Capering & Kickery

The Long Boston (Newman's Boston Variations)

"Boston" is a tremendously fuzzy term which meant several different things to different dancing masters at different times and in different places from the late nineteenth century all the way into the 1920s.  About all that is consistent among them is that they were in waltz time.  Bostons-as-a-whole are an enormous topic, so rather than try to cover it all at once, I'm going to take different authors' versions individually and eventually work my way to some sort of summary of the different meanings of the term, with whatever patterns (by time or geography or both) to those meanings emerges. 

I'm going to start with one of my favorite 1910s authors, Albert W. Newman, who, in his Dances of to-day (Philadelphia, 1914), published over a dozen different variations under the general term "Boston".  I long ago described the Three-Step Boston and the Five-Step Boston.  Now I'm planning to work through all the others.  First on that list is the first one Newman described with a whole list of names: the Philadelphia Boston, also known as the Long Boston, the One-Step Waltz, the Drop Step and, in England, the Berceuse or Cradle Boston.  Of all this collection, I prefer the Long Boston or One-Step Waltz, though Newman was evidently partial to Philadelphia Boston, under which name it appeared in the 1914 compendium Dance Mad, which collected variations from dancing masters all over the United States.  Newman described it there as "the form of Boston most popular in Philadelphia at present."

Cupid's Gavotte (5 of 6)

All right, it's time to put it all together!  I'm going to begin with the solo version.

The music for Cupid's Gavotte, as noted in the first post in this series, is in 4/4 and has a musical pattern of seven strains, some of which are duplicates, which fit the dance nicely:

Music                                          Dance                                                                                    
A      16 bars                                16 bars        #1 (4x to right, 4x to left)
B        8 bars                                  8 bars        #2 (4x alternating right and left)
C        8 bars                                  8 bars        #3 (4x alternating right and left)
D*      8 bars (vivace)                    8 bars        #4 (4x alternating right and left)
E         8 bars                                  8 bars        #5 (4x)
F         8 bars                                  8 bars        #6 (4x alternating right and left)
   *      8 bars (vivace)                    8 bars        #7 (4x alternating right and left)
G**  16 bars                                16 bars        #1 (4x to right), #7 (4x alt. right and left to exit
         80 bars                                80 bars

*    The D strain and the second half of the F strain are the same as the B strain
**  The G strain is the same as the A strain

My recording adds a four-bar introduction for practical reasons.

Cupid's Gavotte (4 of 6)

And, at last, here are the two final step-sequences for Cupid's Gavotte!

Step #6: Side Movement (two bars of 4/4 time)
1    Step right foot to side
2    Cross left foot behind right
3    Step right foot to side
4    Cross left in front of right, pirouetting halfway to right (clockwise)
12  Point left foot to side
34  (raising foot slightly to prepare) Point left foot again

The similarity among the various step sequences should quite obvious by now.  Here we have a grapevine ending in a half-pirouette, followed by two of the pointing-that-is-almost-tapping movements to the side.  The mnemonic for this one is "side-back-side-spin, point...point..."  In this direction, the dancer's back is to the audience during the pointing.

Cupid's Gavotte (3 of 6)

Moving right along: two more step-sequences for Cupid's Gavotte!

Step #4: Forward Step and Turn (two bars of 4/4 time)
1         Step forward on right foot
&        Close left foot to right
2         Extend right foot forward, raised
3&4    Repeat all of the above with the same feet
1         Step right foot to side
2         Cross left foot over right making a complete pirouette to the right (clockwise)
3         Step right foot to side (completing pirouette)
4         Point left in front of right; raised fifth position

The first four beats are a sort of weird chassé step in which instead of stepping at the end, you simply cut the forward foot into the air and leave it so you can repeat on the same foot.  The pirouette is a bit difficult to accomplish in one beat of music, but keeping weight on the left foot and throwing the right foot out to the side for the following step helps carry one around.  The fifth position at the end was specified by Mr. Walters, though having it raised is my interpretation of his "Point L in front of R 5th Pos."

Cupid's Gavotte (2 of 6)

Continuing on with Cupid's Gavotte: once you have mastered the first step sequence, here are a couple more to work on!

Step #2: Forward Step Diagonally (two bars of 4/4 time)
1        Step right foot forward at slight diagonal
2        Hop on right foot and point left forward raised
3        Step left foot forward continuing on slight diagonal
4        Hop on left foot and point right forward raised
1        Step right foot forward continuing on slight diagonal
234    Hop on right foot three times, moving backward, retracing diagonal      

The step-sequence is performed alternately to the right and to the left; here's the reverse:

1        Step left foot forward at slight diagonal
2        Hop on left foot and point right forward raised
3        Step right foot forward continuing on slight diagonal
4        Hop on right foot and point left forward raised
1        Step left foot forward continuing on slight diagonal
234    Hop on left foot three times, moving backward, retracing diagonal

Happily, there are no problems with the transition; the opposite foot is always free at the end.  It hardly needs a mnemonic, but it would be "step-hop, step-hop, step-hop-hop-hop".

Cupid's Gavotte (1 of 6)

After a long hiatus, I return once more to the works of Massachusetts dancing master George F. Walters, creator of the Exeter Waltz and Exeter Caprice!  Cupid's Gavotte (1915) is something different, both for Mr. Walters and myself: rather than a social dance, it is intended as a performance piece for a group of four or eight girls, or as a solo.  Dance school recital pieces are not normally a major interest of mine, but since I happen to own the sheet music and social dancing continues to not be much of a thing due to the pandemic, well, here we are with something that can be danced entirely alone, though of course it's more impressive in a group. 

Over the course of this series of posts I'll cover the individual steps and then the full sequence with my reconstructions for solo or group performance.

The music of Cupid's Gavotte is notated in 4/4 and is essentially a schottische, but since the dance was created for a specific tune, I commissioned a basic piano recording to match my reconstruction from Alexandra Neronova, which may be purchased here.  (Edited 5/31/22 to add: payment for this recording goes to me; it does not benefit anyone in Russia.)

