MUMENTOUS

Schultz explores the culture of Texas homecoming mums in this debut book of photography and reportage.

Across the country, high school girls often wear chrysanthemum corsages to their yearly homecoming football games. In Texas, however—where everything is bigger—the homecoming mum has morphed into an elaborated affair featuring as many as twenty artificial mums personalized with ribbons, beads, feathers, trinkets, messages, and the like. Schultz, who attended high school in Florida, first encountered the phenomenon of Texas homecoming mums after moving to the Lone Star State as an adult. She was immediately fascinated: “Is a mum just a mum or is a mum a metaphor?” she wonders early in the book. “Is the thing greater than the sum of its parts, much like the person who wears it, or the state in which it thrives, or the society in which it stands?” With this book, Schultz sets out to explore—through stories and photographs—the culture of mums: how the tradition originated, how it has changed over the years, and what it means for the schools, students, parents, and communities who participate. It’s a tale rooted in a particularly Texan love of maximalism, but one that also tells a larger story of the human need for ritual and pageantry. Schultz’s spirited prose vividly captures the colors and textures of the mums and their wearers, as when the author gets to try one on and strut around: “When you’re enveloped in a mum of this size, there’s no direction to go but forward. As I found my footing to steer all three of my dimensions, the mum audibly cheered me on, because woven into it was a waterfall of sleigh bells and cowbells. With my every step, twist, and gesture, the bells involuntarily created a manic and discordant melody.” The many eye-catching black-and-white photographs are as instrumental as the text in communicating the soul of mum culture. Both seasoned Texas home-comers and readers completely unfamiliar with the tradition will be equally charmed by this beguiling quirk of Americana.

An entertaining, brilliantly shot look at a Texas high school tradition.