For more than 150 years Cincinnati has sponsored the May Festival. The roots of this cherished tradition can be found in the German Sangerfests that were held by German immigrants to Cincinnati every several years and continue to this day.
The May Festival idea started as a conversation between two Cincinnatians over dinner in 1872, famed German-American conductor Theodore Thomas and Maria Longworth Nichols Storer, who would later co-found Rookwood pottery in 1880. It was Maria who suggested Cincinnati hold a national festival of the united singers and instrumentalists of the country in the city’s Exposition Building. Thomas liked the practicality of the idea and shortly thereafter a formal meeting of prominent Cincinnati Citizens was held in September of 1872, where it was agreed that $30,000 should be raised before proceeding forward. That amount was reached in only one month, securing the ability to open the first May Festival in 1873.
The innaugural 1873 May Festival was a success. A subsequent Festival was held in 1875 and a third was originally planned for 1877, but moved to 1878, so the new Music Hall could be completed in time for it. The fourth May Festival is one for which Farny drew advertising placards, as reported by The Cincinnati Commercial on May 05, 1880:
Given the description above, coupled with Farny’s symbol on the lower right of the image, it seems likely that this is an example of one of those advertising placards, posted to moversmakers.org website.
The same image was used on the official program, which can be found on the Cincinnati Public Library archives:
The 1880 event was a profitable success. A detailed account of the event, including the financial revenues and expenses, can be found here: https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112056988477&seq=27
Soon after the 1880 May Festival, Theodore Thomas joined Farny and other Musical Club members for a goodbye toast, for Thomas planned to move on from Cincinnati. It was noted during Thomas’ celebration that the May Festival had made Cincinnati the center of music in America. I suspect Boston and New York had other opinions on the matter.*
If Farny did artwork for other May Festivals, I have not run across evidence of it yet, but I also haven’t investigated it too deeply.
* The comment by a reporter appears in the May 31, 1880, issue of the Cincinnati Commercial, page 6, column 2, near the end of the article.
