History
The oldest known Ancient and Horribles Parade in New England occurred on July 4, 1851 in Lowell, Massachusetts and was named as a parody of the more somber Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts, the oldest military organization in the United States. New Englanders in several cities started parading in concert with other New England towns in the middle of the 1800s in "Ancient and Horrible" or "Antique and Horribles" parades. The dress was meant to satirize politicians and other public figures. This had largely died out by 1900 in Vermont. Gloucester, Massachusetts continues to have a "Horribles Parade" into the 21st century but without the satirical political dimension the costumes once held.
Glocester Rhode Island's "Ancient and Horribles Parade" was founded in 1927 when Calvin Coolidge was U.S. President. Coolidge was a member of the original Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company in Boston. According to the 2008 chair of the parade, Connie Leathers, "...Rhode Islanders being Rhode Islanders made fun of them." The Parade features both traditional Fourth of July floats and marchers, such as veterans and fire trucks, as well as often irreverent, satirical displays commenting on political and cultural issues.
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“If you look at history you’ll find that no state has been so plagued by its rulers as when power has fallen into the hands of some dabbler in philosophy or literary addict.”
—Desiderius Erasmus (c. 1466–1536)
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“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)