The attached photo shows two women and a man at a Juneteenth celebration in Corpus Christi, Texas, in 1913. For the occasion, they are not only wearing their finest clothes but also sitting in an elegantly decorated horse-drawn carriage. This picture of a flower-festooned vehicle was among several taken by George McCuistion (1878-1928) at that year’s festivities for Juneteenth in one of the Lone Star State’s largest cities.
The origins of this holiday can be traced back to June 19, 1865. That is when, nearly two-and-a-half years after President Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) issued the Emancipation Proclamation, enslaved Americans in Galveston, Texas, at long last received official notification that they were free from bondage. This historic day is now called Juneteenth, a portmanteau of “June” and “nineteenth,” but it has also been known over the decades as Emancipation Day – the name cited in the bottom left-hand corner of the aforementioned photo – or Freedom Day.
The Emancipation Proclamation applied only to those states (including Texas) that had joined the Confederacy; the enslaved individuals in states that remained loyal to the Union were not freed until the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution on December 6, 1865. Nonetheless, and long before it was designated a federal holiday in 2021, Juneteenth ultimately took on nationwide significance as a commemoration of the overall demise of slavery in the United States.
By the 1910s, the prominence of elaborately bedecked means of transportation at large-scale Juneteenth celebrations was well-established. This was highlighted by the Associated Press (AP) on June 19, 1911, in its article about the wide-ranging holiday activities in San Antonio. “The celebration opened with a street parade this morning, which was lined with decorated carriages and automobiles,” reported AP. This article also confirmed that approximately 2,000 people took part in that vehicular procession.
Photo Credit: No Known Restrictions (https://pdimagearchive.org/images/a0fcbca4-8dd0-4031-9aa6-24a810e33db5/)
For more information on the history of Juneteenth, please check out https://www.archives.gov/news/articles/juneteenth-original-document and https://encyclopediavirginia.org/entries/juneteenth/
Additional photos taken by George McCuistion during the 1913 Juneteenth festivities in Corpus Christi can be viewed at https://pdimagearchive.org/galleries/artists/george-mccuistion/random/desc
Transportation History 
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