Welcome to October: masquerade and fancy dress month on Kickery!
To start things off on a different note, let's look at some of the anti-masquerade sentiment found in the early years of America. Full transcriptions of the articles cited may be found at the end of the post.
On December 22, 1794, the Gazette of the United States and daily evening advertiser (Philadelphia) published an "extract of a letter from an American Gentleman in London" dated December 20th. This might or might not have been a genuine letter, as opposed to editorial-moralizing-disguised-as-correspondence, but it represented the conservative sentiment about masquerades in what was at the time the capital city of the young United States. Naturally, the English were still attending such shocking entertainments, providing the convenient opportunity to run a titillating description for their readers.
The gentleman, upon entering the masquerade, at first found his situation "awkward" and felt "sensations, bordering upon disagreeable". But, realizing his anonymity,
"...the apparent ease of all around me; the intoxicating strains of the well adapted music, and above all the indescribably contagious influence of the place; set me free from every restraint, and gave my soul the same riotous sense of pleasure, which seemed to have full possession of all around me."
Above left is an 1811 English drawing of a masquerade (click to enlarge) by prominent caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson; you can see the "freedom from restraint" in the prominent "HORNS TO SELL" sign (suggesting a volunteer for cuckoldry) and the man in the red domino at far right about to pinch the derrière of the cross-dressed woman in yellow. The women's small half-masks are obvious, but some (possibly all) of the apparent faces, particularly the bearded and long-nosed ones, were also masks. The anonymity of masks was, theoretically, the difference between a masquerade and a fancy dress ball, which involved costumes without masks. This difference could get somewhat blurry, especially with costumes that worked as disguises.
"I discovered that the Nymphs and Nuns and Shepherdesses, whom I figured to my mind as angels, were prostitutes, or those who appeared very willing to become so; and from the usal [sic] liberty connected with a mask, certainly in a plain road to the accomplishment of their desires. Licentiousness, folly, vice, infamy and disease, by degrees lifted the mask; and cleared my mind from the fumes of intoxicating pleasure."
Note that this clarity of mind did not result in his leaving early; he didn't arrive home until six in the morning!
At left is a detail (click to enlarge) from Tom and Jerry larking at a Masquerade Supper at the Opera House, a late-18th century print by Isaac Robert Cruikshank and George Cruikshank, that shows a woman dressed as a nun, and amply illustrates not only the decadence of a masquerade but the underlying implication (perhaps more obvious to the English than to an American of the time) of "nun":
Covent Garden Nun. A prostitute.
--- Francis Grose, The 1811 Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue
The association with Covent Garden referred to the brothels of that London neighborhood. This double meaning dates back to the anti-Catholic sentiment of Elizabethan England, when "nunnery" as slang for a brothel famously turned up in Shakespeare. Hamlet ambiguously ordered Ophelia, "get thee to a nunnery, go" -- to a convent to preserve her chastity or to a brothel because she is not chaste enough?
Things got even worse after supper, when the society people left and only the lower classes remained:
"At supper and after the company presented a perfect picture of the most debasing sensuality. Those people of fashion and reputation, who for the purpose of intrigue frequent such conveniences, were now gone; and nothing was to be seen but, broad glaring bare-faced vice."
"Conveniences" meant "meetings" at the time:
CONVENIENCE, CONVENIENCY, noun [Latin] Literally, a coming together; a meeting.
--- Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (1828)
Our gentleman concluded his letter by expressing his pleasure that masquerades ("this pernicious amusement") had not been brought to America, which had better ways of amusing itself:
"If we look for well supported character, we find it on the stage, if we wish for the delights of music and dancing, we assemble with our faces unmasked and our souls undisguised in our faces."
and his hostility toward the idea of introducing them:
"Should any one, at some distant period, attempt to introduce Masked Balls into our country; if a native, may he receive the merited execrations of his fellow citizens, if a Foreigner may he be chased from the Land, with hisses and contempt."
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Jumping forward forty-three years, official attitudes seemed not to have changed much in relatively strait-laced America, though apparently at least some people were happy to ignore anti-masquerade strictures. A certain amount of ethnic xenophobia was also starting to become apparent.
On Wednesday, October 18, 1837, the Morning herald (New York City) published a bit of a tirade about a masquerade held the night before in Bull's Ferry, New Jersey, just across the river from New York City. The complaint centered around the idea that masquerades were a foreign import, specifically from southern Europe, not northern Europe (England) and its "Anglo Saxon race".
"The Anglo Saxon race is not fitted by nature for entertainment which took its rise in the sun kissed regions of the South of Europe, on the blooming banks of that tideless sea, the Mediterranean. Hence every attempt made in England to naturalise a divertisement, so enchanting in Italy, has proved abortive..."
"...With the Anglo Saxon blood, the masquerade can never amalgamate..."
Was this despite or perhaps because of the influx of Italian musicians, dancers, and other immigrants, some of whom would soon become prominent dancing masters in New York City?
The attempts to introduce masquerades in England weren't all that abortive; as the 1794 letter quoted above suggests, masquerades did have a history in eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century England. The writer of the complaint acknowledges this, to some degree:
"When the masquerade was first introduced into England, the fashionables were all on the qui vive to give it ton. But their efforts failed. It sickened and died; and now only owns an existence there with the wild, thoughtless, and reckless of one sex, and the depraved and abandoned of the other."