Foxtrot Styling, c1920

A nice little style detail for the foxtrot as danced in England in the years after World War I:

"A variation is also to be observed in the chassé done alternately to left and right, at an angle of 45 degrees to the line of the dance.  In the ordinary way of doing this, say, when the man is going forward, he slides the left foot forward to the left, and then brings the right foot up to the left, and again advances the left.  The new variation is to cross the right foot behind the left.  When the chassé is done to the right, it is of course the left foot which is crossed behind the right.  The lady (or the gentleman if he is going backwards), crosses her foot in front of the foot that is first moved."
        --- "The Sitter Out" (column) in The Dancing Times (London), January 1920, p.270.

By the "chassé", the writer means the two-step, as is clear from the description of the "ordinary way" of performing it.  The description is referenced again in March, 1920, issue (p. 439; the numbering is continuous across multiple issues).  In the "To-Day in the Ballroom" box shown at left (click to enlarge), under "Fox-Trot", there is a note that "The crossing of the feet (described in January) is popular and effective if the steps are kept small."

CD Review: Minuets & Optional Dances ~ Ignatius Sancho

I recently saw the eighteenth-century African-British composer Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780) described as "largely forgotten", which struck me as an odd way to describe someone who's been the subject of a modern biography (Ignatius Sancho: African Man of Letters, by Reyahn King, Sukhdev Sandhu, James Walvin and Jane Girdham (1997)) and a one-man play in both London and New York City, recently had a new collection of his letters published (Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African, edited by Vincent Carretta (2015)), has had both facsimile and modern editions of his music published (including Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780), An Early African Composer in England: The Collected Editions of His Music in Facsimile, by Josephine B. Wright (1981) and at least five books of his works in modern notation from Africanus Editions), whose music is being recorded and performed, and, last but not least, whose dances have been the subject of at least a couple of books of reconstructions.  We should all be so forgotten!

It occurred to me that I had one of those recordings, Minuets & Optional Dances (2015), by the Afro-American Chamber Music Society Orchestra, tucked away somewhere.  I hadn't ever done much with it because it consists primarily of minuets, which are not something I spend much time on.  But the 240th anniversary of his death seems like a good day to dig it out!

A Pumpkin Party 1890

A Pumpkin Party may seem misplaced in the calendar at this point, but this is specifically a Thanksgiving pumpkin party, taking place the evening of Thanksgiving Day, so it should be considered more like pumpkin pie and less like a jack-o-lantern, though there's definitely an element of that in the theme as well.  The overall concept is more harvest than Halloween, however, similar to the Red Ear Party except more, err, orange.

The description of the party -- possibly, but not necessarily, fictional -- was published in Demorest's Family Magazine, No. CCCXXIX, Vol. XXVII, No. 1, dated November 1890.  Demorest's began as a fashion magazine but expanded to include a wide range of material, including quite a few little dance tidbits.

The pumpkin theme began from the very start, with the invitations, which were sent on "pumpkin-colored round cards".  The party was held in a "pretty little stone barn and stable" with illuminated "pumpkin lanterns of all shapes and devices, some wearing the old familiar goblin-like 'eyes, nose, and mouth.' while others were cut in stars and flowers and geometrical designs."  This is, quite literally, a barn dance.

The Way it Ended, 1855

I came across this story in a California newspaper, The Weekly Placer Herald, and didn't find it particularly believable.  But it was not original to the Herald; the attribution at the end is to the Albany Dutchman, which seems to have been more of a weekly humor publication than a newspaper.  Per the Library of Congress's Chronicling America website, it described itself  in 1849 as "A weekly newspaper-devoted to fun, literature, good advice, women and other luxuries."  I don't have any way to check the attribution at the moment, as the Albany Dutchman doesn't seem to be online, but that fits with my impression that this is a tall tale, not an actual incident.  It nonetheless makes a light-hearted ending to my month of masquerades!

In the story, two friends, Bob and Frank, lie to Bob's wife about his having to help a sick uncle.  In reality, they are sneaking off to a masquerade ball.  While Bob is a married man, Frank is "a roue, and as a matter of course is a great favorite with the ladies—roues always are." 

A Louisville Masquerade, 1843

Here's a lively account of a jolly and slightly drunken masquerade held in Louisville, Kentucky, in 1843.  This account has a little of everything: costumes, bad puns, a bit about the dances, and the effects of alcohol on the revelers.  It's too long a report to comment on every bit of it, but the entire thing is transcribed at the bottom of this post.

The report starts out with a lot of philosophy about the joys of masquerades, but the first really useful bit is that as in A Few Friends, the unmasking is done at supper-time, which was probably around midnight:

The unmasking at the supper table is often a great source of laughter and surprise, when it discovers the faces of numerous acquaintances who have been playing off their wit and raillery against each other all the evening, under their various disguises. 

All sorts of people attended masquerades, which is part of what made them scandalous.  In Kentucky, at least, this mixing was not to be feared, though I suspect the upper classes might have differed on this point:

A masquerade is an unsorted class of society, it must be admitted; but are you not liable to mix with bad persons in the best regulated companies?  Even robberies have frequently been committed in churches; and if you keep aloof from mankind on that account, you may soon become a crying philosopher, afraid to stir from your own fireside, in order to prevent contamination, and be devoured by hypochondria the remainder of your days.

The writer had a few drinks before arriving and is thus in a good mood:

It was at a late hour that I entered the room, and I was in a right good humor for fun and frolic, and the scene before me, having taken a glass or two of Walker’s rich old wines, the vivifying qualities of which would almost make the dumb to chatter. 

Remember "vivifying".  The extra "life" provided by alcohol recurs later.

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.  

