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

Browse Items (160 total)

  • Collection: Traditional western
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Saturday Night Square Dance - Jim Boyd, 1949

"Saturday Night Square Dance" was released in 1949 as a Soundie; the footage included here is all that we have been able to locate. (We would appreciate information from anyone having a… View item
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Square Dances of the Southwest

This 1951 booklet, by caller Butch Nelson, is a useful collection of calls from that region. You can hear Nelson calling Oklahoma Cyclone here.The Related Items provide audio or video clips, called by… View item
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"The Texas Cattle Country and Cowboy Square Dance" – Olcutt Sanders

This article, scholarly yet accessible, provides an excellent look at square dancing in west Texas in the late 1800s. He starts with a look at the conditions that set this region apart from… View item
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1940 Texas Square Dance Contest

Newspaper accounts of a square dance competition won by Bob Sumrall's Abilene set. The story goes into detail about each of the six competing teams,naming each of the dancers, the judges, and… View item
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Old Square Dances of America

In his Square Dances of West Texas booklet and elsewhere, Rickey Holden makes frequent references to Iowa as a source of western dancing: --- There are, not counting the Southern Mountain clogging of… View item
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Three Ladies Chain - Rickey Holden

Instead of the women chaining over and back within their own square, in this variation of Three Ladies Chain, caller Rickey Holden has the women leaving their square and chaining all the way over the… View item
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Bob Sumrall - Olcutt Sanders correspondence, 1939

These letters between Bob Sumrall and J. Olcutt Sanders provide a glimpse into Texas square dances in the late 1930s. Sanders was a serious student of square dance history, part of a group of… View item
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Texas Square Dance Contests

These are a series of newspaper clippings made by J. Olcutt Sanders, documenting Texas square dance competitions. (Unfortunately, most of them are undated.) We assume that these are from Fort Worth;… View item
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Blue Bonnet Set - 1939

This 1939 newspaper pictoral spread looks at Herb Greggerson's Blue Bonnet Set, the team that won the Texas square dancing championship in March that year. Before that, the prize was often taken… View item
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Tait's Orchestra with Bud Udick

Cactus Tait’s Orchestra, taken at the Broadmoor hotel ballroom.. From left to right: piano, Mrs. Ethel Tait caller, Col. Earl “Bud” W. Udick (1/11/1916 – 9/5/1979) fiddle, Ben Chichester (1897-… View item
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Pam McKeever and the Flying Squares, 1981

Demonstration of the sort of exhibition dancing created by Lloyd Shaw in the 1930s and popularized by his Cheyenne Mountain Dancers. The dancers are: Jim Bollman, Karen Atkins, Ernie Spence,… View item
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Teacup Chain - 1948 publication

This may be the first publication of the Teacup Chain figure. It appeared in Foot 'n' Fiddle magazine, an early square dance magazine founded and edited by Anne Pittman, Marlys Swenson and Olcutt… View item