<
https://theconversation.com/poetry-parties-and-strong-australian-tea-the-surprising-story-of-how-anzac-day-has-been-marked-in-the-us-for-over-100-years-227908>
"Since 1916, April 25 has been a de facto national day for Australia,
commemorated as the occasion Australian and New Zealand troops began the
ill-fated Gallipoli campaign in 1915. But for more than a century, Anzac Day
has also been marked by Australians in the United States, via rituals ranging
from songs and bingo to dinners and football games.
In 1922, 100 Australians congregated for an Anzac Day dinner at New York’s
Hotel Pennsylvania, then the largest hotel in the world. Although this dinner
was held only four years into the peace and with war memories still fresh, it
was far from a sombre affair.
The event was an exuberant gathering, continuing well after midnight. Guests
recited poetry and performed songs, with a telegram from Prime Minister Billy
Hughes read to the assembled crowd. “On this day, sacred to or nation,
Australians, wherever they may be, are bound together by the crimson tie of
kinship,” Hughes wrote.
Later in the 1920s, there were Anzac Day events in Honolulu, Los Angeles,
Chicago and Boston. These were upbeat social gatherings, quite different to the
funereal Anzac rituals that emerged later in the century. At the time,
Australians were still British subjects (not Australian citizens) and travelled
on British passports. At this early stage, Anzac Day was about empire as much
as nation.
These interwar dinners and dances were sporadic, ad hoc gatherings, not
official commemorations. Before 1940, there was no Australian embassy or
consulate in the US to organise state events, and the Australian community was
small and highly assimilated into the local population. It would take another
world war for April 25 to become an annual fixture in the US."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
