Capering & Kickery

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.

Dance Card: United Six, 1879

And...here's the "United Six" dance card that inspired me to write about "Roy's Wife"!

The back of the card (click to enlarge) gives the printer as "Danvers Mirror Print", a printing company located in Danvers, Massachusetts (formerly Salem Village, of the famous Salem witchcraft trials) in the late nineteenth century.  The date on the front of the card, April 2, 1879, called "Fast Eve" confirms the Massachusetts connection -- in 1879, April third was proclaimed Fast Day, a day of "fasting, humiliation, and prayer" by then-Governor Thomas Talbot.  His original proclamation may be seen at the Boston Atheneum Digital Collections. 

Sadly, there is no further information about the location of the ball on the card, and I have not been inspired to do a lengthy search.  When the card was originally posted on Facebook, it was speculated that the ball was held by six local Masonic Lodges; I have no evidence one way or the other for that.

Fast Days in the young United States could be proclaimed anytime, but a springtime Fast Day was an ongoing tradition in many New England states in the nineteenth century.  The day was officially religious in nature, and at least one Fast Day sermon from 1879, "The Future of New England", by noted minister Edward Everett Hale of the South Congregational Church. was later published and may be read here.

Not everyone's mind was solely focused on religion, however.  The Pilot, a Boston-area Catholic newspaper, reported on March 22nd that the St. Mary's Young Men's Temperance Society, Bunker Hill District, would hold "an interesting exhibition of gymnastics on Fast Day" and on April 12th that members of St. Augustine's Lyceum had held a "Pedestrian Contest", a series of footraces, that day.  In 1894, Massachusetts, perhaps bowing to the inevitable, converted Fast Day into Patriot's Day (April 19th), commemorating several battles -- most famously, those of Lexington and Concord.

A Leap Year Ball, Nevada, 1880

Moving back to the frontier, specifically to Carson City, Nevada, this is my absolute favorite of my little collection of leap year ball descriptions.  The ball was held on Friday, January 30, 1880, and the description published in the Morning Appeal on Saturday, January 31, 1880.  It apparently went to press while the ball was still in progress, but that did not prevent it from being one of the lengthiest writeups of a leap year ball that I've yet found.

The absolute highlight of the article is the following of the same convention as at the 1892 Providence leap year ball: only the "escorted sex" got their outfits described.  In this case, that meant the men, the "gentlemanly belles".

But before getting to the funny part, let's look at the background.

A Leap Year Ball, Wyoming, 1888

Continuing to roam around the late nineteenth century American frontier, where a surprising number of newspaper descriptions of leap year balls originate, here are some excerpts from a burbling account of a ball in the small town of Douglas, Wyoming.  Like Sun River, it was founded in 1867 and was probably extremely small.  The 1890 Wyoming census recorded only 2,988 people in all of Converse County.  The ball was described on page five of Bill Barlow's Budget on Wednesday, February 8, 1888, as having taken place the previous Friday evening.  The newspaper title is interesting; more about the paper and its colorful founder, Merris C. Barrow, may be found at the Wyoming Historical Society's Wyohistory site.

The ball was held at the Douglas opera house and was described as "the most successful and enjoyable affair of its kind in the history of Douglas."  Balls are generally described in newspapers as successful unless some sort of disaster occurs, but in a town whose history stretched back only two decades, it might actually have been true.

Leap year elements:

• the committees were all-female: five married women for invitations, five for reception, three unmarried and two married women for "floor", and two married women for finance (the ball had a $5 surplus)
• invitations were issued to ladies for "yourself and gentlemen"
• ladies "attended to every detail of the ball and supper"
• no gentlemen ("male biped") was allowed unattended on the floor
• a gentleman suggesting refreshments for his lady was given a "stony stare"

A Leap Year Ball, Montana, 1876

On Monday, February 14th, 1876, the ladies of the frontier town of Sun River, Montana, held a leap year ball, as recorded a few days later in The Benton Record.  Sun River had been established less than a decade before, in 1867, and probably wasn't very large at the time -- the entire population of Montana was under 40,000 as of the 1880 census, and it had not yet been admitted to statehood.  According to Montana census records, the population of all of Chouteau County (which I believe Sun River was part of before Cascade County was split off) was 3,058 in 1880.

The frontier location is relevant: there apparently was, unsurprisingly, a surplus of men in the area, putting the women in a more powerful position regarding courtship and marriage than they might otherwise have enjoyed.  Women living in a small settlement in Montana were also probably strong characters to begin with; it wouldn't have been an easy life.

The article describing the ball was headlined "The Bells [sic] of Sun River" with subheadings including "Lady Beaux" and "How She Did It".

