I've mentioned late nineteenth century dancing master Melvin Ballou Gilbert (1847-1910) and his various accomplishments many, many times over the past eight years. He was, among other things:
- a successful teacher of dance in Portland, Maine, as well as in Boston and Cambridge (including at Harvard's Summer School of Physical Education)
- the author-compiler of the important late nineteenth century source Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and at least two other books
- the choreographer of the Harvard Dip and other dance variants
- the editor and publisher (and probably primary writer) of The Director, a dance magazine which ran for ten issues in 1897-1898
- sometime president of the American Society of Professors of Dancing
But one thing I have never seen mentioned him is that he apparently also ran a mail-order dance book business out of his home. Several issues of The Director contain the advertisement above (click to enlarge) in which Gilbert offers not only his own book on dance, but five other recent works as well:
All of these books have survived the last 117 years; I have either a physical or a digital copy of each. More usefully, at least one edition of each is easily available online for researchers or interested dancers, five of them at invaluable collection of historical dance manuals at the Library of Congress. Want to see what Gilbert thought was worth offering for sale to the readers of a dance magazine? Here's a list with links:
- A History of Dancing from the Earliest Ages to our Own Times, from the French of Gaston Vuillier. (London, 1898). This book is available at archive.org.
- Dancing, by Mrs. Lily Grove, F. R. G. S., and other writers (London, 1895). This book is available on Google Books.
- Round Dancing by M. B. Gilbert (Portland, Maine, 1890). Gilbert's major work, also at the American Memory Collection here.
- The Dance of Society by William De Garmo (New York, at least five editions 1875-1892) The 1875 edition is also at the American Memory Collection here, though Gilbert quite likely was selling the 1892 fifth edition. The changes between the first and fifth editions are substantial: the fifth adds a second jig figure under the “variety” (promiscuous) quadrille figures, the New Esmeralda, three new methods of dancing the valse à trois temps, a lengthy set of dances added for the third (1879) and fourth (1884) editions (the Norwegian Lancers, Redowa-Glissade, Polka-Bohemian, National Guard Quadrille, Lawn Tennis Quadrille, Saratoga Lancers, La Russe, Society Quadrille, Waltz Quadrille, and Double Lancers, plus notes on the Theory of Dancing, Dance Tempo, and Additional Quadrille Steps) and another large group added for the fifth edition (the Centennial Lancers, Polo Quadrille, Court Quadrille, Five-Step Waltzes Nos. 1-3, La Rêve, La Esmeralda (New Style), Cross-Step Polka, Portland, Berlin, Rutcher Waltz, La Caprice, Les Patineurs, Double Glide Waltz, Newport, York Nos. 1 and 2, Run, Highland Schottische, Military Schottische, De Garmo, Bon Ton Gavotte, Bon Ton, Oxford Minuet, and some notes on Dance Music, plus music for the Rutcher Waltz and the Quadrille.)
- The Art of Dancing by Judson Sause (Chicago, at least six editions 1879-1895). The fifth edition (1889) is also at the American Memory Collection here, though Gilbert was likely offering the latest (sixth) edition from 1895. The changes in this book are much smaller. Along with some minor layout changes, the sixth edition deletes Waltz-Hop, Waltz-Five-Step, Deux Temps, Danish Dance, and The Bohemian, replacing them with The Brunswick, Two-Step, and Washington Two-Step. The text of the Deux Temps (5th) and the Two-Step (6th) are identical in considering both dances just variants of the galop danced in different time signatures (3/4 for the deux temps and 6/8 for the two-step).
- The German by Two Amateur Leaders (Chicago, 1879). Also at the American Memory Collection here.
It's actually a pretty good list. Two general histories (with rather dubious scholarship by today's standards), three how-to manuals by major writers covering both couple (round) dancing and some set dancing (primarily quadrilles) and cotillion figures, and one book specifically on running the all-important Germans, a.k.a. cotillions, which by the end of the nineteenth-century were a major form of dance event on their own as well as something to do at the tail end of a ball.
Anyone wanting an overview of popular dances and dance history in America at the very end of the nineteenth century could do much worse than to read through Gilbert's selections.
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