Capering & Kickery

Leap Year figure, Washington, D. C., 1892

Not having any more convenient descriptions of cotillion (dance party game) figures with leap year themes in books of such figures, I have to take them where I find them -- in this case, in a description of a society leap year ball attended by no fewer than seven foreign ministers of different nations held in Washington, D. C., on March 24, 1892.  The ball was described briefly in The New York Times on March 25, 1892.  The majority of the short article is taken up by lengthy lists of all the important people who organized and attended the event, but in between, there is a description of a cotillion figure.  Interestingly, it was led by two couples simultaneously, from "opposite ends of the hall". 

Dancing was general until 9:30 o’clock, when the cotillion began, led from opposite ends of the hall by Miss Richardson with Mr. William Slack and Miss Stout with Mr. Clifford Richardson.  In the selection of the favors the greatest ingenuity had been exercised, and the laughter-provoking devices were highly satisfactory.  

Perhaps, sensible of the number of people attending, they were actually running two cotillions in parallel?

A Leap Year Ball, Massachusetts, 1896

An elaborate upper-class leap year ball was held in Fall River, Massachusetts, on Friday, February 21, 1896, as reported at great length in the Fall River Daily Evening News the following Monday.  Fall River is quite close to Providence, Rhode Island, and this ball had a number of similarities to the leap year ball held in Providence four years before, though it does not seem to have featured an enormous cotillion.

On the organizational side, the committee was entirely female, as were the eleven "active and efficient" floor managers.  As in Providence, the receiving line consisted entirely of male patrons, each holding "a bunch of beautiful roses" and "a small fan".  There was no mention of them curtsying, alas, only smiling.

While not emphasized in the writeup the way it was for the Providence ball, gentlemen other than the patrons had been gifted with flowers as well:

Most of the men had been provided by their escorts with boutonnieres, and many of them carried also bunches of flowers and fans.  Corsage boquets [sic] were not infrequent adornments of shirt fronts.

This may have been expensive for some of the ladies:

Every one of them brought at least one man, and one or two brought half a dozen. 

 

Female Callers at Leap Year Balls, 1896

Despite the role reversal mandate at leap year balls, it's still difficult to find examples where the role reversal extended into actually calling or otherwise leading the dancing.  While I have several mentions of female floor managers, it's not clear whether they were leading the dancing or just assisting a male caller or prompter.  One of the few clear examples I'd found previously was two ladies leading a cotillion, at a leap year ball held in Providence in 1892.  So I was beyond delighted to find two mentions of female callers in short blurbs about leap year balls held in Idaho and Kansas in 1896. 

"The Leap Year Ball": a poem, 1896

Before getting back to detailed newspaper descriptions of leap year balls, here's a less detailed but still useful description of one in the form of a very mediocre poem.  It was published on page three of the Oakdale Leader, in Oakdale, California, on Friday, February 14th, 1896.  

The leap year elements mentioned specifically in the poem are:

• the ladies "managing" things and taking the author into the ballroom
• the "beaux" sitting in a row waiting for partners and the ladies rushing to find one, making sure no one was left out
• Fannie and Julia as some sort of ball organizers or floor managers, wearing badges and making sure things went smoothly
• a lady acting as treasurer and, by implication, asking the author to dance

I admit to cynically feeling that the ladies being concerned that none of the "gints" were slighted was showing more care for their feelings than many gentlemen showed for those of ladies when in conventional roles -- the ladies were perhaps deliberately setting an example for the gentlemen of how they wished to be treated.

A Valentine Party, 1891

The fourth in a very occasional series of short descriptions of specialty dance events from the pages of the 1890-1891 volume of Demorest's Family Magazine.  Like the tidbit about the thé dansante, this short description of a party-opening cotillion (in the dance party game sense) is drawn from the "Chat" column of the February, 1891, issue.  The theme, of course, is Valentine's Day!

The original text from Demorest's:

A Valentine Party, for which invitations are already out, promises to be a unique affair.  There are but twenty persons invited, ten ladies and ten gentlemen, all well acquainted, and each has been requested to bring an original valentine, which must be included in the envelope furnished by the hostess and already superscribed "To my Valentine."  On arriving, the guests will find in each dressing-room a bunch of ribbons of different colors, also a heart-shaped bag.  A ribbon is to be tied around each valentine, which is then to be deposited in the bag, through a slit at the top.  After all are assembled, two children, dressed as Cupids, will act as postmen, delivering the valentines from the gentlemen's bag to the ladies, and from the ladies' bag to the gentlemen.  The valentines are then to be read aloud by the person receiving them (being considered as written expressly for them), and a vote taken to decide on the two best (one by a lady and one by a gentleman) from a literary point of view, the two wittiest, and the two most sentimental, and prizes given to the writer of each.  The prizes are to be silver-mounted cushions, photograph frames, and mirrors for the ladies, and scarf-pins, pocket-cushions, and silver-mounted penwipers for the gentlemen, all heart-shaped.  The refreshments are to be served at small heart-shaped tables, and afterward there will be dancing, those having matching ribbons to be partners for the first dance.

