“The Shadow of the Builder: A Pageant by Frances O.J. Gaither, as Presented at the Centennial Celebration of the University of Virginia, in the Amphitheater at Eight-thirty O'clock on the Night of June the First, Nineteen Hundred and Twenty One” is a program and brief summary of the pageant performed at the University of Virginia’s Centennial Celebration. The object, which can be found in the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library under the callnumber F221 v.46 no.18, is a short, printed booklet. It was created as a program solely for the pageant rather than the entire Centennial Celebration, and it does not contain a script. Instead, it credits those involved in the creation and performance of the pageant and briefly summarizes each act. The intended audience of the program is those who were in attendance of the pageant itself. The very brief synopsis of the three acts would help give the audience context for the play itself and be helpful if an audience member was confused after any movement.

While the University of Virginia did not admit women at the time, their perspective was not entirely removed from this program. The production of The Shadow of the Builder involved women in various roles, resulting in their perspective not being entirely lost from the program. The Director of Pageant, Assistant Director, author, and dancers were all women, offering a rare opportunity to view the artistic perspectives of women at a then-all male university (Metcalf 57). However, this does not automatically render the pageant a progressive and inclusive event. The University of Virginia would not integrate until the 1950s (Desegregating UVA), resulting in the perspective of the Black people and other People of Colour being omitted from the pageant. While the pageant focused on the building of the university, particularly the selection of the marble (Gaither 3), it failed to mention the enslaved people that actually built the university. The omission of the years of enslaved labour that was used to build the grand structures that the University of Virginia is known for eliminates a vital perspective of the construction of the school.

It was quite common for pageants to eliminate the perspective of oppressed people to simplify history and create the desired narrative. A pageant performed at Fort Marion Prison, a residential school in St. Augustine, Florida, utilized music to intrigue white audiences with depictions of “exotic” Indigenous cultures (Baron 134). Dances and music of Central Plains Native communities were taken entirely out of context and performed as a way for the white settlers in surrounding areas to view Indigenous culture for their entertainment while the same performances were being censored in their original contexts. This contradiction is present, to a lesser degree, in The Shadow of the Builder. The exclusion of African American voices in a pageant about the construction of the university demonstrates a desire to make history more palatable to the audience while removing the conversation that might have been had about construction materials from the context that it would have occurred in.

This object is a very brief overview of the proceedings of the pageant. It may have been handed out to those in attendance, perhaps to everybody in the audience. This raises the question of how many copies there may have been. The attendees of the pageant would have included current students, alumni, and faculty of the University of Virginia in addition to the greater Charlottesville community and invited guests. Potentially, thousands of people would have possessed one of these programs on the night of June 1, 1921.

One of the aspects of the pageant was the orchestra. On the first page of the program, composer John Powell is credited with composing the overture with an asterisk. At the bottom of the page, it is stated that it was not feasible to perform this overture because a full symphony orchestra could not be assembled. However, a newspaper clipping from the Washington Times on June 9, 1921 titled “Large Orchestra Plays for 10,000 at VA. Centennial”, states that the orchestra “completely filled the stage” of the amphitheater. This is a contradiction that could be explained in a number of ways: the instrumentation of the composition might have not matched the symphony, or there may not have been access to some of the instruments required.

In 1920 (“History of CCT:), the University of Virginia’s Department of Music was founded under the McIntire School of Fine Arts (“McIntire”). The first department chair, Arthur Fickenscher, served as the Musical Director for the pageant. However, he did not conduct the orchestra. Herman Rakeman, a violinist from Washington, D.C., travelled to Charlottesville in order to conduct the music for the pageant (“Taylor Branson”). The idea that the orchestra would travel from a different city seems a little bit strange. Why, if the Department of Music was newly formed, would the University not wish to showcase the talents of their students and faculty? The answer to this question can be found in the newspaper clipping. The article states that “...a large part of the faculty and student body took part...” in the ensemble, suggesting that the description of the orchestra in the program does not give a complete idea of who is playing in the ensemble.

The grandeur of the University of Virginia’s Centennial Celebration as a whole was matched by this event. There were 12,000 people in attendance of the firework show that occurred after Final Exercises on the last night of the celebration, and the attendance of the pageant approached this number ("Large Orchestra”). The musical interludes for the pageant were meant to engage the very large audience and connect the history discussed in the pageant to the University of Virginia that current students and recent alumni would have experienced. The program lists the first interlude as music that blends “strains familiar to University athletes” (Gaither 3). The recognizable music would have allowed those involved with the University of Virginia throughout the years to mutually recognize tunes. This would create a sense of camaraderie throughout the different generations of students in the audience. Similarly, the second interlude featured music that was “familiar to University revellers” (Gaither 4). The Good Old Song, a long-standing University of Virginia song to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, may have been included in either or both of these compositions. Students traditionally put their arms around each other’s shoulders and sway back and forth while singing the song, which enforces a feeling of togetherness even if one is among strangers. The inclusion of this and other University of Virginia tunes would help students and alumni alike to relive the ways in which their experiences at the university were alike.

Works Cited

Baron, Derek. “Opera and Land: Settler Colonialism and the Geopolitics of Music at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.” Journal of the Society for American Music 18, no. 2 (April 4, 2024): 128–54. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1752196324000075.

“Desegregating UVA.” Virginia, October 12, 2009.

Gaither, Frances, and University of Virginia. The Shadow of the Builder: A Pageant by Frances O.J. Gaither, As Presented At the Centennial Celebration of the University of Virginia, In the Amphitheater At Eight-thirty O'clock On the Night of June the First, Nineteen Hundred and Twenty One. Surber-Arundale, 1921.

“History of CCT at UVA.” Department of Music. Accessed February 2025. https://music.virginia.edu/history-cct-uva#:~:text=The%20University%20of%20Virginia%20(UVA,musical%20expression%20called%20the%20Polytone.

“History of Paul Goodloe McIntire.” History of Paul Goodloe McIntire | Department of Art. Accessed February 2025. https://art.as.virginia.edu/history-paul-goodloe-mcintire.

“Large Orchestra Plays for 10,000 At VA. Centennial.” The Washington Times, June 9, 1921.

“Taylor Branson.” United States Marine Band. Accessed February 2025. https://www.marineband.marines.mil/About/Our-History/History-of-the-Directors/Taylor-Branson/.

University of Virginia, and John Calvin Metcalf. The Centennial of the University of Virginia, 1819-1921: The Proceedings of the Centenary Celebration, May 31 to June 3, 1921. G.P. Putnam's Sons, The Knickerbocker Press, 1922.