File:Float with George Vancouver's ship the HMS Discovery in Golden Potlatch parade, Seattle, July 19, 1911 (MOHAI 5586).jpg

English:

The Tilikums of Elttaes were a fraternal, civic organization composed primarily of influential white Seattle area businessmen, who used Native American imagery to promote tourism and the economic development of the city. In July 1911 the Tilikums ("Friends" in Chinook Jargon; Elttaes is Seattle spelled backward) organized the first Golden Potlatch celebration. The Golden Potlatch was a city-wide festival held in July organized by civic boosters hoping to capitalize on the success of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909. The event continued for each of the next three summers before being suspended during wartime, and then was started up again as the Potlatch Festival from 1934 to 1941.

The name “Golden Potlatch” appropriates a Chinook Jargon word describing a Native ceremony of celebration and gift giving. It also reflects the importance of the Klondike gold rush to Seattle’s growth. Many organizers and participants in the Golden Potlatch dressed in stereotyped imitations of traditional Native attire, as part of a created Potlatch myth. The appropriation of Native culture in order to market products or events was one common example of discrimination and marginalization faced by Native peoples in the United States.

In 1911, the festival's historical pageant and parade took place on Wednesday, July 17. Proceeding in chronological order, the parade opened with a float depicting British Admiral George Vancouver on his ship Discovery, which sailed into the Strait of Juan de Fuca in 1792 as the first Euorpean expedition to explore Puget Sound. The parade continued with twenty floats depicting the leading events of Northwest history, concluding with a float entitled "Seattle 1920."

The photographer identification is based on the resemblance of the numbering system and handwriting to attributed photos in the collection. Caption information source: HistoryLink.org and The Seattle Daily Times, July 20, 1911.

• Subjects (LCTGM): Buildings--Washington (State)--Seattle; Floats (Parades)--Washington (State)--Seattle; Golden Potlatch Festival (1911: Seattle, Wash." Historical pageants--Washington (State)--Seattle; Parades & processions--Washington (State)--Seattle; Spectators--Washington (State)--Seattle; Streets--Washington (State)--Seattle
• People: Vancouver, George, 1757-1798

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This is in the Pioneer Square area, looking south from roughly the corner of First and Columbia. Postal Telegraph Building at right, including the Washington Theatre. Gottstein Building and Sullivan Building at left. (None of those three survive.) Pioneer Square proper is dead ahead.