     -- Demorest's Family Magazine, Volume XXVII, No. 4, February, 1891, p. 245

 

A Leap Year Ball, Dundee, Scotland, 1892

I didn't look for a description of a Scottish leap year ball, but I came across one anyway while rummaging through newspaper archives.  This was an actual Leap Day ball, held on "that carnival of female freedom", February 29, 1892, in Dundee.  It was described the next day in the Evening Telegraph. 

The ball was hosted by the ladies of the Physical Recreation Society, presumably a branch of the National Physical Recreation Society founded by Herbert Gladstone in 1885 or 1886.  According to the website of The John Hulley Memorial Fund, the NPRS was the successor of the National Olympian Association (1865-1883) and a founder organization of the British Olympic Association (1905).  While not an Olympic sport, dancing was certainly physical recreation, as the author of the article noted:

It goes without saying that it was full of “go,” for gymnastics—or, shall we say, physical culture?—means health, and health means high spirits, and high spirits spell enjoyment and fresh pleasure. 

Large sections of the article were devoted to describing the dresses and the decor.  But there is also substantial information about the dance program, which is interesting not just as a leap year ball but as an example of an 1890s Scottish ball in general, and about the ladies in charge.  In true leap year tradition, 

Seven ladies of the Society formed the Committee, and managed everything, including their men friends who ventured to criticise the arrangements. 

Along with organizing the ball, they wore badges and acted as the reception committee and floor managers at the ball itself:

They were all distinguished last night by a tiny bow of red and black striped ribbon, carrying a five-pointed star, on which were inscribed the initials of the Society.  Their functions were to act as a Reception Committee, to introduce strangers, give the signal for the music to strike up, and so on,

...though occasionally they became distracted by the pleasures of the dance:

all of which pleasant duties were duly performed—excepting when a gadding member floated off in a fascinating waltz, oblivious of the obligations imposed by her badge, and other quite excusable lapses of that nature.  “Oh, I’m dancing the first waltz!  I forgot all about this!” said one fair lady, as she looked ruefully at her star.

A Leap Year Ball, Utah, 1896

Off to the land of the Mormons for a leap year ball in the exciting community of Roweville, a town in northern Utah so small it barely exists even now, when it has been renamed Bothwell.  In 1896, it was a small farming community founded only two years before. 

The ball was held on Friday, January 17, 1896, but coverage of the ball appeared in the Brigham City Bugler two weeks later, apparently submitted by a local correspondent who signed herself

The Duchess.
Roweville, Utah, Jan. 24, 1896.

I'd like to know the story behind that title!

The "Grand Ball" was proclaimed the first leap year party ever held in Roweville, which of course had not even existed four years before.  It was held in the schoolhouse with "a part of the Bear River Orchestra" to provide the music for dancing under the guidance of an experienced floor manager, Mr. August Nichols, Jr., and was said to be well-attended.  The dance program was not given in the article, but the company danced until one in the morning, ate supper until two, then continued dancing until five.  I admire their endurance.

A Leap Year Ball, Oklahoma, 1896

It's leap year, it's leap month, and it's time to look at more descriptions of leap year balls!

First up, a ball held in Enid, Oklahoma, on Friday, January 17, 1896.  Note that leap year balls, while concentrated in the beginning of the year because it was the middle of the social season and leap year was a new and exciting element to play with, were not necessarily held on Leap Day, or even in February.

Enid had only been founded a few years earlier, in 1893, during a "Land Run" in which former Cherokee land was opened to settler claims.  It grew rapidly, supposedly reaching over four thousand people within a year.  These details and more about its history may be found here.

This was a classic leap year ball:

When once in four years the flight of time gives one more day to the month that withesseth the birth of G. Washington, Esq., it brings with it a custom long established of awarding to the ladies the rights and prerogatives that at all other times belong exclusively to the gentlemen.

February 2024 Gig Calendar

The end of winter is in (distant) sight. and I am slowly ramping up travel again as we hopefully pass out of peak-respiratory-illness season.  But I still expect to spend most of February quietly at home muttering over translations from several languages.

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Tuesday, February 6th ~ Cambridge, Massachusetts (Boston area)
Bluesy Tuesy (Facebook page) (Facebook group) (Facebook event)
7:30-10:00pm (plus).  Lesson (not me - I don't teach blues!) from 7:30-8:30, then I will be DJing blues from 8:30 until at least 10:00, possibly longer if the dance floor is full!  Indoors with an air cleaner going; masks required (N95 preferred).  Sliding scale donation, $5 to $20.  Volunteers get free admission!

 

Thursday-Friday, February 22nd-23rd ~ ONLINE (Pennsylvania)
Early Dance Symposium 2024: New Work on Old Dance: A Pre-1800 Dance Studies Symposium
Academic conference.  I will be presenting a paper on manuscript annotations in different copies of John Essex's 1710 translation of Feuillet as part of the Saturday morning session.  This is an updated version of the paper I presented in January at the British Society for Eighteenth Century Studies 53rd Annual Conference “Work and Play”.  The full program is available here.  Registration (free!) is open.

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I am available to travel for in-person dance teaching, lecturing, and ball precepting, pandemic permitting.  I am also still available for private or group online lessons and talks via Skype or Zoom (or your videoconferencing software of choice).  Please email me directly if you would like to schedule an event or workshop!

Coming in March: a waltz weekend in Boston and a lecture for a university alumni group.