:
Percy Green spoke in one of my grad school classes this fall --- it was great sitting there with him for two and a half hours listening to various stories such as this. A very important figure in St. Louis, no doubt.
12/23/2007 11:26 AM
Congratulations on sticking it to the man. Of course, today the VP Ball is bigger and more popular than ever.
12/23/2007 12:12 PM
Lighten up Antonio. There is nothing wrong with the VP. I'm sure you could join if you were interested.
12/23/2007 12:30 PM
So, can someone explain exactly what the veiled prophet is?
12/23/2007 5:45 PM
A Klansman
12/23/2007 9:32 PM
The Veiled Prophet Ball is an antiquated display of power and wealth for the elite! It has no relevance in 2007!
12/23/2007 10:42 PM
No matter how good/bad of a job the city does to improve the image of the whole veiled prophet thing, the Klan look in the earlier days has soiled it forever. Revamp it from head to toe and make it for everyone. (Get rid of the entire hooded/veiled figure) Just my opinion.
12/24/2007 2:42 PM
Bear in mind most whites did not qualify to attend the ball either. It is strictly a class/wealth event.
I say, let them have their fantasy. Just don't get enamoured by its parade or other functions.
I once worked with one of the women who was one of the maids of honor (or whatever they call them); she was a genuine snob. I figured that was her problem, not mine or any of us others who worked with her.
12/24/2007 10:58 PM
There are African Americans, and other people of color, in the VP, some have been in leadership positions, per my sources.
However, it is not for the light of pocketbook, per my sources.
12/26/2007 9:06 AM
Any reference to such an outdated archaic exercise in banal stupidity should be granted no room in any journalistic endeavor. The VP is an exercise in conspicuous consumption; no one really cares about this nonsense anymore. I wish for the VP committee what I would wish for any other fascist--CHOKE ON IT.
NON-RICH CHICK
12/26/2007 1:38 PM
My relatively poor ass having attended both Ladue High School and Wash. U. (go go Gadget Need-Based Scholarship!), I'm well-attuned to the fact that most of St. Louis just outright despises its rich, in spite of the fact that it's mostly the cocky, obnoxious 25-30% poisoning the well of public opinion for the benign, well-intentioned others.
But prejudice aside, anyone with their head on straight recognizes the Veiled Prophet ball as wealthy St. Louisans' largest act of social and financial masturbation this side of the weekly publication of Ladue News.
Not to say that there aren't stupid, exclusive ongoing traditions for the rich in other cities, but there really isn't much of a reason for this event to still exist. Anyone defending it here is either rationalizing to save their own hide, or is doing it out of reverence for - or aspiration to be? - the people that actually are part of the V.P. in-crowd, in which case they seriously need to get their priorities straight. That, or they're just saying anything to be contrary to Antonio. (Honestly, what is it with these new commenters here over the last few months?)
12/27/2007 7:49 AM
The biggest problem with the VP Ball is that no one has unmasked the prophet lately...
12/27/2007 10:35 AM
When's the last time a VP official tried to break up your party because you invited your friends and not theirs?
Think about it - it might have ties back to racism but so do most things in this country - including our government that protects you. It's something that many regret and are sorry for, but it has no place in the VP ball anymore as many of the women who "walk" are non-whites.
12/28/2007 7:16 PM
Get over yourselves. As a former maid of honor let me tell you none of you have any clue. the vp is a great organization that does a lot for st.louis...take out the organization and take with it hundreds of hours of community service, donations, a parade, and a part of st.louis history that many cherish.
1/02/2008 5:29 PM
The VP ball is an embarrassment for St. Louis and makes no sense in the 21st century. It's more proof that St. Louis is psychologically stuck in 1904.
1/03/2008 8:52 PM
I was a debutante in the v.p.ball back in 1975. It was and still is a great organization that does alot of good for St.Louis. Does anyone complain about the Fleur-di-lis ball? What's the difference except for the veiled prophet that only serves as amusement to everyone in attendence trying to guess who it might be that particular year, as they also guess who was named queen.And Percy, get over it. Your a violent nasty person.
1/05/2008 12:47 PM
There are several excellent books on the Veiled Prophet Ball, Fair, and their combined history. They are Thomas Spencer's scholarly study The St. Louis Veiled Prophet Celebration Power on Parade, 1877-1995, University of Missouri Press, 2000, and Lucy Ferriss's very charming, sometimes hilarious Unveiling the Prophet: The Misadventures of a Reluctant Debutante, University of Missouri Press, 2005. Ferriss, a 1972 VP Ball Maid of Honor, is the daughter of a prominent St. Louis judge, Franklin Ferriss, and the niece of Ann Chittenden Ferriss, was the 1931 Veiled Prophet Queen. Ferriss underlines what Spencer notes in his scholarly study: the Veiled Prophet concept derives from Irish poet Thomas Bard's once very popular but thematically terrifying poem Lalla Rookh, and the organization was the result of elite St. Louis businessmen's decision to 1) cow the disruptive working class and emergent middle-classes through an ostentatious display of wealth and power, beginning in 1877; 2) demonstrate the city's social superiority and class coherence compared with commercial rivals of the time, like Chicago; and 3) cement social and political ties, through the literal bodies of the young debutantes. The VP Ball also helped to underline the social, cultural and political hierarchies of the city. While it has opened the doors to Jewish members, to African Americans (Candice Nance was the first Black VP Maid a few years ago), and to wealthy White ethnic members, for many years, the organization was closed even to very wealthy White St. Louisans if they did not have the correct pedigree. The low point perhaps was in 1972, which is when ACTION, led by Green and others, and the two very brave young women, Jane Sauer and Gene Scott, collaborated to unmask the then-Veiled Prophet, wealthy businessman Tom K. Smith. Can you imagine? Wild stuff. Now both the VP Ball and the newer Fleur de Lis Ball, which is a Catholic deb ball to raise money for Cardinal Glennon hospital but which doesn't elected a Queen, etc., are far less controversial these days, but then just 8 years ago, we settled back into a conservative Republican equipoise with the stolen election, and look what that's brought us: the worst attack on the US in our history; an awful, illegal, unending war; two economic recessions; over a dozen convicted government officials and extensive corruption; warantless spying on US citizens and a creeping surveillance state; inflation; a destroyed US city (New Orleans); and a burgeoning long-term federal deficit and debt. Maybe even the VP and Fleur de Lis debs will be conscious of their potential to change this and so many other problems in the future. Laura X (the 1959 VP Queen, Laura Rand Orthwein) offers one example.
1/19/2008 10:47 PM
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