An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490-1920

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Go directly to the collection, An American Ballroom Companion: Dance Instruction Manuals, ca. 1490-1920, in American Memory, or view a Summary of Resources related to the collection.

The materials in An American Ballroom Companion, ca. 1490-1920, provide an opportunity to assess the role of ballroom dancing in American culture through skills of comprehension, analysis, and interpretation. Dance manuals, related legislation, and anti-dance literature allow for an understanding of dancing as both a form of physical education and childhood recreation in the early-twentieth century. Video clips, illustrated instruction manuals, and guides chronicling the history of dance can be used to discuss how dancing has evolved as an art form and as a reflection of modern culture.

Chronological Thinking

The Special Presentation, "Western Social Dance," offers insight into the history of European ballroom dancing from the Renaissance through the early-twentieth century. This resource can be used in conjunction with the collection’s Video Directory to see how dance styles changed over time.

From the Cover of "The Dance, Ancient and Modern," 1900.

Illustration from "The Dance, Ancient and Modern," 1900.

Manuals such as "The Dance, Ancient and Modern" (1900), "A History of Dancing" (1906) and "Dancing Made Easy" (1919) also provide brief accounts of earlier culture and the art of dancing. Many of these guides, however, might be accused of romanticizing the past. For example, in "The Dance, Ancient and Modern," dancing is theorized to be "the first diversion of primitive humanity" with early men and women "forgetting for the moment the cares of the morrow . . . to charm away the profound ennui of cavern life," (page 5). Despite the occasional subjective account, these manuals provide enough information with which to create a map documenting the progression of dances across the world.

How did different dancing styles travel across the world? How do changes in dance reflect changes in fashion? How do changes in fashion influence changes in dance? What other factors have influenced dance and caused it to change over time? Why do you think that some dance manuals described the past with terms such as "primitive humanity" and "profound ennui of cavern life"? What might such characterizations suggest about the influence of the modern era upon some people’s understanding of the distant past? How might such characterizations be a reflection of dance culture?

Illustration from "The Dance, Ancient and Modern," 1900.

Historical Comprehension: Physical Education

Engaging children in regular physical activity became a standard public-school policy in the early twentieth century. Physical culture, the predecessor of physical education, grew in prominence among late-nineteenth-century educators of "female gymnastics" such as walking, riding, and dancing. These exercises provided female students with physical activity and often refuted popular notions of proper behavior for young ladies. Manuals such as "Coulon's Hand-Book" (1873), also include discussions of exercises with weights and elastics.

Illustration from "The Perfect Art of Modern Dancing," 1894.

In the twentieth century, instructors continued to emphasize the athletic value of dance. "The Perfect Art of Modern Dancing" notes, "Physiologists have for many years regarded dancing as one of the finest of gymnastic exercises, and declare it to be superior to all others in its beneficial effect upon the carriage and manner," (page 1). "Dancing as a Means of Physical Education," on the other hand, supported dancing as an educational exercise and a "safeguard against the evils of over mental education," (page 1). Frank Clendenen extended these arguments favoring the athletic value of dance in "The Art of Dancing" (1919) when he declared that the victory in World War I was due to American efficiency and physical excellence:

The world of today needs stronger men and women--men and women who are 100 per cent strong. We have just won the greatest war known in history, a war that was won by efficiency, and physical excellence. Realizing this to be a fact, let us ask ourselves if we are all in the proper condition physically? Are our schools properly preparing our sons and daughters for our daily battles? . . . The writer believes that much good can be accomplished by our Dancing Masters teaching our children corrective exercises and insisting that the public schools instruct the child in Nature Exercises and Esthetic Dancing.

page 7

Such sentiments were echoed in the adoption of physical education into the United States' education system. Some schools, however, allowed unhealthy competition to diminish the overall benefits of their physical education programs. In the 1929 study, "Public Dance Halls, Their Regulation and Place in the Recreation of Adolescents," a survey of recreation programs for children identified one of the hazards of league competition when educators sought to field championship teams in their programs and "The physical director in [one] city said that he could not promote an adequate program of physical education in the schools because he had to produce winning high-school teams or he would lose his job," (page 39).

Illustration from "The Perfect Art of Modern Dancing," 1894.

• Why did schools incorporate physical education programs into their curriculum?
• What changes in gender and social roles in the late-nineteenth century might have made this possible? How might the perceived benefits of physical activity have, in turn, contributed to these changes?
• What was the role of dance in the establishment of physical education for children, and for females, specifically?
• What does a child gain from a team sport that he or she might not acquire in an individualized activity?
• Do you think that the pursuit of a team sport is worthwhile if it threatens to reduce the experience of other students in a school?
• How have the reasons for including a physical education component in school curriculum changed with time?  Is physical education still considered a "safeguard against the evils of over mental education?"  Is it still valued as a preparation for daily and military battle?