1. LANTERN FIGURE.  Original description:

Palm Fronds and Canary Warblers, 1912

Along with masquerade and fancy dress balls and costumes, the other topic I generally include in October is suitably wacky cotillion figures, dance party games that could be part of the final section of a ball or of a stand-alone event.  Most of them are simple mixers, but I have a gleeful passion for the stranger ones that involve costumes or props or simply strike me as delightfully weird.  Here are a couple of the latter, both taken from H. Layton Walker's Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912).

1. Human Palm Trees.  Original description:

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.

A Fancy Dress Party (from A Few Friends), 1864

A Few Friends, by Korman Lynn, was serialized in nine parts in Godey's Lady's Book during the year 1864.  The serial doesn't have a lot of plot; it describes eight evenings of a group of friends gathering together to, for the most part, play parlor games.  It's great for anyone who wants to research mid-nineteenth century parlor games, which are described in elaborate detail, but the only section of any real interest to me is the final one, in which the friends gather for a fancy dress party.

To pick up the story at this point, it is only necessary to know that the kind and generous Ben Stykes has been quietly pursuing the lively Mary Gliddon from the beginning of the story, though a certain Mr. Hedges, a young man from Liverpool, is also interested in her.

Even a single part of the story is too long for me to transcribe here, but I'll quote the costume descriptions, some of which are detailed and unusual, and the resolution of the romance.

A Fancy Dress Hop at West Point, 1865

On Saturday, September 9, 1865, The New York Times published an account of a fancy dress "hop" given by the ladies of Cozzens' Hotel in West Point, New York, home of the famous U. S. Military Academy. 

Cozzens', established in 1849, was a prominent hotel near the Academy.  The original building was destroyed by fire in the March of 1861 but quickly rebuilt.  The image below is a late-nineteenth-century print by Max Egalu of the view of the Hudson River from the hotel; the original is in the collection of the Boston Public Library.


With its ready supply of eager cadets from the Academy, Cozzens' was a popular site for dances.  In 1859, an article in Harper's Weekly explained that:

"...the rigors of military etiquette are mitigated thrice a week by balls or hops, which are given by the cadets to their friends and guests at Cozzens’s Hotel and elsewhere in the neighborhood. These gay parties are justly famed among the fair sex; for better and more indefatigable dancers than the cadets are not to be found even in New York. Pretty girls who go to West Point to spend a few days in the bracing air, and enjoy the lovely Hudson scenery, invariably declare that they never enjoyed any ball in their life so much as the Cadet Hops."

        --- Harper's Weekly, September 3, 1859

 

The article was accompanied by an engraving of such a "hop", specifically described as "a scene familiar to the happy people who spend summer days at Cozzens's at West Point."

 

The original may be seen at archive.org (engraving, article).

 

A more detailed history of the hotel may be found at The News of the Highlands.

Anti-Masquerade Americans, 1794 and 1837

Welcome to October: masquerade and fancy dress month on Kickery!

To start things off on a different note, let's look at some of the anti-masquerade sentiment found in the early years of America.  Full transcriptions of the articles cited may be found at the end of the post.

On December 22, 1794, the Gazette of the United States and daily evening advertiser (Philadelphia) published an "extract of a letter from an American Gentleman in London" dated December 20th.  This might or might not have been a genuine letter, as opposed to editorial-moralizing-disguised-as-correspondence, but it represented the conservative sentiment about masquerades in what was at the time the capital city of the young United States.  Naturally, the English were still attending such shocking entertainments, providing the convenient opportunity to run a titillating description for their readers.

The gentleman, upon entering the masquerade, at first found his situation "awkward" and felt "sensations, bordering upon disagreeable".  But, realizing his anonymity, 

"...the apparent ease of all around me; the intoxicating strains of the well adapted music, and above all the indescribably contagious influence of the place; set me free from every restraint, and gave my soul the same riotous sense of pleasure, which seemed to have full possession of all around me."

Above left is an 1811 English drawing of a masquerade (click to enlarge) by prominent caricaturist Thomas Rowlandson; you can see the "freedom from restraint" in the prominent "HORNS TO SELL" sign (suggesting a volunteer for cuckoldry) and the man in the red domino at far right about to pinch the derrière of the cross-dressed woman in yellow.  The women's small half-masks are obvious, but some (possibly all) of the apparent faces, particularly the bearded and long-nosed ones, were also masks.  The anonymity of masks was, theoretically, the difference between a masquerade and a fancy dress ball, which involved costumes without masks.  This difference could get somewhat blurry, especially with costumes that worked as disguises.

The Nahant Quadrilles (4 of 4)

The final post in my series on The Nahant Quadrilles: figure five and some thoughts on the quadrille as a whole!

The original wording:

1^st two cross over give right hand.  And back give left hand.  Form a line.  Balancez.  Half Promenade.  Forward 4.  Half right & left to places

This one should look familiar to anyone who has danced the French quadrille: it's a slightly shortened version of the third figure, La Poule.  This makes it quite easy to reconstruct, but it does present a problem with the music.  The shortened figure is twenty-four bars, while the music has four strains with no indications of any repeat structure.  Conveniently, however, the fourth strain is a transposed and elaborated version of the A strain, so for a twenty-four bar figure one could play A + BCA'x4 or perhaps save the A' strain for the last time through and play A + BCAx3 + BCA'.  The Spare Parts recording ignores the A' strain and just plays A + BCAx4, which works fine for dancing my reconstruction.

This figure really needs no further commentary; it's La Poule minus eight bars done by the lead pair alone, and the reconstruction is completely straightforward:

The Nahant Quadrilles (3 of 4)

And now we come to figure four, the biggest mess in the entire quadrille!  Problems with the figures, problems with the music, problems correlating the two...I believe in my conclusions, but I can't deny that there's a lot of guesswork involved in any reconstruction of this figure.

