Tournament of Roses
The Tournament of Roses, held annually in Pasadena, California, is renowned as one of the world's most spectacular parades, attracting approximately a million attendees and millions more viewers on television. Originating in 1890, the event was inspired by Charles Frederick Holder, who envisioned a flower-decorated celebration to mark the New Year. Initially a simple procession of decorated carriages followed by athletic events, the tournament evolved to include elaborate floral floats themed around cultural and historical topics, often featuring celebrities and marching bands. Over the years, it has included various competitions, notably a football game that has now become a central aspect of the festivities. Despite shifts in public interest, particularly with the rise of televised college football, the Tournament of Roses maintains its status as a cherished Southern California tradition, celebrated for its vibrant displays and community spirit every January 1st.
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Tournament of Roses
The Pasadena, California, Tournament of Roses has been called the world's greatest parade. Since the late 1960s, roughly a million people or so have attended the event in person each and every year, and many more tens of millions have watched the event live on television. The tournament is perhaps most famous for its dozens of floats, of the most intricate design, which are completely covered with flowers, not to mention celebrities and what a more politically incorrect generation would call “beauty queens.” The floats are interspersed with marching bands invited to participate in the event.
Traditionally, the elaborate floats have been keyed to some sort of central theme established by the parade's organizers. In keeping with the bicentennial of the American Revolution, for example, the themes in 1976 and 1975 were America, Let's Celebrate! and Heritage of America, respectively. In 1975 the individual floats represented everything from symbols of liberty as the flag, the Declaration of Independence, and the Liberty Bell to noted historic figures such as Washington, Lincoln, and the Pilgrims, not to mention historically significant events and places such as the first Thanksgiving, the Lewis and Clark expedition, the California gold rush, and the Oregon Trail.
Today's event is a far cry from the first Tournament of Roses, held in Pasadena by the Valley Hunt Club on January 1, 1890, at the suggestion of Charles Frederick Holder, a naturalist and author of many books on natural history. Holder was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1851. He served for five years as associate curator of zoology at the American Museum of Natural History in New York and in 1885 went to Pasadena to become a teacher of zoology. Among other things he was a traveler and lecturer. In 1886, Holder's travels included southern France, where he saw the renowned Battle of Flowers, one of the French Riviera's extravagant celebrations, and well calculated to remind a newcomer that the southern California climate also produced flowers in midwinter. After his return to Pasadena, he suggested to the members of the Valley Hunt Club that on January 1 they decorate their carriages with flowers and drive them over a prearranged route, and that this parade be followed by athletic events. In a letter, Holder wrote that the first parade “consisted of a long line of carriages beautifully decorated with natural flowers, and…I am told, [it] was the finest thing of the kind ever seen…in this country or in Europe.”
The Valley Hunt Club had charge of the tournament for several years and bore the cost of it, but when it became so elaborate that the cost was burdensome to the members, the Tournament of Roses Association was formed to take charge of the celebration. Holder's original intention was to arrange an artistic celebration of the ripening of the oranges at about the beginning of the year, and New Year's Day was chosen as a date when people were free to celebrate.
The tournament passed through several stages in the course of its development. At first it was merely a parade of decorated private carriages, followed by athletic events. Then floral floats were entered for a parade in the morning, with a chariot race or football game in the afternoon, and a ball in the evening. Prizes for floats and for chariot race winners were presented at the ball, over which a queen of the tournament presided. On January 1, 1902, the afternoon program consisted of a football game between the University of Michigan and Stanford University. Interest in the chariot races gradually died out, and they were abandoned by 1916 in favor of the afternoon football game. With the increase in population of the city, the annual parade grew larger from year to year. In 1920 it was two and a half miles long, and it was estimated that more than 1.5 million blossoms were used to decorate the floats. By 1935, the floats had come to stretch for more than four miles, and although no one any longer tried to estimate how many millions of blossoms were used, the Russian Firebird (the float of the Tournament of Roses Association, on which the queen of the tournament rode) was said to contain 250,000 blossoms. With the increase in popularity of televised sports after World War II, however, the college football Rose Bowl began to eclipse the tournament in popularity. Today, the Rose Bowl and the other college bowl games dominate the public's attention, but the Tournament still has a loyal following (particularly in southern California) and is still carried live by most television stations on New Year's Day.
"Pasadena Tournament of Roses." Tournament of Roses, 2024, tournamentofroses.com/. Accessed 1 May 2024.
"Tournament of Roses--Rose Parade." Old Pasadena, 2024, www.oldpasadena.org/visit/events/signature-events/rose-parade/. Accessed 1 May 2024.