Thinking about the Four Step

Original photo: Barry Lewis

The photo at left (click to enlarge) was taken in June, 2018, at the Laws Railroad Museum and Historic Site in Bishop, California.  I've cropped it to focus on the dance program board shown, which is hanging in the music room there.  It gives a program that probably dates from around 1910.  Most of the dances were well-known couple dances, plus (of course!) the quadrille, which was probably the first set or a called quadrille.  I've discussed some of the others, such as the Rye Waltz, the Newport, and some versions of the Paul Jones, on Kickery in the past.  There's some mystery about what exactly would have been danced for the minuet -- the Oxford Minuet?  One of the  choreographed "waltz minuets"?  A Menuet de la Cour? 

But to me, the most interesting puzzle on there is what exactly was meant by a "Four Step".

In the 1900s and early 1910s, there were sequences called the four-step in several different dances -- a four-step Boston, a four-step grapevine, a four-step in the tango, etc.  I don't really envision any of those to have been listed as a separate dance, however.  Noted dance historian Richard Powers stated in a Facebook comment on the photo that the four-step was an early name for the one-step, though I don't know how common that usage was, since I have not come across it myself.  But it's not the only possibility.  Let's look at a few of the others!

Mrs. Underwood's Reception and Exhibition, 1901

This dance program is a bit unusual: it's not for a ball in the usual sense, but for a dance teacher's "reception and exhibition", which in this case means an evening that starts with a bit of social dancing, then breaks for a children's dance recital, then continues on with more social dancing.  This was a common mix for dance school recitals; numerous descriptions of similar events  were published in the pages of the dance masters' journal The Director in 1897-1898.  For example, George Prutting's sixteenth annual exhibition and reception, held on April 22, 1898, in Hartford, Connecticut, started with children's exhibition dances and ended with a social program of sixteen dances, "including the waltz, two step, schottische, lancers, etc." (The Director, Vol. 1, No. 6, May 1898, p. 186).  Mrs. Underwood's reception, held on February 15, 1901, actually had three separate dance programs: an initial set of social dances probably performed just by the students, the exhibition or "fancy" dances, and the social dances for "general dancing" at the end of the evening.

Shaler's Brigade Reunion Ball, 1888

On June 14, 1888, The New York Times reported that the members of the Shaler's Brigade Association, a Civil War brigade under the leadership of General Alexander Shaler, had the previous day dedicated four monuments at the field of Gettysburg.  The dedication was part of a twenty-five-year reunion (since the Battle of Gettysburg) for surviving members of the brigade.  The event was described in extensive detail (almost two hundred pages of it) in Shaler's Brigade. Survivors of the Sixth Corps. Reunion and monument dedications, at Gettysburg, June 12th, 13th and 14th, 1888, from which the quotations below are taken.  More about Shaler's command and its activities during the battle may be found in Shaler's Wikipedia biography.

Of interest to dance history is that on the evening of June 13th, after dedicating the monuments, a ball and reception were held:  

...at 9 P. M. all wended their way from headquarters to the Rink Building, a large, commodious structure, where was being held the grand Complimentary Ball and Reception, tendered by the 23d Pennsylvania, in honor of the event. The ball-room was appropriately decorated for the occasion, with two stages erected at opposite sides of the room, for the Bands; while, from the front of the building was a transparency, emblazoned with the legend, "The 23d Pennsylvania Welcomes Shaler's Brigade and their Friends."  One hundred and fifty written invitations had been sent to the good people of Gettysburg, inviting "Yourself and ladies" to the Camp-fire, the Dedication and the Complimentary Ball and Reception, and when Colonel John F. Glenn, as Grand Conductor of the Ball, led off in the Grand March, with his good wife, there followed at least twelve hundred people— some four hundred ladies being in the line; the G. A. R. Band, of Gettysburg, playing the dancing music, while the McKnightstown Cornet Band gave the promenades, so that music was in the air a tall times. An original, unique and very appropriate ball program was distributed, containing thirty-six dances, wherein are the names of the regiments of the brigade, its winter camps, and actions in which it had participated were embraced, as a souvenir of the occasion; the ladies receiving a specially decorated one in silken corded pencil and bow of ribbon. Everybody got one to carry home, while two thousand handsome programs proper, containing the dances and promenades, were passed around for use in the festivities. (pp. 89-90)

Of particular note:

• That's an enormous attendance, and the gender imbalance is fascinating: at least twelve hundred people in the Grand March, but only four hundred ladies?  Were all the rest men marching together?  That seems appropriate for soldiers, but around four hundred extra men at a ball?  Wow...
  
