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Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: 1910s

  • A Holiday Cotillon, 1909

    On Monday, December 27, 1909, an elaborate cotillon, meaning an evening of dance party games, was given by the McGowan family in the yellow and gold third floor ballroom of their turreted Romanesque “chateau” on Delaware Street in Indianapolis, pictured above in an image courtesy of the Indiana Historical Society.

    The house and the McGowan family are extremely well-documented. Hugh McGown (1857-1911) was a first-generation American, the son of Irish immigrants, and a self-made man who made a fortune in electric street rail as President of the Indianapolis Traction and Terminal Co. A brief biography may be found here. He and his wife Kate had four daughters: Marjorie, Louise, Frances, and Isabel, who would have been roughly 21, 20, 16, and 14 in 1909.

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  • Early Foxtrot: The Zig-Zag

    I don’t usually write about foxtrot in November, but I don’t usually teach foxtrot in Ukraine in the middle of a war, either, and last month, the dancers of Kyiv’s Vintage Dance Community wanted something for foxtrot that I hadn’t previously described here on Kickery.  Here is the description for their future reference and that of others interested in the variations for the foxtrot of the 1910s.

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    At least two versions of a zig-zag sequence appeared in short booklets published in 1914 and 1915:

    • The Zig-Zag Step and “Trot”: Joan Sawyer’s How to Dance the Fox Trot (Columbia Graphaphone Company, New York,1914)
    • The Zig-Zag Run: Description of Modern Dances as Standardized by the New York Society Teachers of Dancing and approved by the Congress of Dancing Societies of America at meeting held December 27th, 1914, in New York City, N. Y. (American National Association Masters of Dancing, Pittsburgh, 1915)

    Sawyer characterized the figure as a “hard one” but also “loads of fun”.  Her description:

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  • Early Foxtrot: the St. Denis Spiral

    While thinking about mixing foxtrot and maxixe…

    The St. Denis Spiral is a minor foxtrot variation from Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916) which, like the sequences in my previous post, incorporates maxixe styling in the two-step.  Like Lee's Pavlowa Extension, it is named for a famous dancer, in this case Ruth St. Denis.  I am not a scholar of modern dance (theatrical or otherwise), so I have only the most superficial knowledge of her career, but apparently she was indeed noted for incorporating spiral figures, as may be seen in "The Delirium of Senses" from Radha (1906), recorded at Jacob's Pillow in 1941.  I seriously doubt she had anything to do with this foxtrot variation, however; the name is most likely just an homage.

    The sequence is just as easy as the other foxtrot-maxixe combinations:

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  • Early Foxtrot: a bit of maxixe

    Maxixe in the foxtrot?  They mixed bits and pieces of every other dance of the ragtime era together, so why not jazz up your foxtrot with a little body sway?

    At least two different sources suggest using maxixe-styled two-step in the foxtrot: Joan Sawyer’s How to Dance the Fox Trot (Columbia Graphaphone Company, New York,1914) and Description of Modern Dances, as Standardized by the New York Society Teachers of Dancing and approved by the Congress of Dancing Societies of America at meeting held December 27th, 1914, in New York City, N. Y. (American National Association Masters of Dancing, Pittsburgh, 1915).

    I’ll start with Sawyer, since her booklet (dated November 23, 1914), is chronologically earlier.  Her foxtrot figures all consist of a pattern of a unique step or sequence followed by eight trotting steps.  Her third figure, the Maxixe-Glide and “Trot”, starts with four measures of “Maxixe two-step” done moving along the line of dance (gentleman forward, lady backward) without turning.  The two-steps begin with the gentleman’s left foot, lady’s right; feet then alternate as usual

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  • 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.

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  • Early Foxtrot: The Minuet Turn

    Keeping with the foxtrot theme, here's one more little sequence for foxtrot or one-step from Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916).  Despite its overt simplicity, it actually manages to present a minor reconstruction issue!  As for the name…well, to be perfectly honest, I see absolutely no connection here to the minuet, any more than I do with Newman's Minuet Tango.  There seems to have been some concept of "minuet" in the 1910s which I have completely failed to grasp.

