Poster - Semaphore Carnival

Poster advertising the ‘Semaphore Carnival’, about 1920, a key event on the local social and sporting calendar in the seaside suburb of Semaphore, South Australia. The Two Great Days’ of festivities included processions, races, sand modelling, tug-of-war, navy band, miniature house building, snake displays, boxing bouts, rifle shoots, and Helter Skelter. Funds raised from the Semaphore Carnival were used to erect a local war memorial to the fallen in the First World War. In 1915, over one thousand men left South Australia’s Outer Harbor with the 10th Battalion of the Australian Imperial Force. Only thirty of these men returned home. The poster reflects local seaside entertainments during the period in South Australia, and how many sporting activities and entertainments were used to raise funds for repatriation, rehabilitation and memorials in the wake of the this devastating war. It is a poignant reminder of the effect of war on local communities and the desire for memorials as places of public remembrance and mourning.