First, the music.  Take a look at Figure 4's tune, "Georgette", here.  There are three eight bar strains marked with a Da Capo al segno, to which my first response was, what segno?  There is no segno!  There's a Fine, oddly located at the end of the B strain, so presumably it was meant to be Da Capo al Fine.  But quadrille music usually ends on the A strain, and while the length of the figure is the next problem to consider, it's difficult to come up with a reasonable repeat structure that has AB at the end.  In thirty-two bars, A + BCAB repeated, perhaps, but in twenty-four bars, it's just impossible. 

The solution Spare Parts used on the recording was to simply decide the Fine was wrongly placed and should be at the end of the A strain.  Matching Patri's thirty-two bar reconstruction, they played it A + BBCAx4.  While it's hazardous to go purely by instinct, I believe that the A strain feels like it ought to be the ending strain.  You can listen for yourself here, where the audio clip plays A + BBCA BBCA B(fading out).  So I agree with the choice to end on the A strain. 

I am much less certain about the figure length and the four repeats, however.

The Nahant Quadrilles (2 of 4)

Onward we go, with figures two and three of The Nahant Quadrilles!

For figure two, the music (available here) has two strains with a Da Capo, which works without any tweaking.  The Spare Parts recording matches my reconstruction.

The original language for the figures:

Four ladies grand chain.  Forward & back 1^st two.  Back to back.  Repeat 4 times. 

This is a very short figure, only sixteen bars.  The second half is very straightforward: the first pair (first lady and opposite gentleman) go forward and back then perform a dos-à-dos.  As in the first figure, each time through this is a different pair.  

The first half, however, presents an interesting choice.

The Nahant Quadrilles (1 of 4)

At left is the cover of The Nahant Quadrilles, published in Philadelphia in 1836 but named after the resort town of Nahant, located on a peninsula near Boston and seen in the background of the cover image.  For many years, Nahant has been the home of a summer 1860s ball hosted by Nahant resident and Vintage Victorian proprietor Katy Bishop and her late husband Ben.  The Nahant Quadrilles were first worked on for these balls by the Bishops and my own late mentor, Patri Pugliese, in a style befitting the 1860s milieu in which they were used.  Patri was a stickler in his approach to dance reconstruction and dubbed his version a "choreography" because of the degree of adaptation.

I've long had my own reconstruction of this set tucked away, and since the Nahant ball (lately expanded to a full weekend) is canceled due to Covid, this seems an opportune moment to publish it and compare the different approaches.

The original sheet music by John H[ill] Hewitt for The Nahant Quadrilles, with the dance calls, may be found online at the Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection of Johns Hopkins University.  The five tunes were named after women, with the first, "Rebecca", presumably for the cover dedicatee, Miss Rebecca Willson.  It has been recorded by the dance band Spare Parts in a version matching Patri's choreography on their album Dancing by the Shore, which may be purchased here.  That is a bit problematic for my reconstruction, which I will discuss as I work through the figures. 

Aunt Nellie's Diary, 1849

Louisa May Alcott is one of those authors I enjoyed much more as a child, when the more treacly moralizing elements of her most popular books flew right over my head.  As an adult, I find it harder to tolerate, an opinion that Alcott evidently shared.  So I'd only ever revisited one of them -- Little Women, of course -- for its dance references.  But I was nonetheless quite intrigued to read last month that a newly-discovered early story fragment by Alcott, dated 1849, when she was only seventeen, and containing a masquerade ball scene, would be published in the next issue of Strand Magazine, dated February-May 2020 but being released, no doubt for pandemic-related reasons, in late June.  I promptly ordered a copy, which finally turned up in the mail this week.  

As noted, Aunt Nellie's Diary is only a fragment, around nine thousand words, and ending, literally, in mid-sentence: "I begged and prayed she would..."  The story is set up fully, however, and the general direction is clear: the orphaned Annie and her friend Isabel come to stay with Annie's Aunt Nellie, along with the handsome Edward, who is recovering from illness.  Annie is gentle and innocent; Isabel is both colder and more flirtatious.  Edward is too good to be true.  Isabel is interested in Edward, but he is clearly smitten by Annie. It seems obvious that they would have ended up together, while Isabel likely would have repented of her less-than-perfect ways and wound up with the fiancé she had jilted before the story began, who reappears dramatically at the masquerade ball just before the fragment ends.  This is very like far too much of the other nineteenth-century women's fiction I periodically wade through looking for dance references, though even at seventeen, Alcott is a noticeably better writer than most.

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.

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.

Lee described this as "an easy step, and very graceful, savoring a little of the stage."  She also connected it to the hesitation waltz which involved a similar slight lift while hesitating: "The hesitation, while it lasted, was full of such steps and they were much appreciated."  The half-and-half was another dance that used a similar technique to fill time.

The variation is done in a normal closed ballroom hold, facing line of dance.  The gentleman's steps are given below; the lady dances opposite except as noted.  

One-Step Variations: Picket Fence

Here's an easy little one-step variation taken from Albert Newman's Dances of to-day, (Philadelphia, 1914).  The Picket Fence is loosely related to the grapevine in that it sends the dancers sideways along the line of dance though with much more back-and-forth travel in the process.  Newman's diagram for it is shown at left; click to enlarge.

The Picket Fence is actually taken from a section on Turkey Trot, so Newman had it performed with trotting steps, but the plain walking step of the normal one-step works just as well.

Newman's description:

"...four trots directly to the left rear oblique, then the same number of steps forward left oblique; in this forward movement have the lady to the right side in Yale position.  This backward and forward movement is in V formation, or zigzag, which is repeated several times and which is to represent, in design, the top of a picket fence, hence its name."

Well, that's straightforward enough!  The dancers begin in standard closed hold, facing each other.  The gentleman backs diagonally toward the center of the room, beginning with his left foot.  The lady moves forward, starting on her right foot.  After four steps, they individually turn one-quarter counter-clockwise and take four steps toward the wall on the new diagonal, the lady backing, starting with her right foot, and the gentleman moving forward on his left.  This moves them slowly along the line of dance.  To repeat the variation, they individually turn one quarter clockwise and again move toward the center of the room.

