Texas Square Dance - Family Tree

The author attempts to trace the various antecedents leading up to Texas square dancing in the 1940s. After the obligatory look at British sources, he notes: "The recent history of the square dance is complicated by what appears to be a dual development – with the vigorous folk strain of round and chain dances extending directly from the Low Country of England and Scotland to the New World and straight to the frontier, on the one hand, and a later polisher version which trickled down from "cultivated society" on the other."

Sanders notes that the history is even more complex: "For a time, then, the country dance had a history separate from the quadrille ater the quadrille had spring from the country dance and before the plain folk had come into close contact with the quadrille. But the square dance, whih, in some form or other, is distributed over a wide portion of the North American continent, cannot be identified completely with either of these two sources; it is their lusty offspring with characteristics of each but with a personality all its own."

He then looks at the role of the caller, and compares Texas figures with those from the Southeast. He also contrasts settlement patterns in East Texas with West Texas and notes the differences in social patterns, cotton and slavery in the former and ranching in the latter.