Bird Center Dance Cartoons, 1903-1904

The fictional Illinois town of Bird Center was created by Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist John T. McCutcheon (1870-1949) in the early years of the twentieth century.  The cast of repeating characters, while humorously portrayed, was intended to depict the essential goodness of small-time life and small-town people, presumably as contrasted to the bustling metropolis of Chicago, where the cartoons appeared in the Chicago Record-Herald and Chicago Tribune.  The series was an enormous hit.  A collection of the cartoons to date, Bird Center Cartoons, was published in 1904.  In Chicago Portraits (2012), June Skinner Sawyers stated that at the time, "Many people held Bird Center parties where people would portray the various characters.  Even card games were created, each card an original drawing by McCutcheon himself...a theatrical adaptation of Bird Center was mounted at the Majestic Theatre in New York.  (It closed after a disappointing thirteen-week run.)"

In looking at the occasional depictions of dance in the Bird Center cartoons, one must keep in mind that though McCutcheon briefly lived on a farm as a child, by the time of these cartoons he was a sophisticated journalist who had traveled internationally to China, Japan, South Africa, and the Philippines.  McCutcheon was depicting his idealized vision of old-fashioned small-town life.  The cartoons probably say as much about his upbringing in Indiana in the 1870s as about anything happening in Chicago in the early 1900s.

The illustration above left (click to enlarge) is "The Harvest Home Party in Mrs. Riley Withersby's Barn".  This was a themed fancy dress ball for which everyone dressed in "country style" and enjoyed appropriately rustic music and dancing. 

In the cartoon, the dancers are easily recognizable as performing the Virginia Reel, with the overdressed Reverend Walpole and Congressman Ephraim Pumphrey in the lower left corner and the "popular undertaker", Mr. Smiley Greene, performing the dos-à-dos with Bird Center social doyenne and party hostess Mrs. Riley Withersby.  A fiddler and banjo player sit on a stage at left; no society orchestra here!

Smiley's knees-up posture is a classic way to portray rustic, as opposed to courtly, dance; Jeremy Barlow discussed this at length with many examples in his excellent collection of dance images, A Dance Through Time.  Also note that Smiley has his hands fisted on his hips, knuckles in, and Mrs. Withersby is holding her skirt.  Neither holds their arms folded in front in the now-stereotypical style.

The accompanying ball description by "J. Oscar Fisher" in the fictional town paper, Argosy, spends most of its description on the "seasonable" decorations, including pumpkins, ears of corn, and, oddly, Japanese lanterns.  It notes that the ball went late:

...it was not until the wee small hours that the rollicking merrymakers adjourned to the arms of Morpheus.

and mentions the Virgina Reel and poor Reverend Walpole:

Rev. Walpole was among those present and courteously joined in the Virgina reel, winning many friends for the liberality of his broadmindedness.  

Interestingly, it also gives a few lines of lyrics for three songs, one of which was sung during the Virgina Reel:

When the Virginia reel was danced the guests all united in singing --
        "With a hand in the hopper and another in the sack,
        Ladies step forward and gents fall back."

I don't recall seeing any mention of singing in the Virgina reel before.  A midwestern tradition in the late nineteenth century or just McCutcheon adding a supposed rustic touch?  The song is known, variously, as "Old Man at the Mill", "Jolly Miller", and "Same Old Man".

At right (click to enlarge) is a contrasting cartoon, "The Dancing Club Entertainment", in which "Mrs. Smiley W. Greene, Wife of the Popular Undertaker, celebrates Thankgiving by entertaining the Dancing Club."  They're actually dancing in the temporarily repurposed funeral parlor.  At right one of the young women plays a small organ to provide dance music.  Interestingly, the music held for her by a gentleman is "Old Dan Tucker", which is generally a "ninepin" dance with a square or circle of couples and one odd man out in the center.  That's not what the dancers are doing, however.  They're lined up country dance-style, and it looks remarkably like yet another Virginia Reel; was that the only dance McCutcheon could conceive of to depict rural style?  The top gentleman and bottom lady are advancing and retiring in the illustration.  The active dancers are Smiley Greene and his wife.   

Even though the dancers in this cartoon are dressed in their individual best, ranging from sloppy sack suits to the gentleman in the bottom right corner in full white tie, Smiley still dances with his knees akimbo and his left arm apparently in motion.  Working through the layers of meaning, I think McCutcheon is suggesting that even when the inhabitants of Bird Center are dressed fashionably, they are still essentially rustic at heart, and that's not a bad thing, even though it results in a rougher dance style.  No city slickers here!

Comments

[Becky Nankivell]

I'm glad to stumble on this post (finding you via a comment you made to Alan Winston on Facebook). A while back I purchased a copy of "The Dancing Club Entertainment" at a second hand store, probably taken out of the 1904 collection. A detail that I like about that one is that the music is being played on a reed (pump) organ. We had one in our family that was played for house dances in upstate New York.

Cheers!