Treat family in car decorated for Golden Potlatch parade, Seattle, 1912 (MOHAI 9067)

The Tilikums of Elttaes were a fraternal, civic organization composed primarily of influential white Seattle area businessmen, who used Native American imagery to promote tourism and the economic development of the city. In July 1911 the Tilikums ("Friends" in Chinook Jargon; Elttaes is Seattle spelled backward) organized the first Golden Potlatch celebration. The Golden Potlatch was a city-wide festival held in July organized by civic boosters hoping to capitalize on the success of the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition of 1909. The event continued for each of the next three summers before being suspended during wartime, and then was started up again as the Potlatch Festival from 1934 to 1941.

The name “Golden Potlatch” appropriates a Chinook Jargon word describing a Native ceremony of celebration and gift giving. It also reflects the importance of the Klondike gold rush to Seattle’s growth. Many organizers and participants in the Golden Potlatch dressed in stereotyped imitations of traditional Native attire, as part of a created Potlatch myth. The appropriation of Native culture in order to market products or events was one common example of discrimination and marginalization faced by Native peoples in the United States.

In this image, members of the Treat family pose in a car festooned with flowers and greenery. Harry Whitney Treat and Olive Marion (Graef) Treat, along with their daughters Priscilla Grace (Treat) Van Sickler and Loyal Graef (Treat) Nichols, were colorful high society figures in Seattle; their Queen Anne mansion and Loyal Heights farm were filled with vintage English coaches, period costumes, hunting dogs, and purebred English Hackney horses. Harry Treat was a real estate developer who established an electric trolley to promote the suburbs of Ballard, Loyal Heights, and Golden Gardens.

Handwritten on negative: Auto Parade, Golden Potlatch, 1912

Handwritten on verso: An early "Potlatch" Parade in Seattle (Indian harvest time word) which K[unreadable] Treat instigated. In back seat: Phoebe Nell Tidmarsh and Priscilla Treat; Front seat: Fred - our Japanese driver - Loyal and Priscilla (Gould) Treat; (note by Loyal Treat Nichols c. 1950)

Subjects (LCTGM): Convertible automobiles--Washington (State)--Seattle; Families--Washington (State)--Seattle; Parades & processions--Washington (State)--Seattle

People: Treat, Harry Whitney, 1865-1922; Treat, Olive Marion (Graef), 1869-1945; Van Sickler, Priscilla Grace (Treat), 1902-1979; Nichols, Loyal Graef (Treat), 1906-2004