  
• Alternating dancing and promenading, with a different band for each, was a fairly common ball format in late nineteenth-century America.  I have seen many dance cards with this format.

• The dual programs: one as a souvenir, and one to take home.  That sounds practical, doesn't it?  But it's complicated!

Balls at Portsmouth, 1865

Late in the summer of 1865, the French and British navies exchanged formal visits, with a British fleet visit to Cherbourg followed by a reciprocal French visit to Portsmouth.  In the latter town, two balls were held, both documented in engravings and written coverage by, among others, the Illustrated London News.  The image at left (click to enlarge) illustrates the ball held on Thursday, August 31st, 1865, in a "grand pavilion erected for the entertainments on Governor’s Green."  ("Illustrations of the Naval Festival at Portsmouth." Illustrated London News (London, England), Issue 1333, Saturday, September 9, 1865).  More detailed coverage a week later explained that the ball was held in

one of Edgington’s tents, 138 ft. long and 36 ft. wide, floored over, and lined with crimson and white cloth, also decorated with flags and coloured lamps.  At the upper end, behind the Mayor’s chair, was a bust of the Emperor Napoleon, above a shield bearing the arms of the town of Portsmouth, with the Mayor’s chain and badge.  On his right hand were the Royal arms of Great Britain, supported by the standards of France, with the Imperial and British crowns.  On his left hand were the arms of France, supported by the Royal standards of England and of the Prince of Wales.  At the opposite end of the room were an exquisitely-designed waterfall, fountain, and cascade, intermixed with choice ferns and evergreens — the rockwork before formed of blocks of coal, gilt...The company numbered about 2000 ladies and gentlemen, and the great majority of the latter wore naval or military uniforms, while the ladies, of course, were very richly and gaily dressed.  They presented, while dancing, a splendid as well as a lively and animated sight.
    -- "Illustrations of the Anglo-French Naval Festival at Portsmouth."  Illustrated London News (London, England), Issue 1334, Saturday, September 16, 1865.

Dance Card: Henrietta Club, 1890

I purchased this beautiful dance card while living in Russia and thus didn't get to see its full splendor until I arrived home.  It doesn't add a whole lot to my overall knowledge of late-nineteenth-century American dance, but every little tidbit helps, and the outside art is just gorgeous -- click the image at left to enlarge it for a closer look!

The card is from a ball held at a Pickwick Hall on Thursday, December 11th, 1890, by the Henrietta Club.  No city or state is given, and the USA appears to have been full of Henrietta Clubs in the late nineteenth century, but from the internal evidence, I am fairly certain it is from St. Louis:

First, the music was provided by Steinkuehlers [sic] Orchestra.  In the St. Louis publication Kunkel's Music Review, Volume 15, No. 1, 1892, William Steinkuehler advertises himself as a violin teacher and the leader of Steinkuehler's Orchestra.  His "card" may be seen about halfway down the left-hand column on page 11 of the January, 1892, issue, here. 

Second, there was a Henrietta Club actively holding balls at a Pickwick Hall in St. Louis in the early 1890s, as chronicled by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:  "The Henrietta Club will give an elegant hop at Pickwick Hall in October..." (Thursday, September 24, 1891, p. 3), "The Henrietta Club have a handsome Invitation out for one of their elegant dancing parties to be given at the Pickwick Thursday evening, Nov. 19..." (Sunday, November 1, 1891, p. 10), etc.

Dance Program: Elmer Fife's Grand Ball, 1886

I don't actually own this dance card; it escaped me on ebay some time ago.  But I managed to grab the helpfully-posted images before they vanished.  It is not a very prepossessing card; it appears to be a simple folded piece of cardstock with black and white printing inside and out.  The inside of the card is at left.  The outside, below, features a simple but attractive front cover design of geometric shapes surrounding a bird in a lightly-sketched landscape.

What makes this card interesting to me is that it is not really a dance card for use at an actual ball.  Notice how there are no spaces to fill in partners' names?  Enlarge the inside of the card and in the fine print you'll see "We respectfully solicit your company for the above occasion", said occasion being a "Grand Ball!" to be given by Elmer Fife at Moore's Hall on Wednesday, January 27th, 1886.  The card is actually an invitation, or possibly an advertisement, depending on how it was distributed.  The final line on the left, "None but respected parties will be admitted to the ball" hints to me that it was not a very exclusive list.  And I am amused by the larger-font assurance that there will be "GOOD MUSIC".  Overall, this card reminds me most of the 1917 Ocean View Amusement Park card I posted several years ago.

