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.
Specifically, that meant that:
- the ladies (of the dancing club) "gave" (organized) the ball
- ladies invited the gentlemen and "took them" to the ball
- all dances were ladies' choice; the gentlemen lined up around the walls and the ladies circulated to sign their dance cards
- the ladies sought out their partners for each dance, waited on them, and seated them after each dance
All of this is very much according to standard procedure for balls of this kind. The ladies were bashful at first at their new roles; the gentlemen adapted with "nonchalance".
Sadly, the prompter for the ball probably was not female, or it would have been explicitly stated, but he seems to have played along properly:
an expert prompter was present, who always said “seat the gents” at the end of a quadrille.
The ball itself was not large: in the article the number is given as "a dozen and a half" women, which, from the list of thirty-seven names included, seems almost exactly right. Invitations were limited to members of a particular dancing club and a few others, so it did not reflect Enid's growing population in the mid-1890s.
There were twenty dances, but, sadly, no dance program was printed in the article, so we have no idea what they were, though we can guess that they probably included waltz, polka, schottische, quadrilles, and perhaps some contra dances. The dance ended at midnight after a chorus of "After the Ball" was sung.
A full transcription of the article is below.
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The Enid Daily Wave (Enid, Oklahoma)
Saturday, January 18, 1896
p. 3
THAT LEAP YEAR BALL.
———
And How Well the Girls Did Do!
Leap year brings with it a round of pleasures that stand unexcelled upon the lists of social entertainments. 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.
In accordance with this custom, the young ladies of the dancing club, and a few especially invited ones, issued invitations to the gentlemen members and friends, requesting the privilege of being allowed to accompany them to a leap year party they were going to give on Friday evening at the hall. The invitations were accepted in every instance, and when last night came the ladies started out with palpitating hearts, but with a determination to make it a success. Following is the “who took who:”
Clara Ermine—S. B. Evans.
Allie Paradis—Dwight Wilcox.
Antonette McAtee—E. Watrous.
Luzelle Wittemeyer—John Young.
Lulu Clampitt.—R. Kennedy.
Ora Long—P. W. Railey.
Dora Russell—E. R. Brownlee.
Callie Chandler—P. V. Kelly, of Kingfisher.
Irene Menzies, of Kingfisher,—Pat Wilcox.
Laura Best, of North Enid,—Ret Millard.
Leva Billings, of North Enid—Will Kennedy.
Maggie Zimmerman, of Luyella,—Frank Pemberton.
Dora McLaughlin—C. H. Greer.
Edna Isenberg—W. E. Cogdal.
Mrs. and Mr. J. M. Dodson.
" " " I. G. Conkling.
" " " W. T. Ecks.
" " " H. H. Champlin and Alice Wise.
At an early hour everybody had arrived and printed “order of dances” were distributed, to which were attached a P. S., as it were, to the effect that the dances were to be all ladies’ choice, and forthwith the gentlemen lined up around the room and the girls set about placing samples of their chirography on the programs to suit themselves, and by the time each of the dozen-and-a-half girls was through with “your program, please” the boys rightly concluded there would be no rest for them that evening. The dance began and the role of going after partners, thanking them and otherwise waiting upon the gents, instead of, as usual, being the recipients of the most of attention, was new and rather embarrassing to the girls, but we all did “just charming,” they said, and the gentlemen permitted themselves to be waited upon with a nonchalance that was truly amusing.
The list of twenty dances was carried out to the letter, the music furnished by Messrs. Miles and Burr was excellent, and an expert prompter was present, who always said “seat the gents” at the end of a quadrille.
The dancing ceased at the midnight hour, everybody joining in the chorus of “After the Ball,” with the orchestra, which, with so many good voices, particularly male, united, made a harmonious, gladsome finale for what was voted the most enjoyable social event of the season.
Iconoclasts are after Santa Claus, reformers are trying to abolish Christmas and the Fourth of July, but if anyone ever tries to destroy leap year, he will meet with a sudden and fatal accident that may land him on the “Dark Plutonian Shore.”
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