TWENTIETH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART II 149 



would take one thing at a time and develop that. The first year was 

 spent in developing pageantry. We believed that everybody would be 

 interested in it — the little story in song and dance — and we did that not 

 only for them to see, but because we wanted to get over to them that 

 pageantry was a good thing, that it would work for civic value and civic 

 spirit. And so we put on these small pageants, during the first year, 

 and we had someone explain to them afterwards how they could put on 

 these things in their own home town. Gradually we developed it, and 

 the next year we expanded the idea. By the way, we have pageantry 

 as part of our club work, because we believe that it has an educational 

 value. Mr. Corey had the idea that a style show would be a very at- 

 tractive thing in the building, and he presented it to the committee. I 

 didn't say much when he spoke to me about it, because I thought I would 

 want to think it out very carefully first. While a style show might be 

 made a very instructive and attractive feature, we took the matter under 

 advisement. We immediately got in touch with the department at Ames, 

 because we wanted to make it really worth while, and after giving con- 

 siderable time to it we were able to really work out something that was 

 effective and was satisfactory, and from our success at the last fair I 

 think we were justified in that. So we put on this- style show, which was 

 really a very valuable feature of our work. We used the term "style 

 show" because that would rather catch the public eye, and we put on 

 daily demonstrations in better standards of dress. We had living models; 

 we had garments well cut, well made, that were suitable to the purpose; 

 we showed garments suitable for the children, for high school girls, col- 

 lege girls, and women in every walk of life. Women are always inter- 

 ested in those things, especially when they know that it is something 

 that is standard and can be relied upon. We developed that feature even 

 more this year, and we put on two style shows each day, one in the 

 morning and one in the afternoon. The one in the morning was es- 

 pecially to help the home dressmaker, and they were shown models and 

 shown how to make those garments. They were shown how to use com- 

 mercial patterns and how to cut. The afternoon program was designed 

 to help the shopper, to teach her something of the values, and of course 

 for this we had fine co-operation from Ames College. We also had a 

 valuable thing from the standpoint of the success of the undertaking. 

 We had the co-operation of some of the big stores in Des Moines — they 

 let us have practically everything that we wanted in the way of garments. 

 We had a number from Harris-Emery's, from Younker's, and from the 

 Blouse Shop, and others of that kind. They gave us materials and hats 

 and pictures, and for that we gave them credit, in the way of personal 

 mention. That made for a certain amount of good feeling between the 

 community and the fair, because it gave a certain amount of advertising 

 to the stores, and they knew that while we were putting on a style show 

 it was something that wasn't in opposition to their business. 



Another thing that the women's clubs are doing is co-operating with 

 whatever the government is putting on at large. During this last year 

 the thrift movement was one of the things that we were asked to get 

 back of, and to further that work we put on a little comedy that was 

 written especially for this use by a young dramatist in the high schools 