Larchmont Engine Company Ball, 1901

The first ball of the Larchmont (NY) Engine Company was held on Wednesday, April 17, 1901, as reported in The Larchmont Times on Saturday, April 20th.  Like the Wichita fireman's ball given in 1903, it heavily featured waltz, "deux temps" (which I believe to be two-step, rather than the older deux temps), and quadrilles, with a few other popular nineteenth century dances mixed in.  It's a bit more old-fashioned a program compared to Wichita's, which fits since it's a couple of years earlier and not as far along toward the "all waltz and two-step" programs sometimes found a few years later.  The image at left is courtesy of the Larchmont Historical Society; which has the whole front page of the newspaper up on its website. I've made the page available for download here.   (Edited 6/21/24 to remove the dead website link and add the link to LHS and the downloadable image.) 

Here's the dance list transcribed for readability:

Part First -- Grand March, Lanciers, Waltz, Deux Temps, Quadrille Waltz, Polka, Schottische, La Varsouvienne, Waltz, Lanciers, Deux Temps, Waltz.

Part Second -- Grand March, Quadrille, Waltz, Lanciers, Polka, Caledonian, Deux Temps, Schottische, Reel and Jig, Waltz, Deux Temps, Virginia Reel, Home Sweet Home.

That doesn't actually seem like a whole lot of dances for a ball that lasted from nine to midnight, then commenced again after supper and continued until "an early hour", but it's all we've got to go by.  Perhaps they took generous breaks between dances; I've seen dance programs where the dances all had dedications which probably involved toasts and speeches.

Firemen's Ball, Wichita, 1903

It's been quite some time since I discussed a dance card or program.  The image at left is not from an actual card, but rather an advance publication of a program of dances taken from a local newspaper.  The event was a Firemen's Ball, to be held in Wichita, Kansas, on Thursday, December 17th, 1903.  A short article and this program were published in the Wichita Daily Eagle on the previous Sunday, December 13th.

Firemen's balls were rather common, presumably serving as fundraisers, but they seem not to have been that popular in Wichita; the accompanying article noted that this would be the second such ball held by the department in twelve years, which does not exactly demonstrate a mania for dancing.  It seems to have been expected to be successful, however.  Although the "fireboys" had not had much time to sell tickets, since they were on duty night and day except for meal breaks, they had still managed to sell between three and four hundred.

The location of the ball was not specified, but the article did note that that the hall would be "handsomely decorated with palms and cut flowers by a committee appointed for that purpose", that Bamberger's orchestra (C. O. Alton, director) had been engaged, and that Professor Hartman would officiate as floor master.  The grand march would be led by Chief Walden and Mrs. Walden, and "the fireboys will no doubt prove as efficient in the dancing area as they are in the department work."

The program, shown in a scan from microfilm at left above (click to enlarge; sorry about the poor quality), is interesting to me mostly because it includes no fewer than four five-steps, meaning five-step schottisches.  That's quite a lot of five-step for a program with only twenty-two dances!

Prince Leopold's Birthday Ball, 1859

One of the most charming descriptions of a fancy dress ball in my collection is that of the event held at Buckingham Palace in honor of the sixth birthday of Queen Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold, on April 7, 1859.  This was a juvenile, or children's, ball, but, as we know from descriptions of the dancing lessons given to Victoria's children, the level of dancing skill even at young ages was considerably higher than one would expect from children today.  That said, it's not clear to me whether the youngest children really danced all the dances or whether that was left to the older ones, or perhaps the parents.

The description I have was printed in The Albion, A Journal of News, Politics and Literature, on April 30, 1859.  The Albion was a weekly New York newspaper that covered British matters extensively and was read by expatriates.  The description was probably copied directly from a London newspaper.

What a difference a few years makes!

That the repertoire of popular ballroom dances changed dramatically in the first half of the 1910s is not news, but it's always nice to find this transition neatly illustrated by actual dance programs.  I recently had the opportunity to look at a pair of dance cards for two balls held at St. Lawrence University, a private university in northern New York State.  Separated by three and a half years, late 1911 to mid-1915, the two cards neatly bracket the rapid transition from the fading of the nineteenth-century dances to the new dances of the later ragtime era.  

The first card, the outside of which is shown at left (click to enlarge), is actually made of loose-leaf sheets bound by small rings between metal plates with the arms of the Beta Theta Pi fraternity in relief on the front cover.  The card is small, less than two inches tall.  Inside, the title page proclaims that it is from the thirty-sixth annual ball of the fraternity's Beta Zeta chapter, which took place on December 8, 1911, in the St. Lawrence University Gymnasium.

