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

Browse Items (1930 total)

Document

Reminiscences of Lloyd Shaw - Mary Jo Bradford

Mary Jo Bradford was a physical education teacher in Tulsa, Oklahoma, when she encountered Lloyd Shaw and the Cheyenne Mountain Dancers in 1946. That summer, she traveled to Colorado Springs to study… View item
Moving Image

Reuben, Reuben (Quadrille) - Adam Boyce

Traditional quadrille, recorded at an open house sponsored by the Ed Larkin Dancers, Tunbridge, Vermont, March 12, 2010. The prompter is Adam Boyce, and the musicians are Harold Luce on fiddle and his… View item
Document

Review of Cowboy Dances

This review of Lloyd Shaw's book comes from Douglas Kennedy, director of the English Folk Dance and Song Society from 1924 (after Cecil Sharp's death) until 1961. Kennedy had teveled to the… View item
Document

Revival of American Square and Country Dancing - 1949

This article documents the change on American dance floors in Michigan state in the late 1940s, where, in the author's words, "croonersare replaced bycallers." She cites the work of Grace Ryan in… View item
Document

Revival Squares - video and web links

Recent years have seen the appearance of a new audience for square dances. One important starting point was a series of dances in the Portland, Oregon, area, led bycaller Bill Martinand the Foghorn… View item
Document

Reviving Old Time Dances (article, Detroit, 1926)

Short journal article describing program sponsored by the Recreation Department of Detroit, with "Mr. Ford's dancing instructor [Benjamin Lovett]. "The dances are being enthusiasticaly… View item
Moving Image

Rich Sbardella - MWSD Early – Basic Program

The recording is One Horse Reel on Top/Grenn label. Patter called by Rich Sbardella. This set is called to a more traditional style of music, which is strongly phrased, and the caller is calling well… View item
Sound

Rickey Holden - interview & three dances

This item starts with an interview conducted by Mildred Buhler with Rickey Holden and his wife, Marti, in San Antonio, Texas. At that time, Holden was a Square Dance Consultant with the San Antonio… View item
Still Image

Rickey Holden - photographs

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Document

Rickey Holden Interviews

These are six interviews conducted with Rickey Holden— dance caller, organizer, author, editor and publisher. He was the author (or co-author) of several important books: The Square Dance Caller… View item
Moving Image

Right and Left Thru and Pokey Four - Jerry Goodwin

Recorded at a square dance on February 7, 1987 at the Prosperity Fire Hall, Washington County, PA. Jerry Goodwin, Caller Mountain Express: Chuck Monticello, fiddle Joe Fry, electric… View item
Still Image

Rita and Mal Hayden

Photo of Mal and Rita Hayden dressed in clothing to celebrate the American Bicentennial, 1976 Jim Mayo comments: “He was calling when I first started dancing in 1947 and when I got out of… View item