The only element of note is that in the second half (toward the wall), the dancers are in Yale position, right side to right side, as shown and described here.  The shift of position does not require any particular effort; the relative positions of the dancers makes it happen automatically.  If the entire sequence is repeated, the dancers will shift back to facing quite naturally.

At the end of the Picket Fence, however many times it has been repeated (or not), the dancers are situated perfectly to go into a Pomander Walk, to quarter-turn clockwise and back the gentleman more-or-less along the line of dance, or (with a quarter-turn the other way) to transition into a basic one-step backing the lady in Yale position and eventually transitioning smoothly into a Yale grapevine.  If one were feeling radical, or needed to be more toward the center of the room, one might even stop at the halfway point and switch a basic one-step or other variation (there are many others) there instead.

Edited 12/8/22 to add:
The Picket Fence in waltz time was used in the Newman Hesitation Boston, described here, under the name "Stroll".  At one step per measure  is a lovely move in hesitation waltz as well as one-step or turkey trot.

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.

The Vienna (La Viennoise)

The Vienna, or La Viennoise, is a late nineteenth century schottische variant which originated in America and traveled to France with the inimitable George Washington Lopp, though it's not clear to me whether it had much (or any) popularity there or, for that matter, in America. 

My first American source for the dance was, unsurprisingly, M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890), which collected a wide assortment of the couple dances of the 1870s and 1880s.  Gilbert and Lopp (in La Danse, 1903) agreed on how the Vienna was danced.  Going with Gilbert's description, giving the gentleman's steps (lady dances opposite):

The Vienna (four measures of 4/4 schottische music)
(joining right hands with partner, facing the opposite direction)
1b   Slide-cut-leap-hop forward, starting left, raising right to fourth on the hop
1b   Repeat, starting on right foot

1b    Slide left to side (1), close right to left (2), leap back onto left (&), slide right to side (3), close left to right (4)
1b    Repeat, starting on right foot, leaping forward

Lopp mostly agreed, though he had the final repeat also leaping backward, which I believe to have been an editing error, since his instructions are otherwise almost word-for-word from Gilbert, translated into French.

There are...some problems with this.

Two Walker Editions

One of the dull but necessary tasks I do as a dance historian, right up/down there with reading terrible Victorian novels for their dance references, is comparing different editions of the same book to see what changed over time.  Most of these comparisons aren't as exciting as, say, Dance Mad, which underwent enormous changes in less than a year in its second edition.  But they're still useful for very fine-grained dance tracking, particularly in 1914 when things were changing very rapidly and the tango, maxixe, foxtrot, and half and half either originated or were enjoying bursts of popularity.  And that's before even getting to the fad dances like the Lulu Fado, the Ta Tao, and the Furlana.

Comparing two editions of Caroline Walker's The Modern Dances is pretty tame in comparison, since the changes are mostly just in pagination and arrangement of photos, but it's still a useful window into how rapidly things were changing in 1914.

For reference, here are the known editions with their very helpful specific dates:

First - January 27, 1914
Second - February 12,1914
Third - March 20, 1914

That's impressively fast!  The second and third editions were only five weeks apart, but apparently the major change, the addition of the Argentine Tango, was important enough to warrant not just an added section but also renumbering of the illustrations and having a few rephotographed completely to alter the recommended positions.

I own a copy of the second edition, and the third edition is available at the Library of Congress website.  I have never seen a copy of the first edition, so I will be comparing only the second and third.

Table Talk

Here's a 1966 sitting-down dance that is clearly a direct descendant of the late 1950s hand jive: Table Talk, published in a dance manual that was a tie-in to the musical variety television series Hullabaloo.  The series ran from 1965 to early 1966 on American television channel NBC, amassing an impressive lineup of stars as hosts and performances by major musical acts (including The Rolling Stones, Sonny and Cher, and The Supremes). 

An important element of the show was a dance troupe, choreographed by multi-talented actor-director-dancer-choreographer David Winters (among many other things, he originated the role of A-Rab in West Side Story (1957) and was recast in the 1961 film as well) called the Hullabaloo Dancers.  They were a talented group whose alumni included Michael Bennett and Donna McKechnie, choreographer/director and star (Cassie), respectively, of the 1975 Broadway musical, A Chorus Line.  There's a video of the Hullabaloo dancers here.  The video quality is poor, but their skill shines through.  They still have a dedicated Facebook fan page, and a "reconstruction" of Hullabaloo was briefly featured with Leonardo DiCaprio in the 2019 film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood - the clip may be seen here.

Caroline Walker's Dream Waltz, 1914

The Dream Waltz appeared in Caroline Walker's book The Modern Dances, three editions of which appeared in the year 1914.  Her Dream Waltz appeared in at least the second and third editions; the latter is available online here.  Another Dream Waltz appeared in both editions of F. Leslie Clendenen's Dance Mad (also both 1914), but it is distinct enough to be considered a separate dance, which I will look at in some future post.

The Dream Waltz is a simple hesitation sequence.  The dancers take normal closed ballroom hold.  The gentleman starts on the left foot, the lady on the right.  Steps below are given for the gentleman; the lady dances opposite.
  

The Dream Waltz (16 bars of fast 3/4 waltz music)
1b    Slide left foot to the side (1), slowly closing right foot to left with weight on (3)
1b    Slide left foot to the side (1), swinging right foot to left (2) and away again (3)
            (making a quarter-turn)

1b    Step onto right foot (1), slowly closing left foot to right with weight on (3)
1b    Slide right foot to the side (1), swinging left foot to right (2) and away again (3)
            (making a quarter-turn)

4b    Four walking steps backward, one step per measure, starting left foot, dipping on fourth step
4b    Three walking steps forward, one step per measure, starting left foot, then shift weight back and dip backward on the fourth measure

4b    Balance forward onto left foot, back onto right, forward onto left, back onto right, rotating counter-clockwise (spin turn)

Repeat from the beginning.

