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

Browse Items (1927 total)

Moving Image

Nils Fredland – Four Square

Nils Fredland calls a contemporary composition as part of the "Square Dance" Retrospective session at the annual Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend in Durham, NH. The musicians are Old New England (Bob… View item
Document

Square News  (Indiana)

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Document

The Care and Feeding of Exhibition Sets

This article fromAmerican Squares outlines items to be taken into consideration when developing an exhibition square dance team:===Putting the “dance” in square dancing is the basic… View item
Sound

Chase that Rabbit - Roy Rogers

Born in 1911 in Cincinnati, Leonard Sly started calling square dances when he was 12 years old. He moved with his family to California in 1930, traveled extensively as a musician, worked for a year as… View item
Sound

Bird in the Cage - Roy Rogers

Music by Spade Cooley and his Buckle Busters; the album is Decca 226, "Roy Rogers Calling Cowboy Square Dances." The full title is Birdie in the Cage and Three Rail Pen, fancy talk for a circle of… View item
Document

Square Dance News (Iowa)

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Still Image

Square Dance, McIntosh County, Oklahoma – 1939/40

A series of color slides taken by Russell Lee at an Oklahoma dance in 1939 or 1940. More information about the first one can be found here. A larger sample of the photographs is available here at the… View item
Document

American Square Dancing in Three Sections of Maryland and the District of Columbia - 1943

This is a Master's thesis based upon observation at three locations in Maryland:1. Salisbury and vicinity, particularly Public Landing, on the Eastern Shore2. Oakland and vicinity, particularly… View item
Document

The History of Square-Dancing - S. Foster Damon

The History of Square Dancing, published by S. Foster Damon in 1957, is one of the few books that presents a broad picture of the subject. The book was a reprint of his 1952 article published in the… View item
Document

Cowpuncher's Square Dance Call - response

Folklorist Sam Hinton has some fun with the poem. If it is to be taken literally as an example of a dance call, Hinton calculates that the cowboys are dancing at a speed greater than 20 miles per… View item
Moving Image

Roseanna McCoy - square dance scene

The square dance scene from the movie, with caller Sherman Sanders View item
Moving Image

Sandy Bradley 1 - Getting started

Sandy Bradley interviewed by Bob Dalsemer. After a brief discussion of the fun of watching the room come together in a dance, Sandy discusses how she got started as a musician and then a square… View item