Historical Analysis and Interpretation

Illustration from "The Dance of Society," 1875.

This collection’s Video Directory contains seventy-five short films of dances from a variety of time periods, from the Renaissance to the Ragtime era. These films provide an opportunity to analyze dance and interpret how it reflects history and culture. Compare dances created in different historical eras using the films and the Special Presentation, "Western Social Dance," which provides a brief contextual background for the dance manuals in this collection. Survey this presentation, sample a variety of the films, and answer the following questions.

Illustration from "Nvove Inventioni Di Balli," 1604.	To what kind of music is each dance performed? Who is participating in each dance? Individuals? Couples? Groups of individuals or of couples? Where do you imagine such dances might have been performed? How do you think it would feel to participate in or perform each dance? What adjectives would you use to describe each dance? Formal or friendly? Conservative or whimsical? Elegant and lyrical, or rhythmic and percussive? Controlled or spontaneous? (Create a drawing or painting that captures the overall feeling of the dance.)		Illustration from "Bali Di Ieri e Balli D'Oggi," 1922.
What kinds of social and gender roles might the dances reflect? How do the dancers relate to each other? What do these interactions suggest about how people were expected to behave in public? What do your answers to the preceding questions suggest about the values of the times and places from which the dances originated? Do the dance manuals from these times and place reflect the same values as the dances and their music? Does the clothing of each period reflect these values? How?

Historical Issue-Analysis and Decision-Making: Dance and Recreation

Many members of the anti-dance movement believed that the social vices often associated with dancing were extremely dangerous to children. In "The Lure of the Dance," former dance instructor T.A. Faulkner described how boys and girls interact after encountering one another at a dance:

From the Cover of "The Lure of the Dance," 1916.

Like a bird charmed by the glittering eyes of a serpent . . . the young man thinks he has fallen in love with this girl . . . It is then . . . that he realizes what it is to be a man . . . he tries to resist, but the temptation is too strong for him. The struggle is soon over . . . and against the convictions of his own conscience he finally yields to his desires, and when he leaves the girl his views of womanhood have undergone a complete change, never to be the same again. page 36

Concern for children’s welfare at dance halls is reinforced in the 1929 study, "Public Dance Halls, Their Regulation and Place in the Recreation of Adolescents," which reports that government inspectors found it difficult to involve parents in their children’s recreational activities -- even when the children were under the legal age of attending a dance hall: "An inspector who had difficulty in gaining the cooperation of the mothers of girls said: "About 50 per cent . . . knew they were going to public dance halls and wanted to 'trust' them, etc.; the other 50 per cent were ignorant of their daughters' whereabouts," (page 32).

The study also included an account of children attending "closed hall events" where men who could not find partners at public dances hired girls to dance with them. In one city surveyed, girls were not allowed to work in these halls until they were 18. In another city, however, "no age limit seemed to be enforced and the girls were extremely young . . . Boys were usually not found in two cities where these halls were visited; but in a third city the majority of the 200 dancers were under 21, and many of the boys looked to be about 17," (page 34).

The study also claimed that many children attended these events because it was the only available source of recreation "to many farm boys and girls who came to the towns . . . to large numbers of young people who were working in industrial centers . . . and to many city boys and girls whose parents through poverty or ignorance made no provision for the social needs of their children," (page 1).

• Do you think that stopping children from attending a dance might keep them from falling in love and struggling with personal temptation?
• What is a parent’s responsibility in letting a child learn to dance or attend dances?
• Do you think that there should be an age limits fordances?
• How would you reprimand children who violated the rules prohibiting children from "closed hall" events?
• Do you think that children should be prohibited from attending dances even if it is their only available social activity? Do you think that other activities should be made available to these children? If so, what activities?
• Do you think that parents should restrict their children from attending "adult functions"?
• Do you think that parents are involved in their children’s activities? Do you think they should be involved?
• Can you think of any locations or events about which similar concerns are voiced today?
• How do you spend your recreation time?
• Do you think that you would want (or would have wanted) more or less parental involvement in your activities? Why?

Historical Research Capabilities

Omitting to pay proper respect to company, on entering or leaving a room; or paying it only to one person, when more are present. Entering a room with the hat on, and leaving it in the fame manner. Setting still on the entrance of your instructor, strangers or parents. Omitting the proper attention, when waited on by superiors.            

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The materials in this collection also provide an opportunity to learn about a number of specific dances. For example, a search on country dancing results in manuals such as "The Complete System of Country Dancing" and "An Analysis of Country Dancing." These instructions can be complemented with video clips of how the dance is performed by browsing the collection’s Video Directory.