Gaby Glide

"The Gaby Glide" was a piece of music written as a star turn for dancers Gaby Deslys and Harry Pilcer in the Broadway operetta Vera Violetta, which opened in New York in November, 1911. The famous and popular Deslys was its namesake:

Gaby brought the dance and it's got us all a going
Since she came no other twirl has had any showing
It's a music treat, for your dancing feet
It is flashy but neat

The tune was composed by Louis A. Hirsch, with lyrics attributed to Pilcer himself.  An original 1912 recording may be heard via the Library of Congress archives here, and a lovely modern performance by Mark Nadler may be seen and heard here:

 

 

Sadly, tempo changes and pauses make Nadler's version more difficult to dance to than the original.  If one has live musicians, the sheet music, from which the image at the top was taken, may be found here.

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.

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:

A Leap Year Ball, Providence, 1892

Moving from the American frontier back to the east coast and into increasingly amusing descriptions of leap year events, here's a very upscale event held in Providence, Rhode Island, on Monday, February 29, 1892, and reported in The Providence News on Tuesday, March 1.  This was a much more glittering affair than the frontier balls in Montana and Wyoming.  According to the article, subscriptions to the ball cost $25 for eight invitations, and the German (cotillion) favors cost an estimated $900.  In today's terms, that is around $700 for the tickets and an eye-popping $25,000 for the favors, which were always an opportunity for conspicuous consumption among upper-class society.

The ball was held at the brand-new Trocadero (1891), which, according to Providence's inventory in 1980 for the National Register of Historic Places, was a restaurant and dancing parlor owned by local businessman Lloyd Tillinghast, who also provided the ball supper, served on "small and beautifully decked tables" by waiters brought in from Boston and New York.  The Trocadero no longer stands, alas.  Two bands were engaged: Reeves' Band and the "Hungarian band of New York", who alternated playing. 

Sadly, no dance list was included in the article, but the cotillion was described briefly:

Miss Goddard and Miss Gammell, who arranged the ball, led the cotillon.  At least eighty couples participated and the figures and the favors were greeted with equal admiration.  Flowers, ribbon bows and streamers, bells, odd bits of jewelry and bright-hued balloons were among them.

 

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"

Wine, Tobacco, and Wallflower Angst

Here's something a little bit different: three of the Charles Dana Gibson drawings from his "In Leap Year" series, circa 1894.  The first two are not directly related to balls, but they show the leap year role reversal taken further than the norm, with the ladies actually drinking and smoking.  I'm fairly certain these are purely satirical...

IN LEAP YEAR.
THE GENTLEMEN LEAVE THE LADIES TO THEIR TOBACCO AND WINE.

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".

"A Leap-Year Ball", 1884

"Are you engaged?"

On Saturday, March 22, 1884, The Illustrated London News published a set of sketches of an imaginary leap year ball, accompanied by a short article on the topic.  The sketch above shows the central conceit of such a ball: gentlemen lounging on seats with their dance cards while the ladies move around asking them to dance.  Role reversal was the idea:

Dancing to "Leap Year", 1793

Since 2020 is a leap year, here's an appropriate tune and a very generic dance to go with it.  The tune and figures were published in London in Thompson's Twenty Four Country Dances for the Year 1793.  These little books of country dance tunes were generally published late in the previous year, so this tune probably dates from 1792, another leap year.  I don't have permission to republish the original image, but here is the tune in modern format:

 

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!

A shorter Victorian "Sir Roger de Coverley"

Over the twelve years I've been writing Kickery, I've twice discussed versions of Sir Roger de Coverley, the English "finishing dance" that was the direct ancestor of America's Virginia Reel: a Regency-era version from Thomas Wilson and a Victorian-era version probably originated by Mrs. Nicholas Henderson.  The latter version of the dance, which shortened the figures and added an introductory figure for all the dancers, appeared in several English sources from around 1850 to 1870.  But it was not the only version in mid-nineteenth century England; at least two variations of a full version more like the Regency one continued to appear in dance manuals, and a fourth version, shortened even further, turned up occasionally as well. 

 

The dance being strongly associated with Christmas due to its appearance at Mr. Fezziwig's ball in Charles Dickens' 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol, Christmas Eve seems an appropriate time to discuss this extremely short version.

Over the twelve years I've been writing Kickery, I've twice discussed versions of Sir Roger de Coverley, the English "finishing dance" that was the direct ancestor of America's Virginia Reel: a Regency-era version from Thomas Wilson and a Victorian-era version probably originated by Mrs. Nicholas Henderson.  The latter version of the dance, which shortened the figures and added an introductory figure for all the dancers, appeared in several English sources from around 1850 to 1870.  But it was not the only version in mid-nineteenth century England; at least two variations of a full version more like the Regency one continued to appear in dance manuals, and a fourth version, shortened even further, turned up occasionally as well. 

 

The dance being strongly associated with Christmas due to its appearance at Mr. Fezziwig's ball in Charles Dickens' 1843 novel, A Christmas Carol, Christmas Eve seems an appropriate time to discuss this extremely short version.

Chivers' Second Set of Caledonians (1 of 2)

In the mid-1820s, London dancing master G. M. S. Chivers published two additional sets of "Caledonians" figures, over and above his first set of Caledonians, which became the standard nineteenth-century version.  The second set has some appealing variations in the figures: alternating half-figures for head and side couples; solos for both gentlemen and ladies in separate figures; a "meanwhile" figure to occupy the less-active couples; and a demi-grande-chaîne figure broken into quarters by extra full turns.  There's nothing too exotic, but it's a fun little set, fairly straightforward to reconstruct and easy to dance for anyone with general experience with Regency-era quadrille steps and figures.  I'll include the first couple of figures below and follow up with the remainder in a second post.

