Victorian Stroll

The Victorian Stroll is a yearly street festival held in the downtown district of Troy, NY. At this festival members of the city council and the community at large dress up in Victorian era costumes and walk about the town. This festival along with the donning of the costumes by city council members is meant to recall a by gone era of Trojan history.... unfortunately, it seems as though some people from Troy's history did not make the cut. The vast majority of the population of Troy during Victorian times was comprised of workers. Troy the site of several iron and textile mills. It is also the site of some of the most important labor struggles and labor victories, including the location of the first women's union. So with all this incredible radical history why is it that the only representations we see during the Victorian Stroll are those of the wealthy, Uncle Sam, and Santa Clause?

In response to this absence of representation a local group of artists executed an intervention in which they and a group of about 40 people dressed up as Victorian era workers. As part of the intervention the group formed a union called the "United Victorian Workers" and combed the streets of Troy handing out buttons and urging festival goers to join the union. The artists also produced a broadsheet titled, "The Troy Worker", and handed out hundreds of copies to passersby. The broadsheet included historical documents and articles telling of the exploitation of workers during Victorian times along with ways they came together and organized to overcome this oppression.

The intervention concluded with a march through town in which the United Victorian Workers chanted slogans and sang labor songs. The march stopped for some time at the center of the festival where some union members gave dramatic speeches representing real historical figures of Troy's Labor history.