The Centennial of the University of Virginia, 1819-1921 records the events of the University’s first Centennial celebration. While it is a play-by-play account of the events (supposedly) as they happened, it provides insight into the University’s priorities as a college and how music was used to achieve them. Most notably, it looks to the past. The Centennial was largely a celebration of UVA’s traditions and history. With speeches from alumni from various groups at the University and even former president Woodrow Wilson, the entire event was unequivocally obsessed with the University’s past. Nowhere is this more blatant than in the pageant, which occurred on the second day of the celebration. Titled “The Shadow of the Builder,” the pageant was a celebration and artistic interpretation of Jefferson’s creation of UVA. It covers his vision for the University, “the body and the soul of it.” While this makes sense for a celebration of the University’s 100th anniversary, it is also emblematic of UVA’s seemingly unending struggle to grapple with its problematic history.

The Centennial notably took place decades before the University admitted either women or people of color. Thus, the audience was entirely made up of those who were not directly affected by the University’s problematic past. In fact, students from the Mississippi State College for Women had to travel to UVA in order to play women in the pageant, since UVA had no female students to fulfill those roles. Yet, it is starkly unbothered by this. Not only does the pageant seek to paint Jefferson in an almost god-like image, it is non-confrontational about all of his opinions on the education of marginalized groups and the use of slaves in the construction of the University. In fact, the account of the pageant in The Centennial of the University of Virginia, 1819-1921 presents the pageant’s lack of historical accountability as a source of pride. “As the alumni and friends of the University of Virginia watch the unfolding of this pageant-drama they will not find its artistic harmony marred by any intrusion of historical scenes,” it says. At this point in UVA’s history, it had made relatively little progress in the realm of progressive education. Instead of looking forward, the University seemed determined to glorify its past, while taking little to no accountability for it.

Another symptom of the University’s obsession comes in the form of the music of the pageant. Each of the two interludes are composed of traditional sports and religious songs respectively. An odd choice, considering Jefferson’s commitment to UVA being secular. However, the clergy make up a surprisingly large portion of the Centennial, more than any other group. Clerical alumni gave multiple addresses over the four days, and with an interlude dedicated to traditional Christian songs, it would seem that the University was presenting a clear preference toward the religion. While Jefferson constructed the Rotunda instead of a church on purpose, the hundred years of history leading up to the Centennial had defined the University as Christian-dominated, which was not unusual for the time. The interludes worked to appeal to the clerical alumni at attendance. It holds traditional ideas that, in theory, UVA should have been moving past since its founding.

The choice of medium is significant. Pageants in the early 1900s were one of many vehicles by which women’s suffrage found support. Suffrage parades often included pageantry, and pageants created easier opportunities for women to practice and use gymnastics, a form of exercise and performance that up until then they were often excluded from (Dolton). However, the majority of pageants rather sought to glorify colonial history. UVA, in line with this, used its pageant to worship its founder who denied the educational rights of women. What should have been a modernist approach to art could not have been more traditional. It evokes the nationalist and colonial music of places like Russia from a similar time, in which European countries would take traditional forms of music and “improve” them, yet in the process lose much of what made that music compelling (Auner). The extent to which the account pats itself on the back for it makes it seem even more oblivious. “About the struggle to get nothing but the best builded into the material structure of the University there is woven a simple but compelling drama” (The Centennial). It treats its history like a story, a beautiful account of an unwavering vision and commitment to nothing but the best, ignoring the real effects Thomas Jefferson had on real people throughout history, and the damaging precedents he set for his university that would permeate for over a century to come, and in many ways still do.

The pageant and Centennial are just one example of this problem manifesting, but UVA continues to struggle with its history. The University sometimes seems to be moving at a snail’s pace in terms of letting the past go. With controversies around UVA Guides, Shannon Library, and the abundance of statues dedicated to controversial historical figures around grounds, it feels like every inch of progress must be fought for. UVA still regularly refers to itself as “Jefferson’s University,” talks about Jefferson’s ideals as the hallmark of the college, and treats him as a positive historical figure. While there is a line to be walked between moving on from the past and addressing past failings, UVA continuously throws itself into an entirely different realm of worshiping its own history. While in recent years it has started to address problems such as the use of slaves, the extremely late admission of women, and its period of obsession with eugenics, there still feels like there is a disconnect. Rarely does it directly criticize Jefferson in any meaningful way.

While UVA has materially moved past many of its failings and is a much better place now than it was in the 1920s, its own obsession with itself seems to remain through the centuries. In the way the University presents itself today there are echoes of the 1921 Centennial celebration, and in that were not just echoes but direct emulation of the University’s founding.

Sources:

- The Centennial of University of Virginia, 1819 - 1921

- Lecture slides 01/23/3035

- Woman Suffrage Pageants

- When Pageants Were THE Thing: A Brief Look at Historical Pageantry & Tableaux in Upstate NY

- Music in the Twentieth and Twenty-first Centuries, Joseph Henry Auner