Continuing with my leap year theme, here's a dance card from an event held on Tuesday, January 2nd, 1888, by the Fedora Leap Year Club. The scans of this card were sent to me by California dancer Tom Willson, who had a question about a couple of the dances on the program. I couldn't give him a definite answer, but the card itself turned out to be surprisingly interesting. Click the image at left of the outside of the card to enlarge it and take a close look at the text.
The event was the "First Grand Quadrille Social", though the dance mix is not particularly quadrille-heavy for the era -- seven out of the twenty dances, with the rest being a typical mix of other dances, which I will discuss below. I haven't been able to trace the origin of the card; unfortunately, there are a number of Russell Halls in the United States, and with no city listed, I can't pick out which one. Nor have I had any luck with the Fedora Leap Year Club. Digging around on genealogy sites, here are some hints from some of the names of the organizers (Lizzie Spooner, Maggie Breazeale) that they might have been from somewhere in the south, but I can't say for certain where the ball occurred.
But those names are the start of what is so interesting about this card: they're all female. That's not that out of the ordinary for an organizing committee, but to have the floor managers be female? That's pretty unusual. As evidenced by the name of the club, this was in fact a leap year ball, run along the lines of the fictional ladies' ball described in the 1835 story I just discussed. What a bizarre coincidence to have this card turn up just as I was preparing to write that post!
Before I go on to the leap year elements, let's take a look at the program of dances, shown at left (click to enlarge). As noted, despite this being called a "Quadrille Social", this is a fairly typical dance mix for the period. The list of twenty dances begins with a Grand March and along with the seven quadrilles (three plain, two Lancers, and two waltz quadrilles) includes a classic contra dance (Portland Fancy) and a selection of couple dances (five waltzes, a schottische, a galop, a glide polka, and a "nickerbocker") as well as two mysterious dances called "Comas". Two dances, a waltz and a Comas, are labeled as "Gentleman's Choice", another indication of the leap year theme, about which more below.
That may seem like quite a few quadrilles, but seven is actually fairly restrained. I've seen cards that were half (or more!) quadrilles. They musicians would likely have used different music for each quadrille, to provide some variety. It is interesting to see waltz quadrilles listed; there were a lot of couple dance quadrilles (waltz, polka, galop, etc.) published in dance manuals over the course of the nineteenth century, but they don't turn up as often on cards. They aren't unheard of, but they're much less common than the perennial plain quadrilles and Lancers.
Waltzes, of course, are a mainstay of a late nineteenth-century program, and having the final one be "Home Sweet Home" is fairly common. The schottische and the gal[l]op are likewise standards. The Knickerbocker is a couple dance invented by New York dancing master Allen Dodworth, supposedly as copied from what his students were dancing. It's unusual to see it on a card; that and the contra dance make me wonder again about the geographical origins. The glide polka is a minor polka variation which, in another weird coincidence, I described back in the fall in the context of an 1880 dance card.
The mystery dances are the two labeled called "Comas". Once again, I can't be certain what these were. Tom suggested they might be the Comus Waltz, which appears on an 1894 dance card from Las Vegas in my own collection (description and images here). The Comus Waltz is another little couple dance like the Knickerbocker, a mashup of the "new waltz" and the Newport, intended for redowa or mazurka music. Instructions for it by Professor J. Patoille appear in 1882 on sheet music by G. F. Dykes and in George Washington Lopp's 1903 La Danse, published in Paris, where they are attributed to a "J. Patrille".
But is "Comas" in fact a misspelled and shortened name for "Comus Waltz"? I'm hesitant to say so for certain. The most obvious reference for Comus, especially in the south, is the New Orleans Mardi Gras krewe, founded in 1856. The krewe was named for the eponymous Greek god of festivity and chaos. There was a tradition of Mardi Gras balls, but even ignoring that, Comus was a god associated with parties, so it is an obvious name for a piece of music or a dance. There is at least one other "Comus Waltz", by either Denis Auguste or Auguste Dennis.
So that is certainly a possibility.
But I am a little uneasy about it. The makers of the card obviously were not spelling champions ("nickerbocker"?) but Comus seems an odd word to misspell, especially since the misspelling looks like the plural of "coma". And if they call the Glide Polka that, why not call the Comus Waltz by its full name? And to do it twice in one evening? It's not that interesting a dance!
It's the best possibility that has presented itself so far, but I'm not willing to make a definite statement about it.
Now, for the really exciting aspect of this card: the leap year theme. I noted above that two of the dances were "Gentleman's Choice", which implies that for all the other dances the ladies invited the gentlemen, inverting nineteenth-century etiquette. But the theme went much further than that. Just take a look at the insert shown at left (click to enlarge)!
The rules for the gentlemen are a slightly twisted version of those standard for a lady. Conducting themselves with propriety and waiting to be escorted are fairly normal, and not putting a bare hand on a lady's waist in a waltz is a standard rule for gentlemen in general. But there is some mischief implied by the rule requesting gentlemen not to drop their fans and handkerchiefs "any oftener than is absolutely necessary". I can imagine how annoying it would be for corseted ladies to be constantly having to bend over to pick things up, and how amusing this might be for a certain type of gentleman. And I suspect that "spotted" in the final rule means something like "forbidden to dance". The gentlemen did not receive the lady's absolute right to refuse partners!
On the ladies' side, three of the rules are gentlemen's standard etiquette inverted: the ladies will take upon themselves the duties of the gentlemen, be "general" in their attentions (ask many different gentlemen to dance), give the gentlemen the best seats and courteous attention, and after a dance assist her partner to a chair or to his mother. It's interesting that "his mother" is in quotes; was there some game around that as well? I'm also amused by the second rule. As with the rule about gentleman refusing partners, this strikes me as a comment on gentlemen's typical ballroom behavior, in this case a tendency to escape from conversations with a rather curt and nonspecific excuse. At this ball, the ladies take the privilege of abrupt conversational exits for themselves!
Allowing for their more pointed tone, these rules for role-reversal are remarkably similar to the way the ladies and gentlemen behaved at the fictional ladies' ball from the 1835 story, and the ball seems to have been intended to be run with the same sort of role-reversal. I don't think that the ball and the story are necessarily linked, but the common elements make me wonder if there was an ongoing trend for such balls.
A final note: Tom also has the front (only) of a second card, from a Grand Ball and Banquet given at Russell Hall on February 7th, 1888. This ball was hosted by the Clover Club, and the front includes "Greeting to Fedora Leap Year Club". Perhaps, as in the story, the gentlemen responded to the ladies' hospitality a month or so later with an event of their own?
When I was researching Lowell, I come across two Leap Year balls reported in newspapers (there may have been more that I didn't keep notes on), one in 1856 and one in 1896. The earlier article gives more detail than the later one: "The ladies...took their carriages, called for their beaux, were driven to the hall, where ladies managed, selected their own partners, ordered the supper, and gloriously paid all their bills!" The writer also jokes about observing "bright eyed lasses, with roguish eyes trip up to demure young gentlemen, and solicit the honor of their hand for the 'next cotillion!'"
Posted by: Ruth Evans | February 06, 2016 at 10:36 AM