    The gentleman's steps are given; the lady dances opposite.  The dancers begin in normal ballroom hold, the gentleman facing forward along line of dance and the lady backward.

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  • Early Foxtrot: The Pavlowa Extension

    For no reason other than habit, June is always foxtrot month for me, and despite the general shutdown of dance classes, I’m lucky enough to have a convenient partner at hand for experimentation with new variations.  So let’s look at yet another of the many step-sequences described in Edna Stuart Lee’s Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916)!

    The Pavlowa Extension was, of course, named for the famous ballerina Anna Pavlowa (Pavlova), who toured America in the mid-1910s and dipped into social dance choreography with a music-composition contest resulting in a trio of dances published in The Ladies’ Home Journal in early 1915.  She (or her ghostwriter) and (supposedly) members of her troupe also offered opinions and suggestions about dancing the one-step, Boston, and foxtrot.  This variation, however, is not among those even indirectly associated with Pavlova.  It probably was merely named in her honor, or perhaps was inspired by a characteristic movement in her dancing.

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  • Leap Year Cotillion Figure

    For a change of pace, here’s a leap year-themed cotillion (dance party game) figure from H. Layton Walker’s  Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912).  I think the only “leap year” element in it is that the ladies pursue the gentlemen, rather than the reverse.

    Here’s the original text:

    LEAP YEAR FIGURE
    For this figure you will require one more gentleman than you do ladies.  An extra man is required to put on a paper shroud.  This figure can be used for any number of couples, but it is always necessary to have an extra gentleman up.  Couples up and dance.  When they have danced a little while, form a circle, and grand right and left, the leader getting into the circle and when all dance the leader must secure one of the ladies.  This will leave one of the gents out.  He is “It,” and goes to the centre to receive this paper suit.  The ladies all receive a large ring having a tissue covering over it.  Get another lady who is not in the figure, so that you will also have an odd lady up.  She also receives one of the hoops.  Now ask the ladies to catch a man.  As there are not enough men for all the ladies the one who does not succeed in getting a man will have to contend [sic] herself by dancing with the dummy.

    It took me a moment to sort this out because of how badly written the instructions are.  The first three sentences can be ignored.  Here’s how it works:

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  • Early Foxtrot: Quick Dips

    Ah, June, when one turns one's thoughts (and feet) to…weird little foxtrot variations! 

    This time around, let's look at a pair of steps, or rather step-sequences, from Edna Stuart Lee's Thirty Fox Trot Steps (New York, 1916) that both involve quick dips.  These are actually ever-so-slightly harder to do than the usually run of walks, trots, glides, and two-steps that make up a great deal of the 1910s foxtrot repertoire.  Lee noted that the first of these, The Coney Island Dip, is "very exhilarating and excellent exercise for the lungs."

    The gentleman's steps are given; the lady dances opposite.

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  • “La Contre Danse”, cotillion figure (1900)

    There are plenty of cotillions – in the sense of “nineteenth-century dance games”, not “eighteenth-century French square dances” – that are some variation on “form a square or longways set and do a quadrille figure or country dance”.  “La Contre Danse” is an interesting take on this theme from W. Gilbert Newell, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and was published in St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler’s compilation, Original Cotillion Figures (St. Louis, 1900).  It caught my eye because of the unusual formation: couple facing couple across a longways set, as in the American contra “The Tempest“, the English “Polka Contre Danse“, or quadrille figures done in columns rather than squares.  I can’t be certain that this is the only cotillion figure using this formation — hundreds of them were published from the early nineteenth into the early twentieth century, and I can’t claim to have looked at them all — but it’s the only one I’ve found so far.

    “La Contre Danse” is relatively complicated as figures done in sets go.  It opens and closes with two-step done in couples, and in between there is a brief march to set up the longways set before the actual contra/country/contre danse figures begin.  Here’s how it works:

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  • Zebley’s Tango

    Moving right along with my tiny tango post series, here's another sequence from F. Leslie Clendenen's two editions of Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914).  This one is simply called "Tango" and was provided by T. Victor Zebley, a Washington, D.C., dancing master.  It isn't really a "tiny" tango; it's a full thirty-two measures, which is enough for a full-fledged sequence dance.

