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

Browse Items (1924 total)

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Bob Osgood on Lee Kopman

This piece fromSquare Dancing(later title of what had been Sets in Order)describes the appearance on the Phil Donahue Show of caller Lee Kopman and a group of square dancers. View item
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Bob Osgood - television program #2

A later broadcast of Osgood's television show, this time featuring his first guest caller (2:25), Ray Shaw, the brother of Lloyd Shaw. Ray Shaw was one of the few square dance callers in the Los… View item
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Summer Institute, Asilomar, 1957

InAs I See It, Bob Osgood devotes an entire chapter to Asilomar, a series of summer square dance institutes sponsored bySets in Order magazine. Asilomar was a conference facility that Osgood had… View item
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Red Henderson

This appreciation of Red Henderson describes his role in promoting square dance in Spokane, and the creation of the Silver Spurs demonstration team. View item
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"Square Dancing" film publicity

These are two items used to promote the Square Dancing film created by Bob Osgood and his Sets in Order team. The first is a full-page announcement that appeared in Sets in Order, June 1952; the other… View item
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Aqua Barn

Article describing Seattle's Aqua Barn, a floating dance hall. The hall was created by Jack Riley, whose obituary can be found here. Riley also released records on the Aqua lable; the Internet Archive… View item
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MWSD Named Dances

In the world of modern western square dance today, most callers create the choreography for each dance. Even singing squares, where there is more repetition of figures, can vary each time through, and… View item
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Silver Spurs of Spokane, Washington

This article from Sets in Order celebrates Red Henderson and his Silver Spurs performing group of teenagers in Spokane. Henderson attended an early workshop by Lloyd Shaw in Colorado Springs and… View item
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Square Dance Party handbooks

These handbooks, published by Bob Osgood and Sets in Order, describe how to plan a square dance party. They offer a look at modern square dance culture in the years from the early 1950s through the… View item
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Youth in Square Dancing

This is a thorough look at how to involve younger dancers in square dancing, prepared by Sets in Order and published in the 1960s. The handbook opens with an essay by Ralph and Zora Piper on… View item
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Women Callers - article

Article presumably written by Bob Osgood, describing the challenges and opportunities for women square dance callers View item
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Bob Ruff - Square Dancing Fundamentals, Level 1

Caller Bob Ruff (Whittier, CA) created this video to accompany his record, "The Fundamentals of Square Dancing, Level 1" that in turn accompanies a square dance teaching series he created with Jack… View item