A note about music: my only source for Chivers' Second Set of Caledonians is his Dancing Master in Miniature (c1825), which gave figures only, no music.  I have not, so far, found the specifically published sheet music for them.  Given the degree to which sets of quadrille figures were recycled for different sets of tunes during the nineteenth century, I would not feel at all uncomfortable about dancing them to more-or-less random sets of Scottish music, either from another published set of Scottish-themed quadrilles or assembled from period Scottish tunes.  The length and repeat structure of the figures matches the standard "first set" of quadrilles.

On to the figures!

Professor Asher's Polacca Quadrille, Figure 1

Late nineteenth-century American dance manuals are littered with Polacca quadrilles, comprising at least three distinct sets of figures plus variations.  For this series of posts, I'm going to focus on the set of figures advertised as taught by Professor Asher of Philadelphia.  I have at least six sources for this set of figures, none of which are completely consistent with each other, which makes it difficult to come up with an absolutely definitive reconstruction.  

The music for this Polacca set was composed by William Coleman and published as early as 1857, when it appeared in Shuster's flute music, published in Philadelphia, which is online here.  That is considerably earlier than any evidence I have for Asher's figures; the earliest source I have for any version of them is dated 1870.  A Polacca appeared on dance cards from Professor Asher's academy in late 1878 and early 1879.  It seems likely that the figures danced were Asher's own, but the first definitive source I have for them is a Boston reprint of Coleman's music, dated 1881, on which the figures actually appear with a credit to Asher.  I've treated this as my primary source for the figures.  A detail from the cover of this music is above at left; click to enlarge.

Coleman's music was also printed in J. W. Pepper's Universal Dancing Master (1882), appearing on pages 60-62.  Asher's figures, more or less, appeared separately on page 13.  Variant versions of the figures also appeared in The amateur's vademecum by E. B. Reilly (Philadelphia, 1870), A treatise on the elements of dancing by the anonymous T. Erp. Sichore (San Francisco, 1891), The American prompter and guide to etiquette by E. H. Kopp (Cincinnati, 1896), and A complete practical guide to modern society dancing by Albert W. Newman (Philadelphia, 1903).  Given the date of the Reilly manual, I think it possible that this variant is actually a separate version of the figures, existing in parallel with Asher's, but it's similar enough that I can't be quite certain.

Musically, "alla polacca" means in the manner of a polonaise, but the music is more waltz than polonaise.  The 1881 printing is labeled "Glide, or Polacca Quadrilles", referring to a glide waltz, and the T. Erp. Sichore source called it "The Polacca or Glide Waltz Quadrille".  Reilly (1870) declared that it was danced with "plain waltz step" although he stated that it required mazurka steps in two of the figures.  I don't recommend actual polonaise steps for the walked part of Asher's Polacca, just small walking steps counted in threes, and, despite Reilly's comment, do not suggest mazurka steps.

Highland Glide

Photo: Andrew Trembley

The Highland Glide was the very last schottische given in M. B. Gilbert's Round Dancing (Portland, Maine, 1890).  It reappeared in George Washington Lopp's La Danse (Paris, 1903) under the name La Highland Glide (Schottisch).  The dance was created by Chicago dancing master C. A. Carr, who published sheet music advertising the dance, though the copy I have scans of does not include the dance instructions.  Part of the cover of the sheet music may be seen at left; click to enlarge.  It is dated 1890.  Carr advertised himself as the creator of the "popular" Carlton (a polka sequence which appeared in Gilbert and Lopp) as well as "famous" Newports (plural), by which I suspect he means he composed music for dancing the Newport, rather than the dance itself.  Gilbert and Lopp also credited him with the Ashland (another polka), Le Beau (a galop), and the America (a mazurka).

The Highland Glide follows the common "double" schottische pattern of four measures of slow steps followed by four of faster steps, the first part with minimal turning and the second turning continuously using the typical late-nineteenth century waltz-galop step (explained here).  The measure count presents a minor reconstruction issue, since the steps are notated by Gilbert and Lopp in 4/4, but the sheet music is notated in 2/4.  It is fairly obvious from the rhythm and tempo given that two measures of the sheet music are what Gilbert and Lopp considered a single measure.

A Ballroom Basilisk, 1897

I'm just going to leave this story here without any commentary.

Happy Halloween!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GONE WITH A BASILISK.

A LURID SHORT STORY.

BY G. L. Calderon

Reginald passed his hand wearily over his aching brow, and glided languishing between the purple portières.  Within was a chaos of whirling muslin and hungry faces swimming on a sea of passionate, throbbing music.  There was a mist before his eyes; grinning heads floated restlessly by, gibbering in the shell-like ears of painted women.  Amid the fevered maelstrom, one figure loomed large and close upon his attention.  It was the hostess.  A hot wet hand pressed his.  “Law! what a squash!” he murmured in her ear, then plunged into the stream, and was borne away to the other side of the room.

"The Fancy Ball", 1837: the tableaux vivants

So turns my memory to that brilliant sight
When wit and beauty held their festal night;
When the thronged hall its glittering groups displayed
Of Nature’s loveliness, by art arrayed;
Of graceful forms that mocked the sculptor’s art,
And eyes whose glances reached the coldest heart,
Of all that beauty loves or taste admires,
Of all that valor warms or genius fires.

While ideas for tableaux vivants, the "living pictures" that often opened a ball in the nineteenth century (or interrupted it, as at this ball in Heidelberg in the 1840s) are easy to come by, it's rare to find a detailed description of a whole series of them at a ball.  The poem "The Fancy Ball", from which the above lines are excerpted, devotes over half its length to poetic descriptions of the tableaux vivants performed at a ball held in Savannah, Georgia, in 1837, three of which are easily identifiable scenes from the works of Lord Byron or Sir Walter Scott.  I haven't been able to identify the other scenes, but hope to figure them out eventually.