The program for the ball was typical of the first decade of the twentieth century: a grand march followed by twenty-four dances equally divided between waltz and two-step.  Four possible extras are also listed, also equally divided.  Tunes are given, and while I have not traced them all, some are immediately recognizable: "Alexander's Rag Time Band", "Naughty Marietta", "Il Trovatore", etc.  The grand march tune was the well-known "National Emblem", a 1914 recording of which may be heard here.  

With its dominance by only two dances, this card is very similar to the 1906 and 1910 cards I have previously posted, and I've no new observations to make about this mix of dances.

The second card, shown at right (click to enlarge), is again a set of loose sheets bound with metal rings between hard covers, this time in what appears to be Bakelite.  The arms of St. Lawrence University are at lower right, and there is a red and white cord and tassel.  Once again, the card is tiny, just a couple of inches wide.  The event was the Senior Ball on May 20, 1915.

The program for this event was quite different: a grand march, seven one-steps, seven waltzes, three hesitations, a foxtrot, and two circle two-steps.  Lines for four extras are given, but the dances are not specified.  The grand march tune was once again "National Emblem", and "Il Trovatore" reappeared among the waltzes.  Also notable are "Ballin' the Jack" for the foxtrot and "Cecile" for a hesitation; both tunes are still popular in historical dance communities today.

This is a much more interesting program from both a dancer's and a historian's perspective.  One-step and waltz dominate, with a single foxtrot representing the very latest popular dance.  The split between "waltzes" and "hesitations" suggests that there were slower waltzes along with the high-speed ones necessary to make hesitations work smoothly.  There is no sign of the tango or maxixe; perhaps they were too difficult or too scandalous, or simply not well-known in a small town far removed from the population centers of New York and Boston.  The circle two-steps are likely to have been "Paul Jones" type mixers similar to the Round Two-Step.

Both of these cards were used, and while there is no overlap in the names listed as organizers or written in as partners, it is interesting to speculate that the attendees might have included some of the same students.

The images above of the two dance cards are courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library at the University of Toronto.

Butchers and Drovers Ball, 1842

I finally got to spend some time recently looking through Philadelphia newspaper microfilms, investigating the mysterious (and unlikely) "Cauliflower Chemi" appearing on the 1842 Butchers and Drovers Ball program transcribed by Charles K. Jones in his 2006 biography of Francis Johnson. 

I was able to find the newspaper announcement with the ball program in the pages of Philadelphia's Public Ledger (Vol. XII, No. 139, February 28, 1842).  

Printing from a very tiny newspaper ad on a low-resolution microfilm which only gets blurrier when enlarged does not produce very good results, so I can see why Jones, lacking a dance background, had trouble figuring out the names of dances.  After a lot of squinting, I was able to determine that "Chemi" was actually "Cheat", which makes considerably more sense.  The full line reads:

4. Cauliflower.  Cheat.

Both are popular "promiscuous figures", which could be substituted in for other figures in a quadrille or, apparently, danced as independent figures one or two at a time.  I'm not sure I've ever seen such direct evidence of that on a dance program before.

Since the image from the microfilm is next to useless, I'm going to retranscribe the full program, then talk a little about it below.

Dance Card: A Leap Year Ball, 1888

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!

Dance Card: Washington, D.C., 1880 (with bonus Glide Polka!)

The beautiful dance card pictured at right (click to enlarge) went by me on ebay almost two years ago, but the seller kindly uploaded a full set of pictures, inside and out, which I carefully downloaded for future reference.  The rest of the images may be found further down this post.

The event for which the card was designed was L. G. Marini's 21st Annual Floral May Festival and Ball, held at Marini's Hall, Washington, D.C., on Thursday, May 20, 1880.  The card is unused.

The dance program, alas, was quite banal, a standard late nineteenth century mix of waltzes (seven), the Lancers (four), a galop, and two polkas.  The ball was begun with an aria from Bellini, and the music given for each dance is by well-known composers such as Strauss, Weingarten, Planquette, and Weigand.  There were seven dances plus the aria before intermission and seven after.  No grand march is mentioned.

I'd held off posting this card for so long because I couldn't really think of much to say about it except that the cover illustrations were charming and that it specifically mentioned that refreshments were to be served from 10:00 to midnight, though it neglected to give the actual time of the ball.  

But there is one minor detail of note: the first polka, to a tune from Faust, is listed as "Polka (Glide)".  The other polka is just plain "Polka".  Why the difference?

There is a polka variation called the Glide Polka which appears in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890) and a few other sources including, oddly enough, several physical education manuals going well into the twentieth century.  

