ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the impact of civic displays young Melburnians. It also explains a number of specific events such as the Diamond Jubilee of 1897 and the Federation festivities of 1901. Young people had now moved towards the forefront of Melbourne's celebratory undertakings, but it would take another jubilee year and the onset of Federation in 1901 for them to really claim top billing. Catholic youth groups, the League of the Cross and the youth wing of the Hibernian Australasian Catholic Benefit Society, seem to have better maintained a processional profile in the early years of the twentieth century. Adults were quick to realize the representational potential generated by focusing public attention and assert the marshalling of city youth was innately political in nature to support a variety of patriotic and institutional goals. Before considering those occasions on which young people took centre stage, an assessment of young people's roles as spectators in the processional undertakings of adults is warranted.
