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

Browse Items (189 total)

  • Collection: Southern Appalachian
Document

An Old-Time Dance, Missouri, 1929

An account from a 1929 newspaper of what the author deemed "what was probably a duplication of the real, old-time hill country dance." Interestingly, the words "square dance"… View item
Sound

Kentucky Set Running - 1917 firsthand account

After graduation from Vassar and a summer holiday with family, Marguerite Butler, at age 22, headed for Pine Mountain Settlement School in a remote area of eastern Kentucky to try to make some… View item
Moving Image

Jubilee Promenaders 1

The dancers had received national acclaim as the Lake of the Ozarks Dancers in appearances on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour (see Related Item). Their fast tempo, fancy jig steps, and lively performances… View item
Moving Image

Jubilee Promenaders 2

A half-hour program on L.D. Keller and the Jubilee Promenaders aired on Public Television. View it here. View item
Moving Image

North Carolina Cloggers

Clogging in square dancing has a long history, going back at least as far as Sam Queen's Soco Gap Dancers. It is a form of dance that deserves its own detailed site, but we are including a few… View item
Moving Image

Big Circle square dance - Glenn Bannerman

Glenn Bannerman, caller, leads a big circle at MerleFest, 2014 View item
Document

Swamp Country Dance

This is a first-person account of attending a country dance in Georgia in the mid-1950s. The author describes the big circle formation in detail: "A single dance would go like this; The… View item
Sound

Big circle dance - Manny Wiener & American Square Dance Group

Caller Manny Wiener leads a big circle dance—here introduced as a Kentucky running set—with members of Margot Mayo's American Square Dance Group. This is a portion of a half hour radio… View item
Moving Image

Square dancing at Augusta Heritage Festival - 1994

An evening dance at the Augusta Workshops in Elkins, West Virginia on July 15, 1994. Larry Edelman calls the figures to the music of the New Dixie Entertainers: Mike Bryant, Marcia Bryant, Brett… View item
Website

78-rpm Recordings of Southern Dance Callers (1924-33)

This collection of nearly 100 old recordings was created by Phil Jamison to accompany the publication of his book, Hoedowns, Reels and Frolics (2015). The book tells the story behind the square… View item
Moving Image

Cabool, Missouri - Square dance with Bob Holt

This is the last of 11 clips filmed at a 1997 dance in Cabool, Missouri, featuring fiddler Bob Holt, a National Heritage Fellowship recipient. Calling is done by dancers in the squares, different… View item
Document

Fiddlin' and Square Dancing Are Back

Newspaper article (1971) written by caller Betty Casey, describing the start of the Green Grass Cloggers.Percussive clogging in choreographed routines had been made popular at the Mountain Dance and… View item