The Rainier District Pow Wow began in the midst of the Great Depression as a day-long community picnic at Seward Park. Between 1934 and 1992, when it ended, pow wow events paralleled what was going on in the rest of the country, celebrating neighborhood commerce in the 1930s, patriotism during World War II, the Baby Boom of the late 1940s to mid-1950s, and so on. Eventually, the pow wow became part of Seattle’s Seafair.

Here, during the 1954 Pow Wow Baby Beauty Contest, Jerry Oakland, right, in pirate costume, reaches toward Dianne Lynn Parker while amused mothers look on. Both children were 14 months old at the time.

Caption information source: "Rainier District Pow Wow (1934-1992)," by Cassandra Tate, HistoryLink.org Essay 9526.
Caption information also derived from captions written by Post-Intelligencer staff and attached to the back of the photograph.