Comment on Landmarks: Cook County school festival images resurface a century later, thanks to Wisconsin archive

The end of the school year was momentous, as all of them are. The months of hard work and drudgery were highlighted by moments of mirth, friendships formed and the shared goal of looming summer freedom. Graduations are great, but even those students and teachers who will be back for another go-around as autumn approaches deserve to celebrate their accomplishments, even if their feat was just surviving another school year. The cusp of June became festival season, and in many areas the tradition is carried on by municipalities that hire traveling carnival ride outfits, hire local bands and celebrate summertime by building community. Decades before the first Tilt-a-Whirl car circled its portable steel platform, the educators of Cook County took it upon themselves to celebrate the end of school with a festival. And based on surviving photographic evidence from one of those festivals, most of the kids hated it. A closeup of children’s faces indicates their reaction to events during a June 1916, Cook County School Festival in Thornton, from this image provided by the Wisconsin Historical Society.