Capering & Kickery

The Way it Ended, 1855

I came across this story in a California newspaper, The Weekly Placer Herald, and didn't find it particularly believable.  But it was not original to the Herald; the attribution at the end is to the Albany Dutchman, which seems to have been more of a weekly humor publication than a newspaper.  Per the Library of Congress's Chronicling America website, it described itself  in 1849 as "A weekly newspaper-devoted to fun, literature, good advice, women and other luxuries."  I don't have any way to check the attribution at the moment, as the Albany Dutchman doesn't seem to be online, but that fits with my impression that this is a tall tale, not an actual incident.  It nonetheless makes a light-hearted ending to my month of masquerades!

In the story, two friends, Bob and Frank, lie to Bob's wife about his having to help a sick uncle.  In reality, they are sneaking off to a masquerade ball.  While Bob is a married man, Frank is "a roue, and as a matter of course is a great favorite with the ladies—roues always are." 

A Louisville Masquerade, 1843

Here's a lively account of a jolly and slightly drunken masquerade held in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1843.  This account has a little of everything: costumes, bad puns, a bit about the dances, and the effects of alcohol on the revelers.  It's too long a report to comment on every bit of it, but the entire thing is transcribed at the bottom of this post.

The report starts out with a lot of philosophy about the joys of masquerades, but the first really useful bit is that as in A Few Friends, the unmasking is done at supper-time, which was probably around midnight:

The unmasking at the supper table is often a great source of laughter and surprise, when it discovers the faces of numerous acquaintances who have been playing off their wit and raillery against each other all the evening, under their various disguises. 

All sorts of people attended masquerades, which is part of what made them scandalous.  In Kentucky, at least, this mixing was not to be feared, though I suspect the upper classes might have differed on this point:

A masquerade is an unsorted class of society, it must be admitted; but are you not liable to mix with bad persons in the best regulated companies?  Even robberies have frequently been committed in churches; and if you keep aloof from mankind on that account, you may soon become a crying philosopher, afraid to stir from your own fireside, in order to prevent contamination, and be devoured by hypochondria the remainder of your days.

The writer had a few drinks before arriving and is thus in a good mood:

It was at a late hour that I entered the room, and I was in a right good humor for fun and frolic, and the scene before me, having taken a glass or two of Walker’s rich old wines, the vivifying qualities of which would almost make the dumb to chatter. 

Remember "vivifying".  The extra "life" provided by alcohol recurs later.

Wandering around in the dark, 1912

Since wandering around with small lanterns in a dark room looking for people to dance with also seems like a suitable spooky, or at least entertaining, activity for Halloween balls and cotillion parties, here are another pair of cotillion figures from H. Layton Walker's Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912) that feature that very activity!

These are both simple mixer figures in which pairs of ladies and gentlemen must find their designated match, either by number or by name.  

1. LANTERN FIGURE.  Original description:

Palm Fronds and Canary Warblers, 1912

Along with masquerade and fancy dress balls and costumes, the other topic I generally include in October is suitably wacky cotillion figures, dance party games that could be part of the final section of a ball or of a stand-alone event.  Most of them are simple mixers, but I have a gleeful passion for the stranger ones that involve costumes or props or simply strike me as delightfully weird.  Here are a couple of the latter, both taken from H. Layton Walker's Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912).

1. Human Palm Trees.  Original description:

Professor Webster's Masquerade Party, 1876

On March 18, 1876, the Morning Herald of Wilmington, Delaware, published a short blurb covering a recent "masquerade party" given by one Professor Webster at the Dancing Academy Hall.  Unusually, the newspaper coverage says nothing about the costumes other than that there were enough of them to "have exhausted a first class costumer’s establishment, and have taxed the ingenuity of an artist."  Instead, we get an actual dance program, consisting entirely of quadrilles, Lanciers, and glide waltzes, and accompanied by names which might be masquerade costumes, though I'm not certain of that.

Professor Webster was a long-time Wilmington dancing master - he was still teaching as late as June 4, 1899, when the Sunday Morning Star reported on the closing reception of his current series of dance classes (see about two-thirds of the way down the first column here.)

Here's the list of dances, in order.

A promenade of 15 minutes, presumably the Grand March, followed by a polka.
1. Quadrille, plain, Des Layton, No. 100, Thatcher
2. Waltz Glide, Flag of Truce, White
3. Quadrille, Lanciers, Tin Fiddle, Hildreth
4. Quadrille, plain, Jigiana, Cleland
5. Quadrille Polka, Mary’s Lamb, Osborne
6. Waltz, Glide, Old Mother Goose, McIntire
7. Quadrille, Robinson, Fandango, Aiken
8. Quadrille, blain [sic], Auld Lang Syne, Burk
9. Quadrille, Polacca, breakdown, Stidham
10. Waltz, Glide, Timber Heels, Simmons
11. Quadrille, Mazourka, Red, White and Blue, Grant
12. Quadrille, plain, Lunatic, Pierson
13. Quadrille, varieties, La Manayunk
14. Waltz, glide. Spring Chicken, Vanderbreak
15. Quadrille, plain, Piccodilly [sic], Mose
15. [sic] Lanciers, Shoddy, McCall
17. Waltz, glide, Go, Lang.

