BEST IN SHOW

Year Published: 1927

Format: 16mm

Description: This historic newsreel silent short shows the Morris & Essex Kennel Club, an historical dog show event that’s now held only once every five years. Morris & Essex in its time was perhaps the most famous dog show in the world, vying for that position with Westminster and Crufts. Its beginning dates back to 1927, and for more than three decades this was the highlight of the year for thousands of dog fanciers. In 1958 the show was cancelled after a disagreement about dates between AKC and the imperious woman behind the show, Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge, who decided to instead focus on the still thriving St. Hubert’s Giralda animal welfare center. The memory of the show lingered, however, and in the year 2000 a devoted team, some of whom had personal memories of the old show, succeeded in bringing Morris & Essex to life again. The revival was a resounding success, and since then, once every five years, everyone who cares about dog shows and dog show history convenes in Madison, New Jersey, to resurrect the memory of a one-of-a-kind dog show. So what made the "old" Morris & Essex KC show unique? Well, to begin with, its presiding genius was no ordinary woman. Geraldine Rockefeller Dodge was one of America’s richest women, born in 1882 as the youngest daughter of the Standard Oil tycoon William A. Rockefeller, Jr. When she married Marcellus Hartley Dodge, Sr., president of the Remington Arms company, in 1907 it was the society wedding of the year and a merging of two great family fortunes —hundreds of millions of dollar. She loved animals, especially dogs and horses. The tragic death of the couple’s only son, Marcellus Dodge, Jr., in a car accident in France in 1930 sent his mother into a deep depression and is credited with making her focus even more strongly on her animals than before. The kennel at its peak housed over a hundred dogs: German Shepherd Dogs and English Cocker Spaniels were two of the favorites, but there were Best in Show winners in many breeds.

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