Square Dance History Project
The rich story of North American square dance finally has a home in the digital age.

Browse Items (111 total)

  • Subject is exactly "Traditional Western (pre-1940)"
Document

American Country Dancing on Colorado's West Slope

The article is based on oral history collected in 1979, though no footnotes or direct quotations are included. Instead, it is a generalized summary of the author's findings. "Depending on… View item
Document

"So They Gave Up Football"

These two articles were written by Erna Egender, a member of the Cheyenne Mountain Dancers for that group's first trip east, in 1939. The title relates to a ful-page layout created by the Associated… View item
Document

Swing that Pretty Gal! - 1941 article

In the wake of the first trips by the Cheyenne Mountain Dancers, this 1941 article inThe Saturday Evening Post describesthe widespread passion for squares that is growing, and gives Lloyd Shaw credit… View item
Still Image

Cheyenne Mountain Dancers in DC

Note: click on the image to get a larger picture.The Cheyenne Mountain Dancers appeared at the National Folk Festival in Washington, DC, in 1939, their first trip to the East from their Colorado… View item
Website

Square Dancing in the 1800s

Fred Feild is a long-time caller and square dance enthusiast; now living in Tucson, he was instrumental in creating the Chicago Barn Dance Company in the mid-1970s. In recent years, he has started… View item
Moving Image

Butterfly Whirl- Fred Feild

Fred Feild calls a traditional square dance, held at the home of Marion Waudby in Tucson, Arizona, May, 1999. Other dances filmed during this session are:Grapevine Twist (two couple)Grapevine… View item
Document

Cowboy Dance Tunes – excerpt

This was first published as a separate booklet in 1940 to accompany Lloyd Shaw's Cowboy Dances, which appeared in 1939. Shaw provides an introduction.Jim Saxe notes, "The same tune collection,… View item
Sound

Forward 6, Fall Back 8

Colorado caller Gib Gilbert calls a traditional western square dance for a New England audience. Caller Bill Litchman comments, "He took his calling style directly from his father and Marvin Shilling.… View item
Sound

Gib Gilbert - Colorado caller

We're fortunate to have these live recordings from a 1979 dance called by Gib Gilbert with Yankee Ingenuity. In his introduction to the Boston area crowd, Tony Parkes comments, "All I'm going to say… View item
Document

Cowboy Songs and Dances

This is an excerpt-- the dance part; a later song section is omitted-- from an article that includes the author's experiences at a cowboy dance in 1903. The author includes typical patter heard… View item
Sound

Texas Square Dance Music - Henry Hudson

This is the 1946 album, 78 rpm, issued by Texas musician Henry Hudson and his Fiddle Band. Hudson recorded on the Henlee label, sometimes with his band being called the Pioneer Fiddle Band. He worked… View item
Still Image

Herb Greggerson - Herb's Blue Bonnet Calls

Greggerson's book, originally published in 1937, contains more than 50 dances, supplemented with photographs and diagrams. The full text is available at the Internet Archive.After a brief foreward… View item