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Carnival Exhibit Home

To the right are three Carnival invitations and two dance cards. They are all for the Carnival ball of the Mistick Krewe of Comus and range from 1881 to 1903.

Comus, a winged youth, was the son of Bacchus and Circe. With such parentage, it is no surprise he personified revelry and mirth.

According to Carnival historian Artur Burton La Cour (New Orleans Masquerade: Chronicles of Carnival, Pelican Press, 1952), by 1857 Carnival in New Orleans had become too rambunctious, and, in some eyes, even crude. Six young men organized a secret society to promote a more proper celebration. Naming their organization "The Mistick Krewe of Comus," they began the tradition of secret organizations sponsoring elaborate, elite, by-invitation-only Carnival activities that exists to this day.  

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