Amy Sternberg’s Historical Pageant The Performance of IODE Ideology during Canada’s Diamond Jubilee

Abstract

In 1927, sixty-five chapters of the Imperial Order Daughters of the Empire (IODE) staged Amy Sternberg’s Historical Pageant in Toronto to celebrate Canada’s Diamond Jubilee. Accessing primary source documentation, this article argues that Sternberg’s production constructed and conveyed IODE ideology by placing female agency in the service of liberal imperialism. Specifically, the female allegorical and historical characters in the pageant provide an index of values that emphasized the role of women in creating a strong Canada closely aligned with a venerated British Empire. Beyond the script and the stage, the program for the production and press clippings suggest that the IODE used Historical Pageant to promote itself as a modern organization in which female leadership fostered civically engaged action while simultaneously and subtly re-inscribing the traditional hierarchical social structure of the British Empire within Canada. In these ways, Historical Pageant reminds historians of the necessity to consider how theatre has been used by Canadian women to assert their political views publicly even when those views espouse ideology that is no longer acceptable.