A Fancy Dress Party (from A Few Friends), 1864

A Few Friends, by Korman Lynn, was serialized in nine parts in Godey's Lady's Book during the year 1864.  The serial doesn't have a lot of plot; it describes eight evenings of a group of friends gathering together to, for the most part, play parlor games.  It's great for anyone who wants to research mid-nineteenth century parlor games, which are described in elaborate detail, but the only section of any real interest to me is the final one, in which the friends gather for a fancy dress party.

To pick up the story at this point, it is only necessary to know that the kind and generous Ben Stykes has been quietly pursuing the lively Mary Gliddon from the beginning of the story, though a certain Mr. Hedges, a young man from Liverpool, is also interested in her.

Even a single part of the story is too long for me to transcribe here, but I'll quote the costume descriptions, some of which are detailed and unusual, and the resolution of the romance.

A Fancy Dress Hop at West Point, 1865

On Saturday, September 9, 1865, The New York Times published an account of a fancy dress "hop" given by the ladies of Cozzens' Hotel in West Point, New York, home of the famous U. S. Military Academy. 

Cozzens', established in 1849, was a prominent hotel near the Academy.  The original building was destroyed by fire in the March of 1861 but quickly rebuilt.  The image below is a late-nineteenth-century print by Max Egalu of the view of the Hudson River from the hotel; the original is in the collection of the Boston Public Library.


With its ready supply of eager cadets from the Academy, Cozzens' was a popular site for dances.  In 1859, an article in Harper's Weekly explained that:

"...the rigors of military etiquette are mitigated thrice a week by balls or hops, which are given by the cadets to their friends and guests at Cozzens’s Hotel and elsewhere in the neighborhood. These gay parties are justly famed among the fair sex; for better and more indefatigable dancers than the cadets are not to be found even in New York. Pretty girls who go to West Point to spend a few days in the bracing air, and enjoy the lovely Hudson scenery, invariably declare that they never enjoyed any ball in their life so much as the Cadet Hops."

        --- Harper's Weekly, September 3, 1859

 

The article was accompanied by an engraving of such a "hop", specifically described as "a scene familiar to the happy people who spend summer days at Cozzens's at West Point."

 

The original may be seen at archive.org (engraving, article).

 

A more detailed history of the hotel may be found at The News of the Highlands.

Anti-Masquerade Americans, 1794 and 1837

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.

October 2020 Gig Calendar

Life continues on in pandemic time, which feels like a cross between time flying by and a sort of vague timelessness. 

October will be a quiet teaching month for me while I work on a new research project for a festival next month, but I have a new double series of California-based basic country dance footwork classes this month before we probably take a break over the holiday period.

Please note: the events listed below are hosted in different cities/countries in different time zones.  Please adjust for your own time zone before planning online attendance!

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Four Saturdays, October 3rd-24th ~ ONLINE / California-based
Low-Impact Historical Footwork 102c (Facebook event)
for the Historical Tea and Dance Society (group Facebook page)
1:00pm-2:30pm.  (FIRST CLASS ONE HOUR EARLIER)  Four-part Zoom series covering basic steps for Regency and Colonial era dance.  One-hour lesson including warm-up/cool-down plus after-class discussion.  Prerequisite - 101 class or permission. This is the third in the HT&DS rotation of 102-level footwork classes! Footwork 102c assumes that you have an understanding of the basic steps for Regency and Colonial footwork, including the chassé-jeté-assemblé sequence and the rigadaun step, and moves on from there to more complicated steps and sequences for quadrilles, cotillions, country dances, and reels, covering different material than 102a and 102b.  This is a friendly, gently-paced class for footwork beyond the absolute basics.  $20 for the series; see webpage for registration link.

Four Saturdays, October 3rd-24th ~ ONLINE / California-based
Low-Impact Historical Footwork 103a: Fitting Steps to Dances (Facebook event)
for the Historical Tea and Dance Society (group Facebook page)
3:00pm-4:30pm.  (FIRST CLASS ONE HOUR EARLIER)  Four-part Zoom series covering basic steps for Regency and Colonial era dance.  One-hour lesson including warm-up/cool-down plus after-class discussion.  Prerequisite - 101 class or permission. Continuing the HT&DS series of historical steps for country dances and related forms, this new class series will focus on fitting steps we've learned into the specific figures of favorite dances from different historical periods. Some previous experience required - either our 101 class or basic knowledge of steps such as doubles and singles, the chassé-jeté-assemblé Regency sequence, and the rigadaun. Other steps will be reviewed or taught briefly as needed. This is a friendly, gently-paced class going beyond the absolute basics to how to apply steps in the ballroom.  $20 for the series; see webpage for registration link.

Sunday, October 11th ~ ONLINE / Connecticut-based
Dance Historian Meetup
11:00am-1:00pm.  Private event.

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Coming in November: a country dance history festival based in England!

I am also available for private online lessons via Skype or Zoom (or your videoconferencing software of choice); please email me directly if you would like to schedule a private lesson.