    Zebley's tango is very straightforward to reconstruct and, provided one remembers the full sequence, easy to dance, with three points where the dancers can make some minor choices of their own.  I give my preferences, but also describe the other options in the performance notes below.

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  • “Mixed Pickles” Tango

    Continuing with my lengthening series of tiny tango sequences from the first and second editions of F. Leslie Clendenen’s compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis; both editions 1914), here’s another short (sixteen-bar) tango sequence.  If not performed by all the dancers on the floor in unison, it must be done with care, since the dancers move directly against line of dance at two separate points.

    For such a short sequence, there are quite a few niggling little problems with the instructions and reconstruction, which I’ll talk about a bit below.

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  • “Tango No. 1”

    Continuing on with the tiny traveling tango sequences from 1914, here’s one that’s a bit less tiny than the Two-Step Tango.  “Tango No. 1” is listed in both editions of Dance Mad (St. Louis, 1914) with the note “As taught in our classes.”, which presumably meant the classes of F. Leslie Clendenen’s own academy.  That means that this is as much a class practice sequence as a social dance.  As I reconstruct it — and see the reconstruction notes below — it is a reasonable sixteen bars (thirty-two beats) in length, and suitably easy for a class, as it only involves four basic moves – walking, a spin turn, draw steps, and grapevine.

    The starting position is a closed ballroom hold with the gentleman’s back to line of dance and the lady facing line of dance.  The gentleman starts on the left foot, the lady on the right.  Steps are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.

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  • Two-Step Tango

    The Two-Step Tango is an anonymous eight-bar sequence published in the first and second editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis; both editions 1914).  There are several of these tiny "tango" sequences that travel decorously around the room without much tango feel to them — see the similar Butterfly Tango and Dixie Swirl.  These short progressive sequences all appeared in the first edition, along with the somewhat better-composed and more tango-like ones (including a "Tango Two-Step") from Albert Newman.  The impression I get from this is that the more authentic tango was still making its way across the country in early 1914, so the authors of these sequences were still interpreting it as "slow one-step to tango music".  The second edition of Dance Mad expanded the tango section enormously, retaining the short sequences but adding twenty-two pages of more authentic Argentinian and Parisian tango steps.

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  • Humming Bird Dance

    “Humming Bird Dance” is a hesitation waltz sequence which appeared in the first and second editions of F. Leslie Clendenen’s compilation Dance Mad (St. Louis; both editions 1914).  It is attributed to “Mr. Menancon”, who appears in the list of credits at the end of the second edition as “Elmond Menancon, 909 Elm Street, Manchester, N[ew] H[ampshire]”.  I believe the first name ought to be “Edmond”, since a dancing master of that name is listed in Manchester city directories from 1906 and 1918.  In the 1906 Manchester Directory, Edmond Menancon is listed separately as an artist, dancing master, and, interestingly, the sexton of a church.  Here’s Menancon’s advertisement from page 819 of the 1906 directory:

    1906-Menancon-Ad

    The sexton position seems a somewhat odd fit for an artist-photographer-dance teacher; the triple career doesn’t seem to leave much time for a day job.  Perhaps it was his father?

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  • Scotch, Hungarian, whatever (cotillion figure)

    H. Layton Walker’s Grand Scotch Chain, published in Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, by (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), is only moderately interesting as a figure, but tracing its progress from a figure that was neither “grand” nor “Scotch” when it started out is an interesting illustration of how cotillion figures were transmitted across time and international borders in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

    The figure itself is quite simple:

    • Two couples separate and select new partners
    • They form a four-couple quadrille set
    • Head gentlemen turn by right elbows once and a half round, then give left elbows to opposite ladies and turn to place with her
    • Side gentlemen repeat
    • Head ladies repeat
    • Side ladies repeat
    • All take partners and waltz

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  • Double Quadrille (cotillion figure)

    Double Quadrille is a cotillion (dance party game) figure from H. Layton Walker’s Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912), though the “game” element is extremely limited.  The original setup is not even a standard cotillion opening with couples dancing and then separating to find new partners; instead, each couple seeks another couple.