It's very rare for any specific dance variation to be mentioned on a dance card.  So while we can't be perfectly certain that the Glide Polka described in Gilbert is what was meant, even the chance that it is documenting the use of that variation makes this card notable.

So let's talk about the Glide Polka!

Programming a Ball, 1896

The American periodical Harper's Bazaar was started in 1867 by the company Harper & Brothers as a weekly fashion magazine.  It is well-known to those interested in nineteenth-century costume for its beautiful, highly detailed fashion plates and still exists today as a glossy monthly magazine.

On February 22, 1896, Harper's Bazaar published a short article entitled "Fashionable Dances of the Day" that gave advice to anyone constructing a program for a ball, based on what was fashionable in New York City at the time:

those [dances] which are the most popular here in New York, for instance, are universally recognized as the dances correct for any entertainment which may be given elsewhere

New York attitudes appear not to have changed in the slightest in the last century.

Dance Card: West Haven High School, 1910

I'm always happy to find dance ephemera from my home state of Connecticut, and this dance card is particularly local: it's from a 1910 Junior-Senior Dance at West Haven High School, whose current incarnation is less than ten miles away.  Today is the last day of classes for WHHS, though I don't think it's in the same building as in 1910.  In celebration, let's talk about what the students there were up to 104 years ago. 

West Haven was settled in 1648 and was the landing site for a British attack during the Revolutionary War.  In 1910, it was not yet an independent town but a part of neighboring Orange.  The "Informal" Junior and Senior Dance for the classes of 1910 and 1911 took place on Friday, June 17th, 1910 at West Haven Town Hall. 

This is a used card, with the last names of partners scrawled in pencil next to most of the dances.  I would have guessed this to be a girl's card since there are only last names with no "Miss" attached to them.  However, the name "Arthur" is written above the dance list; possibly this is the card owner's name.

Dance Card: Sons of Veterans, 1894

At left is a dance card for a "Grand Easter Ball" held on Tuesday, March 27, 1894, by a local Sons of Veterans chapter in Middletown, New York.  That's actually a couple of days after Easter (March 25th that year), but I suppose they could hardly hold a ball during Holy Week itself.  Midweek balls seem to have been surprisingly common in the nineteenth century, judging from ball invitations and dance cards I've examined.

The Sons of Veterans was a youth organization (14 and up, with a junior branch for ages 6-14) for the sons of veterans of the Civil War.  It was formed in 1881 as a combination fraternal order and paramilitary training group.  By 1890 it had over 100,000 members.  More informaton about the group may be found on Wikipedia or on the webpage of its descendant organization, the Sons of Union Veterans of the Civil War.  The two pages conflict on some points about the early history of the Sons of Veterans -- there seem to have been some organizational politics with the veteran's organization -- but I am not sufficiently curious to research the details myself.

In 1894 the original teenage members would have been young men in their twenties, a very suitable age group for holding a ball.

The front of the card depicts a young soldier holding a rifle with bayonet.  I am no expert on military uniforms, so I can't say whether the uniform represents (accurately or otherwise) a Civil War soldier, a soldier of 1894, or perhaps the Sons of Veterans' own uniform.  The general look is similar to the soldier on the left in this New York Public Library image, which shows soldiers from 1881-1903.  I will leave it open to any experts who want to chime in on this topic in the comments.

The back of the card shows the Sons of Veterans medal with the organization's name in Latin.

The card is generally in good shape, despite a blot on the front and someone having scribbled on the back of it.  There is no attached pencil, but the cord and tassel survive.  The card was never used.

Dance Card: Ocean View Amusement Park, 1917

The dance card at left (click to enlarge) is an interesting one: rather than being for a private event, it is from a public dance hall, the Dance Pavilion at the Ocean View Amusement Park, Norfolk, Virginia, which was one of the first amusement parks in the United States.  Sadly, I do not own this card myself; it slipped by on eBay and is now in unknown hands. 

The card is printed in monochrome, with a small picture of the Dance Pavilion.  No orchestra or dance leader is mentioned, only the name of the company that owned the amusement park and its owner, Otto Wells.  In keeping with its commercial nature, there is actually an advertisement on the inside.  On the back of the card is a note that "objectionable dancing" is "positively prohibited", an admonition which would be unnecessary at a private ball but a potential problem at an event open to the general public, and directions to the check room; ladies' retiring room; and gentlemen's smoking room.  The card is not for a specific evening's event, but instead is a generic dance program for any evening of the 1917 season. Written in pencil at the top of the front page is the date "Saturday, June 9, 1917".

There is no sign of any attachment point for a pencil.

