At the Prom: Yale 1921

Yale University's Junior Promenade, held on February 8, 1921, made the cover of the Yale Record, a humor magazine similar to (but predating) the Harvard Lampoon, which had a wide circulation outside Yale as a beacon of collegiate style. (Click the image at left for a larger version courtesy of Yale's Manuscripts & Archives.)  The event is of interest to me not only as a Yale alumna but because I recently purchased one of its ball cards.

The cover of the card (shown below) is made of white leather, with the Yale device and the year 1921 embossed in gold on the front.  A blue and white twisted cord holds the pages in place.  There is no sign of how a pencil might have been attached.  Between the cover and the pages of the card itself is a sheet of translucent vellum with a spiderweb pattern.

Of interest among the list of names given for the ball committee is the Floor Manager, James Smith Bush, the uncle of former United States President George H.W. Bush and great-uncle of former President George W. Bush.

The set of dances listed inside shows the growing dominance of the foxtrot in the upper-class ballroom of the early 1920s.  Forty-two dances are listed, with the twenty-first being the supper dance.  Of those, no fewer than thirty-two are foxtrots!  The other ten are divided between eight one-steps and a mere two waltzes.  The card belonged to a lady; twenty-one of the listed dances have gentlemen's names written by them.  Some names are written in formal style ("Mr. Newmarker") and some more casually ("Roddie").  Several men are listed twice, but none more than twice.

For those interested in details of etiquette, there is a notice on the back that gentlemen should "Please escort ladies to boxes immediately after each dance."
 

Comments

[Jeff]

wow! The fact that it's a leather cover is interesting. Is that normal for the era, or an oddity?

[Susan de Guardiola]

I haven't made enough of a study of ball cards to know, but there are many surviving ones that are much fancier than folded cardstock, so a leather one doesn't shock me.

[Cathy]

That's neat! I'm now intrigued to look at more filled out ball cards to see how many each person typically did (or planned ahead for, anyway).

[Eric Stott]

I have a couple of leather covered ball cards which are intended to serve as small wallets when the pages are removed- they have little pockets sewn into the covers & could hold stamps, possibly tickets or a few pieces of currency, maybe a few coins. Digressing a bit, at the turn of the century middle to upper class people carried much less money on their persons than we'd expect. Many purchases were done on credit with bills submitted at the end of the month. Lunch could be a dollar- or less, and a nickle bought quite a lot.