    The language and timing of the figure are ambiguous, and I’ve found no other source to clarify things.  So I’ve had to make some guesses and minor tweaks in order to create something that actually works.

    Here’s the original language from Walker:

    DOUBLE QUADRILLE.
    Four couples perform a tour de valse. Each couple selects another couple and they form a double quadrille; the head couples right and left; half sides the same. Ladies chain; all the ladies forward four steps, turn and face partners; gentlemen take the right hand of partners and left hand of lady on their left; all balance; the ladies facing outward, gentlemen inward; turn partners to places. The figure is danced over to regain places. Signal for all to waltz to places.

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  • Half & Half: Seven Steps

    “Seven steps” is actually something of a misnomer for this variation, which actually involves eight steps taken over two measures of half and half (5/4) time.  Its original source, Frank H. Norman’s Complete Dance Instructor (Ottawa, 1914) lists it only as step “No. 2” (out of two) for the half and half.  The Half and Half section of Norman’s book is credited to George E Rutherford.

    The basic principle of the step is to take a single slow hesitating step, lasting three counts as usual (1-2-3), and then take seven quick steps on the last two beats of the first measure and all five beats of the second (4-5-1-2-3-4-5).  Like the five-step variation, this is a very “busy” step that is best done to a very gentle tempo of half and half music.

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  • Half & Half: Pivot Turns

    “If you wish to spin you must do so on the slow step, continuing forward on the last two counts.”        — from Modern Dancing by Vernon & Irene Castle, 1914

    One of the basic half and half steps which I did not cover in my long-ago post on basic traveling steps for the dance was the pivot turn, as distinct from turning waltz in half and half time.  There aren’t all that many sources for half and half, so it’s mildly (very mildly) significant that this step is mentioned three different times.  There’s the Castles’ succinct description quoted above.  There’s a mention of it in a list of steps, or possibly a choreography, where it is given without any detail as “No. 3. pivot turn, right and left, 8 measures.”  (from “Half and Half” by J. E. Miles, in Dance Mad or the Dances of the Day, 2nd edition, F. Leslie Clendenen (editor), 1914.)  And there’s a full description as part of a mini-sequence which doesn’t actually work.  Here’s the relevant part:

    THE PIVOT TURN is made by stepping L. to side.  C. 1.
    Pivot 1/2 on ball of L.  C. 2. 3.  Walk forward. 4. 5.

    (from “Half and Half” as taught by Castle Assistants, in Dance Mad or the Dances of the Day, 2nd edition, F. Leslie Clendenen (editor), 1914.)

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  • Green Mountain Volunteers

    Green Mountain Volunteers is currently fourth on my list of go-to contra dances for the 1910s, after the Circle; Hull’s Victory; and Lady of the Lake.  It really ought to be sixth, after Boston Fancy and Portland Fancy as well, but the former is too much like Lady of the Lake, and the latter I’m still thinking about.

    Unlike the five dances listed above, which appear on a pair of Maine dance cards from 1918-1919, I do not have dance card evidence for this one.  The only pre-1937 source for it, in fact, is Elizabeth Burchenal’s American Country-Dances, Volume I (New York & Boston, 1918), in which she lists it among the dances “half-forgotten or less used” by the late 1910s:

    Some of the most widely used of the contra-dances to-day in New England are The Circle, Lady of the Lake, Boston Fancy, Portland Fancy, Hull’s Victory, Soldier’s Joy, and Old Zip Coon (or, the Morning Star); while among the half-forgotten or less used ones are Chorus Jig, Green Mountain Volunteers, and Fisher’s Hornpipe.

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  • Double Grand Chain (a march or cotillion figure)

    I first came across Double Grand Chain when flipping through Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, by H. Layton Walker (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912) for interesting cotillion (dance party game) figures.  Like Winthrope, Double Grand Chain is not terribly game-like beyond the basic cotillion setup of dancing with one person and then finding a new partner, but it would make an interesting addition to a grand march for a group of reasonably skilled dancers.

