In 1958, the juniors and seniors of St. Jacob High School (I'm guessing in Troy, IL) had a fun mermaid themed banquet and prom, and here's the nicely designed invite, event / menu program to prove it. Highlighted by cute, undersea art (and one rather Lovecraftian RSVP fish babe!), a super swell night was clearly planned out for all, full of deep sea themed songs and oceanic oriented grub. I even found a beautiful example of one of the honeycombed mermaid table centerpieces. If you were there that night and took any pictures (paging Bonnie Lou!), please forward them to me at karswell @ hotmail.com and I'll add them to this post-- thank you!
5 comments:
Strikes me that centrepiece is quite saucy for 1958. Proms have only entered UK schools' social calendar in recent years, and I'm pretty sure themed dances never crossed the Atlantic.
Yeah I have to agree that's pretty risqué but interesting. Lots of different art from what looks like different artists -- I like how much stretching they had to do to stick to the nautical theme!
The first picture featuring the hard hat diver and mermaid made me think of the TV show Diver Dan.
The image on page four, Miss Innsmouth 1958, looks like the type of femme fatale fish one would see in a Max Fleisher cartoon (though the face would have been drawn more human.)
One of the most amazing things about the centerpiece and booklet- they are in near perfect condition.
This is just one more bit of ephemera that would be glanced over and forgotten if not for AEET, thanks as always Karswell.
Golly, yeah, that R.S.V.P. character is excellent. Beautifully designed and dynamically illustrated. Looks like it was done by an animator. I like the other art too, of course. The cover is delightful, but may be a little busy--and includes so many pearls for just one giant clam! I might have stuck to just the mermaid.
My senior prom had no theme. I mean, it sort of had a catchphrase, I guess, and I am totally sure the organizers called that a theme. I don't remember it, and why would I? It was something ridiculous like "A Dance to Remember" or "Have a Great Night". "This is Out Time to Shine" or something, ugh. Really just some slogan they printed on the invites and tickets; the concept did not run to the menu or the decorations or the songs. And what menu? By 1989, proms in my neck of the woods only provided some kind of drinks. Now that I think about it, daring high school juniors and seniors to greater feats of exorbitant preliminary dining, instead of just providing the damn food, seems like a terrible and predatory evolution of this coming-of-age tradition.
It’s possible the diver has merely stumbled upon the mermaid's private pearl stash —keeping them all hidden inside a giant clam makes perfect sense to me!
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