Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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Category: Dance Cards & Programs

  • 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.

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  • 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.

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  • Against the odds

    I recently made note of a mailing list post that referred to dances done at American Civil War reenactments, such as the Virginia Reel, and couple-facing-couple dances like the Spanish Dance/Waltz, as "historically-flavored".  I don't think the poster meant to imply that these dances were actually ahistorical; this is someone whom I'm certain knows better.  But there's an interesting underlying point I wanted to expand on in this, which is that it's possible to have an entire ball full of historically-appropriate, accurately-reconstructed dances, and still have the ball as a whole not be convincing as a historical event.  Because having all the dances accurate to the time period is not enough.  There are at least two other external factors to consider: the geographic setting and the specific type of ball and ball attendees.  A ball held by a member of high society in New York City is not going to have the same dance repertoire as a ball set in a frontier town in Oregon, even if they are both set in 1898, and a middle-class French ball would be even more different. 

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  • 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.

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  • A ball in Milwaukee, 1847

    One of the weirder books I’ve ended up flipping through lately is Milwaukee Under the Charter, From 1847 to 1853, Inclusive, by James S. Buck.  This is the third volume of a series on the Pioneer History of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which amasses a bizarre collection of historical trivia about life in Milwaukee in the early to mid-nineteenth century.  Buck is not exactly a scintillating author, and he jumps around somewhat randomly from events to people to what seems like the history of every building in the city.  You get chapter summaries like this one for the year 1847:

    Opening Address—Democratic Policy and its Effects—War on the Constitution—Meeting of January 30th, at the Council Room—L. P. Crary—S. P. Coon—Job Haskall—Ordinance Passed—Business Directory—Sketch of J. F. Birchard and of Edward Emery—R. W. Pierce—Graffenburg Pills—Bridges—Sketch of Hon. J. H. VanDyke—McGregor Female Seminary—August Greulich—Badger Supper—An Old Settler—David Bonham—Political—Noonan vs. King—The Earthquake—Steamers—April Election—Retirement of Solomon Juneau—Reliance Works of Decker & Saville—Sketch-New Board—Jonathan Taylor—Torch Light Procession—Report of School Commissioner—John B.Smith—Incidental—Council Proceedings—Tavern Inspectors—Leonard Kennedy, Sketch of—Report of Finance Committee—Brick Sidewalks—Painting a Painter—The Empire Mill—Assessments—Legislative—Fall Election—William Shew’s Speech—Exports and Imports.

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  • 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:

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Capering & Kickery

Susan de Guardiola, Social Dance Historian

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