    Double Grand Chain was not original to Walker; it also appeared in all the editions of Allen Dodworth’s Dancing and its relations to education and social life running from 1885 to 1913 (the link is to the 1900 edition), which puts it firmly in the “late Victorian” category.  Since it did reappear in 1912 separately from the Dodworth reprints, I’d still consider it legitimate for a ragtime-era event, and it is sufficiently innocuous in style that I wouldn’t be bothered by its use at a mid-nineteenth-century event either.

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  • Who is Your Partner?

    What would Halloween be without masks?  And what would a cotillion be without at least one figure where people blunder around blindly crashing into each other?

    “Who is Your Partner?” is from St. Louis dancing master Jacob Mahler and appeared in Original Cotillion Figures (St. Louis, 1900), his collection of figures from himself and other dancing masters.  It is easy enough to run, but it does require props:

    A number of black masks, like those used in lodges, viz: those that have no eyes, in order to completely blindfold the wearer.

    Here’s how it goes:

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  • Exeter Caprice

    The Exeter Caprice is one of a small number of schottisches and schottische-like dances included in the second edition of F. Leslie Clendenen’s 1914 compilation, Dance Mad, for which Clendenen solicited dances from dancing masters across the United States and in Europe and South America.  One of those who responded was George F. Walters.  The Dance Mad index of dancing masters lists him as based in Waltham, Massachusetts, about sixty miles south of Exeter, New Hampshire, and the famous Phillips Exeter Academy, more commonly known just as “Exeter”.  I suspect that Walters’ Exeter Caprice and Exeter Waltz might be named for the school, either because he taught dance there or because he hoped to.

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  • CD Review: Ragtime Dance Party

    Ragtime Dance Party Cover Ragtime Dance Party is the one and only album released by the Crown Syncopators, a San Francisco-based trio that performs at ragtime music festivals on the West Coast.  I’ve never had the pleasure of dancing to their music in person, which this album makes me very much regret.  Per the title, every single tune is danceable as well as a joy to listen to.  I highly recommend it for anyone who enjoys American music and dance of the 1890-1920 era.

    The Crown Syncopators consist of Frederick Hodges (piano), Victoria Tichenor (drums), and Marty Eggers (tuba).  They don’t seem to have a website. but their appearances are listed on Hodges’ event schedule here.  (Updated 12/30/25 because the schedule no longer exists.)

    The CD comes with ten pages of liner notes that contain the background on each piece and reproductions of the original sheet music covers.  Along with familiar favorites like Scott Joplin, James Reese Europe, and James Scott, I was especially pleased to see in the mix a couple of less-familiar female composers, Grace Marie Bolen and Adeline (or Adaline) Shepherd, both of whose careers were cut short by marriage.

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  • CD Review: The Robert E. Lee

    The Robert E. Lee cover art The Robert E. Lee (1997) is a neat little album of solo piano played by the famous musician Bob Milne, who is not only a top-notch ragtime pianist, music historian, and “national treasure” who performed at The Library of Congress in 2004, but also has the astonishing ability to “play” multiple tunes at once in his head, meaning that he can do incredible tricks like playing music in 3/4, 4/4, and 5/4 simultaneously.  There’s a fascinating article about his abilities at Mlive.com.

    The CD title and the famous tune “Waiting for the Robert E. Lee” both refer to the famous steamship which won a race from New Orleans to St. Louis in 1870.

    I have had The Robert E. Lee sitting around for over a decade but only ever used one track, “Trouble in Mind”, regularly, as an interesting change of style for when I DJ for modern blues dancers.  Until I started teaching ragtime more often than usual this year I hadn’t really gone through the rest of the album carefully.  The CD wasn’t recorded specifically for dancing, so some of the pieces don’t have the regular rhythm one would desire, but about half of them are quite good for dancing, a few others are workable, and the piano playing is invariably a joy to listen to even for the less danceable tunes.

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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