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Helena's Social Supremacy

Helena's Social Supremacy (1894), also known as Helena's Social Supremacy – Montana's Center of Fashion, Refinement, Gentility, Etiquet, Kettle Drums, High Fives, Progressive Euchre, and Mixed Drinks,[1] is a satirical pamphlet created during the Montana capital referendum by Charles H. Eggleston, the editor of the Anaconda Standard.

Background

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The pamphlet was published during the Montana capital referendum, conducted in two parts in 1892 and 1894.[2] In 1892, several cities entered to become the state capital, but none of them won a majority; a second round was held in 1894 between Helena and Anaconda.[3] Both Helena and Anaconda were problematic cities for voters.[4] Where Helena, as the temporary capital, had been embroiled in political dysfunction—early Montana legislatures were chaotic, with deadlock only addressed through precarious political compromises—Anaconda was perceived as a working-class, industrial city under the control of Marcus Daly and his corporations.[5]

Publication and contents

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The back cover of Helena's Social Supremacy, showing Helena as an octopus grasping the other cities

The pamphlet was created by Charles H. Eggleston, the editor of the Anaconda Standard,[6] though it lists no author.[7] It masqueraded as a supplement to An Address to the People of Montana, a pro-Helena pamphlet that degraded the city of Anaconda for its working-class, little-educated, and industrial population.[8] Although the pamphlet lists Helena as its original print location, and a contemporaneous newspaper account said the pamphlet was printed "by some every-day citizen of Helena" who was "disgusted" with An Address to the People of Montana,[9] Helena's Social Supremacy was likelier printed elsewhere.[10] It contains 48 pages, some with illustrations, and has a page size of 16.5 × 11.2 cm.[10] Upon its completion, the Great Falls Weekly Tribune reported that the committee in charge of the Address sent an attaché of "paid spies" to uncover the author's identity.[9]

The pamphlet played into the view of Helena as a pretentious and elite city.[11] In one segment, it reported that Helena had hundreds of women—774—who owned poodle dogs, while Anaconda had precisely zero.[11] Where the Address had painted Marcus Daly—the corporate leader of Anaconda—as rapacious, the satire instead developed a rags to riches story of an egalitarian gentleman; the satire said the apparent ineffectiveness of the Address in demonstrating his greed was because of Helena's "proverbial tenderness of heart and nobility of soul".[1] It satirized the Helenan view of other towns by portraying them as relatively advanced and progressive: Boulder boys and girls finely danced, the residents of Phillipsburg brushed their teeth, and Anacondans did not consider it "good fun to interrupt funeral services with a charivari" (mock parade).[12]

Although thousands of copies of the pamphlet were probably produced in the lead-up to the referendum, an estimate in 1940 placed the number surviving at around six.[1] Around that time, one copy was repatriated to Montana—and then to the state treasurer's archives—after being held on the East Coast for several decades.[1]

References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b c d Elno 1940, p. 4.
  2. ^ Newby 1987, p. 68.
  3. ^ Lang 1987, p. 39.
  4. ^ Lang 1987, p. 43.
  5. ^ Lang 1987, pp. 43–44.
  6. ^ Mercier 2001, p. 12.
  7. ^ Lambert 2002, p. 63.
  8. ^ Newby 1987, pp. 68–69.
  9. ^ a b Great Falls Weekly Tribune 1894, p. 4.
  10. ^ a b Storm 1968, p. 274.
  11. ^ a b Lang 1987, p. 44.
  12. ^ Chicago Inter Ocean 1894, p. 16.

Bibliography

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  • Elno (18 January 1940). "Montana's funnybone was bumped hard by Anaconda's reply to Helena's reasons why she should be capital". The Augusta News. p. 4.
  • Lang, William L. (1987). "Spoils of statehood: Montana communities in conflict, 1888-1894". Montana: The Magazine of Western History. 37 (4): 34–45. ISSN 0026-9891.
  • Lambert, Kirby (Summer 2002). "Montana's crown jewel of architecture: The Montana state capitol". Montana: The Magazine of Western History. 52 (2): 62–65.
  • Mercier, Laurie (2001). Anaconda: Labor, community, and culture in Montana's smelter city. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252069888.
  • Newby, Rick (1987). "Helena's Social Supremacy: Political sarcasm and the capital fight". Montana: The Magazine of Western History. 37 (4): 68–72. ISSN 0026-9891.
  • Storm, Colton (1968). A catalogue of the Everett D. Graff Collection of Western America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • "Social supremacy" (PDF). Great Falls Weekly Tribune. 28 September 1894. p. 4. Retrieved 28 May 2022.
  • "How Helena won it". Montana staff correspondence. Chicago Inter Ocean. 9 December 1894. p. 16.
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