Dance Cards: Solon, Maine, 1918-1919

Pictured at left (click to enlarge) are two dance cards which I purchased as a set.  The first is clearly as the card as the Programme from the Annual Alumni Ball of Solon High School held on June 23, 1918.  Music was provided by Lyon's Orchestra, and the location was Caratunk Hall.  There are several Solons in the United States, but the hall name enabled me to trace this card to a tiny town in western Maine. 

Caratunk Hall, built in 1840, was named after the Caratunk Falls, and was standing at least through 2005 as the "Solon Flea Market".  The card is printed in color, and a green cord and tassel for an attached pencil are still present.

Dance Card: Y.M.P.S. Masquerade Ball, 1900

Here's a dance card from a ball given in Wisconsin on February 10, 1900, placing it halfway between two cards I had previously posted (from 1894 and 1906).  The name of the town is cut off by damage to the card, but I'd guess it to be Westboro.  The sponsoring organization is the Y.M.P.S.  The card is printed in red with an American flag in blue (click the images at left to enlarge).  The red pencil cord is still attached, though the pencil itself is long gone.

The card evidently belonged to a lady, since the first half of the card is filled with men's names.  Most appear to be in the same handwriting and it's interesting to see that some partners are recorded by first name ("Richard") others with an honorific ("Mr. LaBeau") and others with both first and last names or initials ("Otto Rindt", "Frank H.").  Frank and Richard seem to have been particularly favored partners, having received two dances each, though Frank got two quadrilles while Richard enjoyed a waltz and a polka.  The back cover is covered with mathematical scribbles -- perhaps she used it as scratch paper later.

The dance mix on the card is typical of the late nineteenth century: seven quadrilles, five waltzes (including the final "Home Sweet Home"), three polkas, two two-steps, one schottische, the Virginia Reel, the Fireman's Dance, and a Grand March

Of particular interest are the two two-steps, a newly popular dance which appears not at all on the 1894 card but, in alternation with the waltz, dominates the 1906 one, and the interesting placement of the Grand March as the ninth dance out of the twenty-one on the card, with the first dance being a quadrille.  This might be because the card is from a masquerade (costume) ball, and such balls were sometimes opened with a special Fancy Quadrille, as described on Kickery's companion blog, Historical Fancy Dress, in which a group of dancers with costumes matching a particular theme would perform:

At some fancy balls quadrilles are arranged beforehand, in which all the dancers are to be dressed after the fashion of some particular period.  One of these quadrilles should open the ball, and others may be interspersed in the programme at irregular intervals.

      -- Armstrong, Lucie.  The Ball-Room Guide.  London and New York: Frederick Warne & Co., c1880s.

 

The English Liked to Waltz

A telegraph from London updates Americans on the early twentieth-century dance scene in London:

Waltz Popular in London

    London, Jan. 2. -- The lancers, quadrille, polka, and mazurka, once popular dances, have now almost disappeared from the ball programmes of fashionable London.  The American two-step to some extent has taken the place of the polka, but the dance most in favor is the waltz, which, according to an Italian expert, the English people seem to dance like persons in a dream, so slowly is the time usually taken.

    --- The New York Times, January 3, 1909

English dance teachers felt that this state of affairs called for high-level assistance, as a later article alerts New Yorkers:

Thinks Waltz Overdone
English Teachers Want King to Lead in Introducing Other Dances

    London, March 13. -- R. N. Compton, President of the Imeperial Society of Dance Teachers, has appealed to the king to assist the movement for breaking the exclusive popularity of the waltz.  He says:

    "If the King would command that one new dance be included in the programme of each State ball he would set a vogue for all the ballrooms of the kingdom.  The mazurka, schottische, polka, and waltz cotillion all have their places in a properly balanced programme, and on such occasions of ceremony as a State ball arranged in honor of some distinguished visitor I would suggest that some one should arrange to provide dances of a former period, as was done at the ball given by the Kaiser in Berlin in honor of the King.  The gavotte, minuet, and pavane suggest themselves, and, in addition, a new dance which would become the dance of the year."

    The last State ball, on July 10, was made up as follows: Waltzes, 10; quadrilles, 3; polkas, 2; galops, 1.  Mr. Compton suggests instead: Waltzes, 6; quadrilles, 2; polkas, 2; mazurka, 1; polonaise, 1; schottische, 1 or 2; two-step, 1; waltz-minuet, 1; and a new dance, 1.

    --- The New York Times, March 14, 1909

Top-down dictation of dance popularity has never worked out all that well, and within a few years most of these dances -- with the notable exception of the waltz -- would be thoroughly out of favor as the new ragtime dances became popular.

