Welcoming SpringArtifacts from the Oregon State archives reveal a forgotten tradition.

It’s like something out of a dream: four women dressed in ethereal white twirl before a misting waterfall. Each holds a corner of a sheet, as they move together and apart, so that the white cloth billows, cloudlike. Then the camera cuts to a wide shot, revealing the source of 50-foot arcs of water cascading around the dancers — hoses wielded by local firefighters — as well as the familiar sight of Community Hall.

The Oregon Agricultural College Extension Service caught this surreal scene on film in 1929. But what the heck was actually going on?

Preserved by OSU Libraries’ Special Collections and Archives as 16 mm film in an old metal canister, this clip was part of a silent newsreel that played in local movie theaters before a feature film. (The complete reel includes everything from the dedication of the Memorial Union to a bizarre stop-motion comedy sequence of toy bears playing billiards. Watch here.)

Labeled “May Day Pageant,” our mystery dance seems to be an example of a forgotten Oregon State spring tradition. The Barometer details outdoor celebrations on campus as far back as 1908, complete with elaborate processions, a May Queen seated on a throne, and dances around a beribboned maypole. The 1914 student handbook — carried and memorized by all first-year students back then — listed this Spring Pageant as a treasured “custom of old OAC.”  Even the broader Corvallis community got involved — a Barometer article from May 4, 1911, describes a parade “headed by daintily dressed tots from the public school.”

Photos from the early 1900s of the once popular Spring Pageant. Photos courtesy of OSU Special Collections & Archives

Plenty of photographic evidence exists in the archives, too, much of it as striking as the dance caught on video. In one photo, women in Grecian dresses link arms as they follow a chariot driven by a crowned man (a May King, perhaps?) and pulled by two white horses. In another, more than 30 young people stand under a huge tree, straight-faced in bonnets and flower crowns. A woman in a tiara stands at center, draped in a robe and adorned with jewelry.

The tradition of crowning May royalty seems to have faded as the context of the pageants shifted. Starting around the time our dancers were filmed, the pageants began to be performed during Women’s Weekend — perhaps as a showcase for women’s physical education.

“In the 1920s, women were involved [in athletics] in ways that kind of fade out in the ’30s and ’40s, and there’s a real question as to ‘What did [the pageants] mean for women’s athletics?’” said Karl McCreary, OSU staff archivist. “Was there a tie to the dancing? Was dancing an art form, was it considered part of physical education? Is this a counterpart to men’s ROTC drills and formations? You are kind of left wondering.”

But “first and foremost, [this tradition] is just about the celebration of spring and sunny weather,” said Larry Landis, former director of OSU’s Special Collections and Archives Research Center. And when the long gray winter is over and the spring flowers come, don’t we all feel like dancing?