Here's a short form the American Mutoscope & Biograph Company showing what the Mardi Gras looked like in 1898: like a parade with a bunch of fantastic and imaginative floats. Nowadays, the crews who do these things down in the Crescent City are in a serious struggle to produce the most fantastic costumes. Back then, however, it looked like the Rose Bowl Parade, if they used bells instead of roses, the horses were members of the Ku Klux Klan, and the images on the floats were supposed to represent something. Although the linkage between the products they were supposed to be promoting and the way the people and sets on the floats are decorated is beyond me.
Still, it's interesting to see this step in the evolution of the Mardi Gras, and that is presumably why it's on the National Registry.
Still, it's interesting to see this step in the evolution of the Mardi Gras, and that is presumably why it's on the National Registry.