Also notice that Mr. Compton quietly slid a waltz-minuet into his suggested ball programme.  I'm sure the fact that he choreographed a waltz-minuet of his own had nothing to do with this...

Both articles are  © The New York Times, though 1909 articles would be out of copyright in the U.S. by now.  Click the article titles to be taken to the original articles in the invaluable The New York Times archive.

Dance Card: 1906

Here's another interesting dance card which, combined with the 1894 one I posted back in August, perfectly illustrates the final collapse in popularity of most of the nineteenth-century dances by first decade of the twentieth century.  While the waltz survives and the recently popular two-step holds its own...that's it.  The entire Order of Dances on the card consists of alternating waltzes and two-steps.  Click the image to see the list more closely.  There is provision for four unspecified extra dances at the end, but otherwise it's a monotonous alternation of those two dances. 

You can see why the Turkey Trot and then the one-step were considered a welcome change of pace!

The card was printed by "Jaccard" in Kansas City, Missouri, and appears to be from a fraternity or sorority ball, judging from the Greek letters in the small red logo on the front cover (again, click to enlarge).  It is helpfully dated 1906 in a large monogram above.  The white cord for the pencil survives, though the pencil itself is long gone.

While modern custom attaches the cord through a hole punched in an upper corner, this one has the cord knotted around the fold.

Edited 10/19/10 to add:

Karen Ann in the comments writes:

Phi Lambda Epsilon was founded February 12, 1892 at Clinton Academy, Missouri. There are currently seven extant chapters. It is described as a "national educational fraternity."

 

Dance Card: Las Vegas Benefit Ball, 1894

The last dance card I posted having been well received, here's another one from my collection.  This one is from a benefit ball held in Las Vegas on April 24, 1894, with music by the East Las Vegas Military Band "Assisted by "Prof. J.A. Hand's Full Orchestra." 

The card is badly stained, but the lovely cover image of a putto playing a guitar to a group of birds is still charming.  The cord for the pencil is still attached, though discolored.  The edges are pinked.  The card has not been used, though one dance ("Comus Waltz") has been crossed out and "Waltz" written in, presumably after a last-minute program change.  The ball committee -- all men -- is listed on the back cover.

(click to enlarge the images)

Dance Card: Improved Order of Red Men, 1881

I am not a big collector of dance cards, but occasionally I buy one or get given one as a gift.  I plan to post them occasionally as examples of the order of dances at actual balls of their eras. 

This dance card, for a "Public Installation" of the Improved Order of Red Men, is dated January 6, 1881, and is divided between the a ceremony for a fraternal order and the following ball.  (Click to enlarge the front cover image at left.)

The Improved Order of Red Men is still in existence and claims a history going back as far as 1765 and a descent from the Sons of Liberty who perpetrated, in Mohawk disguise, the Boston Tea Party in 1773.  The current name dates from 1834.  Details of the order's history may be found on its website.  Two of the three "tribes" (local organizations) listed seem still to be in existence, though perhaps not in the same cities: Red Cloud (Indianapolis) and Minnewa (Philadelphia).  Polmete seems to have vanished.

At the Prom: Yale 1921

Yale University's Junior Promenade, held on February 8, 1921, made the cover of the Yale Record, a humor magazine similar to (but predating) the Harvard Lampoon, which had a wide circulation outside Yale as a beacon of collegiate style. (Click the image at left for a larger version courtesy of Yale's Manuscripts & Archives.)  The event is of interest to me not only as a Yale alumna but because I recently purchased one of its ball cards.

The cover of the card (shown below) is made of white leather, with the Yale device and the year 1921 embossed in gold on the front.  A blue and white twisted cord holds the pages in place.  There is no sign of how a pencil might have been attached.  Between the cover and the pages of the card itself is a sheet of translucent vellum with a spiderweb pattern.

Of interest among the list of names given for the ball committee is the Floor Manager, James Smith Bush, the uncle of former United States President George H.W. Bush and great-uncle of former President George W. Bush.

The set of dances listed inside shows the growing dominance of the foxtrot in the upper-class ballroom of the early 1920s.  Forty-two dances are listed, with the twenty-first being the supper dance.  Of those, no fewer than thirty-two are foxtrots!  The other ten are divided between eight one-steps and a mere two waltzes.  The card belonged to a lady; twenty-one of the listed dances have gentlemen's names written by them.  Some names are written in formal style ("Mr. Newmarker") and some more casually ("Roddie").  Several men are listed twice, but none more than twice.

For those interested in details of etiquette, there is a notice on the back that gentlemen should "Please escort ladies to boxes immediately after each dance."