The Pasadena, a would-be replacement for the two-step, appears in the 1900 reprint of New York dancing master Allen Dodworth’s 1885 tome, Dancing and its relations to education and social life, but can be dated back to at least 1898. It appears to have been created as a dancing school dance, as Dodworth’s nephew, T. George Dodworth, discussed in his introduction to the new edition of his uncle’s manual:
In order to bring the work up to date, I have been requested
to write an introduction which will include a list of dances that have come into fashion since my uncle’s book was originally published.
As a matter of fact, however, society dances have decreased, rather than increased, during this interval. When this work first appeared most of the round dances described in its pages were fashionable. But Dame Fashion is fickle, and, owing to some unaccountable change in taste, we now have only the Two Step, the Waltz, occasionally a Saratoga Lancers, and the Cotillion. In the dancing-schools the old dances are still taught, but with numerous new combinations, which are composed to improve the pupil and keep alive the interest. From these combinations we have the Tuxedo Lancers, the Amsterdam, Gavotte der Kaiserin, Minuet de la Cour (for four persons), and the Pasedena.