There was a hint of northern hostility toward Southern decadence as well:
"A masquerade, in this country, is like a tropical flower transplanted to a latitude ungenial—if it lives at all, it is a pale, sickly thing. This remark would only apply to the northern portion of the states."
The remainder of the complaint was the usual: the freedom allowed by the anonymity of masks and the "from the ballroom to hell" sentiment that such practices invariably led to "ruin and wretchedness":
"Under the disguise of the mask, unlimited freedom of speech is allowed, and she whose blushing face, covered with the necessary veil, suffers her ears to drink in speeches which outrage her native modesty, will soon listen to them unblushingly, without any veil at all.
"The tales of blighted hopes, prostrated happiness, ruin and wretchedness, which have owed their rise to this most dangerous entertainment, now upon record, and authenticated, are multitudinous. While there is not one case to a thousand of such instances, that can be quoted of any good results arising from it."
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TRANSCRIPTIONS
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Gazette of the United States and daily evening advertiser (Philadelphia)
December 22, 1794, p. 3
(PDF - look at the far right column)
By this Day’s Mail
NEW-YORK, Dec. 20.
——
MASQUERADES.
Extract of a Letter from an American
Gentleman in London.
At 6 o’clock this morning I returned to my lodgings from the Masquerade. Immediately on entering a very large and well lighted room, filled with figures of every description, engaged in every fantastic employment, which mirth and unrestrained licentiousness can suggest, I found my situation awkward and for a moment felt sensations, bordering upon disagreeable. But the reflection that I was mask’d and unknown, with the apparent ease of all around me; the intoxicating strains of the well adapted music, and above all the indescribably contagious influence of the place; set me free from every restraint, and gave my soul the same riotous sense of pleasure, which seemed to have full possession of all around me.
After a time the scene became tiresome, I discovered that the Nymphs and Nuns and Shepherdesses, whom I figured to my mind as angels, were prostitutes, or those who appeared very willing to become so; and from the usal [sic] liberty connected with a mask, certainly in a plain road to the accomplishment of their desires. Licentiousness, folly, vice, infamy and disease, by degrees lifted the mask; and cleared my mind from the fumes of intoxicating pleasure. At supper and after the company presented a perfect picture of the most debasing sensuality. Those people of fashion and reputation, who for the purpose of intrigue frequent such conveniences, were now gone; and nothing was to be seen but, broad glaring bare-faced vice.
Such, will Masquerades ever be, in every country where they are introduced tho those who first patronize them may not look forward to their consequences.
How happy is it, my dear brother, that this pernicious amusement has not found its way into our happy country. If we look for well supported character, we find it on the stage, if we wish for the delights of music and dancing, we assemble with our faces unmasked and our souls undisguised in our faces. Should any one, at some distant period, attempt to introduce Masked Balls into our country; if a native, may he receive the merited execrations of his fellow citizens, if a Foreigner may he be chased from the Land, with hisses and contempt.
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Morning herald (New York City).
Wednesday Morning, October 18, 1837, p. 1
(PDF - look in the central column, below the "Horrible Shipwreck")
MASQUERADE. — There was a Masquerade held last night at Bull’s Ferry. Bull’s Ferry is not a very pretty name, but Bull’s Ferry is a very pretty place, and here, for once, we may say, with the bard,
“What’s in a name ?”
A masquerade, in this country, is like a tropical flower transplanted to a latitude ungenial—if it lives at all, it is a pale, sickly thing. This remark would only apply to the northern portion of the states. There is a still greater objection. The Anglo Saxon race is not fitted by nature for entertainment which took its rise in the sun kissed regions of the South of Europe, on the blooming banks of that tideless sea, the Mediterranean. Hence every attempt made in England to naturalise a divertisement, so enchanting in Italy, has proved abortive.
When the masquerade was first introduced into England, the fashionables were all on the qui vive to give it ton. But their efforts failed. It sickened and died; and now only owns an existence there with the wild, thoughtless, and reckless of one sex, and the depraved and abandoned of the other.
With the Anglo Saxon blood, the masquerade can never amalgamate. We have not the art of improvisitrising [sic], which is the life and soul of the masque. We dress the character. Speaking nationally, it is all we can do. We cannot support it. Hence it is tame, “flat, and unprofitable.” But this is not its greatest evil. It is a pander, and provocative to intrigue.
Under the disguise of the mask, unlimited freedom of speech is allowed, and she whose blushing face, covered with the necessary veil, suffers her ears to drink in speeches which outrage her native modesty, will soon listen to them unblushingly, without any veil at all.
The tales of blighted hopes, prostrated happiness, ruin and wretchedness, which have owed their rise to this most dangerous entertainment, now upon record, and authenticated, are multitudinous. While there is not one case to a thousand of such instances, that can be quoted of any good results arising from it.
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A final note, of interest to those pursuing American dance history of the later nineteenth century:
Just to the right of the masquerade complaint on the Morning Herald page is an advertisement for Dodworth's Fashionable Quadrille Band and its ability to supply large or small bands for balls and parties at short notice. Among the members of this family band in 1837 was the young Allen Dodworth, later a prominent New York dancing master.
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