| Summary: | Postcard advertising the Golden Potlatch Festival, featuring three images on front showing the Seattle waterfront, a forest road and King Street Station. Transcribed from postcard: "A Hot Time in a Cool Place - Come! Seattle's Great Carnival Week of July 17th, 1911 Welcome!" Printed on back of postcard: "51. July 17, 1897, the steamer Portland arrived in Seattle bringing $500,000 in gold dust, the first proof of the rich strikes in the North. Within twenty-four hours the greatest gold rush of modern time was under way." Description of the Golden Potlatch festival: "The success of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition encouraged local boosters to plan another ambitious event to showcase the city. The Seattle Chamber of Commerce, the Advertising Club and the Press Club decided to create a civic celebration loosely modeled on the Northwest coastal Indian tribes' potlatch, a ceremony of friendship and sharing. Seattle held its first Potlatch in 1911, but the Golden Potlatch of 1912 was a far greater festival, meant to attract visitors from far and near.The summer carnival was both a cynical exploitation and a madcap spectacle. The Potlatch shamelessly looted the heritage of Pacific Northwest Indian people. The Golden Potlatch began with the arrival of the 'Hyas Tyee' -- or Big Chief -- in his great war canoe, visiting the city from his home in the far north. The Tillikums of Elttaes (Seattle spelled backward) paraded the streets in white suits, their hats draped in battery-powered lights, gladhanding any visitors who came their way. Bright-eyed members of the Press and Ad clubs, as well as the Chamber, slathered themselves in greasepaint, donned Chilkat blankets and pretended to be 'tyees' and 'shamans.' But the Golden Potlatch volunteers also offered a week of entertainment free to anyone in the city. Every day there was a different parade downtown -- of the fraternal orders, the labor unions, the soldiers and sailors, or Seattle's children. Daredevils flew 'hydroplanes' over Elliott Bay, and warships from the U.S. ...
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