The poem was written by Henry Bowen Anthony, a Rhode Island politician who spent some time working in Savannah as a young man.  During that time, he attended a fancy dress ball held in mid-March of 1837 by Godfrey and Julia Barnsley at Scarborough House, Julia's family home, now in the possession of her and her husband.  The ball was an extravagant one, and is quite well-documented.  It certainly made an impression on Anthony!

After returning from Savannah, Anthony became a newspaper editor and eventually entered politics, serving as a U. S. Senator from Rhode Island for twenty-five years and dying in office.

"The Fancy Ball" was written when Anthony was only twenty-two and was privately published at the time.  It was reprinted, unrevised, in an edition of only one hundred copies in 1875.

Wings, 1912

Here's a costume-oriented cotillion figure from Twentieth Century Cotillion Figures, by H. Layton Walker (Two Step Publishing Company, Buffalo, New York, 1912) that is missing its dance instructions:

Wings.
These are to be about two feet long and made on wire of crepe paper, painted with gold, and as they are made in all colors, it is intended that they should match the color of the gown of each dancer and so present a perfectly harmonious ensemble.  A heavy hook is fastened where the two wings join, so that they may be attached to the end of the decolletage of the black [sic] of the bodice of each terpsichorean flower, thus prematurely precipitating these mundane possessors into their angel (so-called) possessions.  Crimped paper in every shade is made to assimilate the neck ruches of liberty silk and mousseline de soie, now so much worn, and these also make a pleasing medium of exchange of friendliness, yes, of something stronger oftimes. among those participating in the dance.  Silver and gold pencil holders are also used for this purpose, making not only an ornamental but a useful present to ladies as well as to gentlemen.  The gold ones have a jewel in the end in place of the rubber, and the silver ones have rubber.  The latter are also made with the distinctive features of the colleges and universities.  Harvard to have a crimson enameled flag bearing the letter “H,” in white as its decoration.  Yale, the flag to be in blue and white, while Princeton, the black and orange colors, etc.

There's quite a bit to unpack here: what did the wings look like?  What were the crimped-paper neck ruches?  And the pencil holders?  How was the figure danced?  

Hygeia Hotel Grand Fancy Ball, 1858

"The Grand Fancy Ball at Old Point Comfort-- All the F. F. V.'s out in their Native Splender [sic]", an article covering a fancy dress ball held at the Hygeia Hotel in Old Point Comfort, a seaside town in Virginia, was published on page five of The New York Times on August 30, 1858.  The "F. F. V.'s" were the "First Families of Virginia," the wealthiest and most socially prominent families; more discussion of the term and its history may be found here.  All quotes below are from the Times article unless otherwise credited; a full transcription is at the end of the post.

The Hygeia Hotel, shown above in an image from c1861 (click to enlarge), courtesy of The Library of Congress.  (The Hygeia is the long building with the colonnades.)  It was originally built in 1822 as housing for construction workers at Fort Monroe.  The original hotel was razed during the Civil War and a new hotel built on the site, which was then demolished in 1902.

The original Hygeia grew and grew:

Over the following 25 years [after 1833], the owners constructed wings housing more than 200 rooms, as well as various detached buildings for billiards, pistol shooting and bowling. Guests such as President John Tyler and Edgar Allan Poe came for the healthful sea breezes, sea bathing and seafood, not to mention a social scene so fashionable that Old Point became a favorite setting for short stories and novels.

By 1858, the Hygeia was entertaining more than 5,000 guests a year.

-- "Hampton Archive: The South's Best Resort", October 4, 2009

Among its more famous guests was Edgar Allen Poe, who stayed there a month before his death in 1849, famously reciting his poems, "The Raven", "Annabel Lee", and "Ulalume" in the moonlight from the hotel veranda.

Mr. Palmer comes of age, Yarmouth, 1831

Moving a bit forward in time, the coming of age ball of Mr. Samuel Palmer, junior, on Tuesday, March 1st, 1831, was accorded detailed coverage the following Saturday, March 5th, in The Norfolk Chronicle and Norwich Gazette.  The family seems to have been a prominent one, since they convinced then-Mayor Edmund Preston to lend them a hall and the whole town to deck itself out in celebration of their son's birthday.  And, of course, they were wealthy enough to throw a ball for several hundred guests.  Piecing together public records, I am reasonably certain that the birthday boy's full name was Samuel Thurtell Palmer (c1810-1850), whose parents were probably Samuel and Susanna (Thurtell?) Palmer.

Most of the article was, as usual, devoted to lengthy lists of guests and their costumes, but there were some interesting tidbits here and there.  The transcriptions below include all of the article with the exception of the lists that just named the attendees and their outfits.

York Fancy Dress Ball, 1824

There were fewer detailed descriptions of masquerades and fancy dress balls published in the first few decades of the nineteenth century than there were during Victoria's long reign, when such balls became enormously popular.  But the fancy dress ball held in the York (England) Assembly Rooms on Tuesday, March 23rd, 1824, was given a substantial writeup the following Saturday, March 27th, in The Yorkshire Gazette.  Most of the coverage was reprinted exactly on Thursday, April 1st, in The Leeds Intelligencer and Yorkshire General Advertiser.  All excerpts below were transcribed from the article in The Yorkshire Gazette.

As, apparently, the first public fancy dress ball ever held in York, the preliminaries and the efforts of the ball's nervous organizing committee were described in unusual detail, along with much back-patting about the success of the event. 

This novel and anxiously expected entertainment, was held on Tuesday evening in our magnificent Assembly Rooms and was attended by upwards of five hundred persons.  It being the first public Fancy Ball that had ever taken place in this county, the Committee felt no little anxiety respecting the ultimate success of their undertaking, and exerted themselves to the utmost, in making all the fit and proper arrangements for the fairy scenes of the evening — the expectation that had been held out, did not fall short of the reality, and we are most happy to have it in our power to state, that, on no former occasion, as a more splendid, brilliant, and amusing assemblage been collected; there was a freshness and gaiety of appearance which delighted all, and the grotesqueness of the scene was irresistible.