ship builders' union dazzle ship as WWI parade float

A long time ago—can it really have been nine years ago?—we blogged about the use of large scale models of dazzle-camouflaged ships as parade floats. It appears that they were constructed and sponsored by various ship builders' unions, and were part of patriotic celebrations, such as the Fourth of July. In our blog posts in 2017, we featured photographs from parades in New York.

More recently we've also found an example of a dazzle ship float from a parade that took place in Detroit that was featured in a Peace Parade in Detroit on November 28, 1918. Shown above is a restored, AI colorized version (the color may not be literally accurate) of a vintage photograph of the event. An original black and white version (it predated color photography) is in the Burton Historical Collection at the Detroit Public Library.

RELATED LINKS 

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness /  

a frieze of tiny men in uniform take pot shots at doves

Donald Friend. Anne Gray, Ed. The Diaries of Donald Friend. Vol 1. National Library of Australia (Canberra), 2001—

One day the editor of the Sydney Morning Herald came to Peter Bellew with a tin helmet: the editor was an Air Raid Warden, and he wanted his helmet “camouflaged.” Could Bellew get one of his artist friends to do the job? Peter gave it to me to do. Of course the camouflage idea for a warden was sheer frivolity. I suppose the editor thought it would look prettier that way—or fashionable, or useful or something. I was delighted to do the job. I took it home and painted on it numbers of fat, white, vapid peace doves, flying around with olive branches in their beaks, and on the lower part of it, a frieze of little men in uniform take pot shots at the birds with cannon and rifles.