Old Time Dance Calls (1919)
It's interesting that two of the early manuals describing square dancing-- not formal quadrilles-- come from Iowa, this one and the 1925 booklet by Dunlavy and Boyd (see Related Item).
We'll let Tony Parkes describe this item in detail below; his comments appeared (September 2022) in the online American Square Dance magazine published by Buddy Weaver.
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Let’s look more closely at the 1919 book Old Time Dance Calls by L. L. Smith, which I mentioned last month. Published by the author in Northboro, Iowa, it’s the earliest American book I know of that describes country-style square dances and calls, as distinguished from the formal quadrilles of the 19th century. I specify “American” because a year earlier, the English ballad collector Cecil Sharp and his research assistant Maud Karpeles had published Part Five of Sharp’s Country Dance Book, describing group dances they had seen on a tour of Kentucky in 1917. Sharp’s work was so influential (and, in retrospect, controversial) that it will take a full article – possibly more than one – to do it justice.
Back to Smith’s book. It appears to be quite uncommon these days; I had not heard of it when I compiled the history chapter and the bibliography of my recent book on calling traditional squares. I would probably still be unaware of it, if not for social dance historian Nick Enge, who has included a scanned copy on his monumental website “Library of Dance” (libraryofdance.org/manuals). The copy is from the collection of Richard Powers, now at Stanford University, who has sparked a revival of interest in the social dances of the Victorian and ragtime eras.
Northboro is a very small city in Page County in the southwest corner of Iowa, bordering Missouri and not far from Nebraska (the nearest big city is Omaha, 75 miles away). Even at its peak in the 1920s and 1930s, its population was under 250 (it was 52 in the most recent census). I find it something of a wonder that Smith beat all other American authors to the punch by writing and self-publishing his call book.
Like Henry Ford a few years later, Smith advocated a revival of oldfashioned dancing. He asserted, “All good people are tired of that jazz lovey dovey dope,” claiming that the one-step and fox trot – the popular dances of the day – were nothing but plodding or marching set to music and had ruined most people’s dancing style: “Now anyone who knows they can walk, thinks they can waltz.” He alluded to a “constant call for teachers to teach the old fashioned square dance in the cities”; I would love to know more about that demand, and I’m sure you would too.
The standard chorus for squares, here as in most of the US and Canada, appears to be “allemande left, grand right and left, and promenade,” but here there is a twist: The turn with corner is referred to throughout as “all men left.” This is a logical piece of folk etymology, as the men do indeed go to their left to start the chorus. In fact, Smith specifies that “the ladies stand pat at their station” while “the gents pass to the left hand lady and clasp left hands.” Many of Smith’s descriptions include some important details but omit others; for instance, for the promenade he says merely “clasp both hands with your partner,” leaving us to guess which of four or more hand positions was favored in his area.
The 25 figures include such classics as Quarter Sashay, Three Ladies “Grand Change” (we know it as Three Ladies Chain), Swing at the Wall, Sides Divide, Wave the Ocean, Bird in the Cage, Forward Up Six, Ladies Bow (better known as The Basket or Swing Like Thunder), and Ladies to the Center and Back to the Bar (aka Texas Star). With one or two exceptions, Smith appears to be the first to describe these figures in print.
Most southern and western square dance traditions include a movement consisting of hand or arm turns with partner and corner or opposite, known as the do-si-do, docey-doe, do-si, or some similar name. Smith styles his local version “Ladies Do-C and Gents So-Lo.” His description is a little vague in parts, but as nearly as I can tell, his version is very close to the “docey-doe” that Lloyd Shaw describes in Cowboy Dances (1939) – although Shaw later modified the initial move of his.
Tags: Iowa, L.L. Smith, manual
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We'll let Tony Parkes describe this item in detail below; his comments appeared (September 2022) in the online American Square Dance magazine published by Buddy Weaver.
===
Let’s look more closely at the 1919 book Old Time Dance Calls by L. L. Smith, which I mentioned last month. Published by the author in Northboro, Iowa, it’s the earliest American book I know of that describes country-style square dances and calls, as distinguished from the formal quadrilles of the 19th century. I specify “American” because a year earlier, the English ballad collector Cecil Sharp and his research assistant Maud Karpeles had published Part Five of Sharp’s Country Dance Book, describing group dances they had seen on a tour of Kentucky in 1917. Sharp’s work was so influential (and, in retrospect, controversial) that it will take a full article – possibly more than one – to do it justice.
Back to Smith’s book. It appears to be quite uncommon these days; I had not heard of it when I compiled the history chapter and the bibliography of my recent book on calling traditional squares. I would probably still be unaware of it, if not for social dance historian Nick Enge, who has included a scanned copy on his monumental website “Library of Dance” (libraryofdance.org/manuals). The copy is from the collection of Richard Powers, now at Stanford University, who has sparked a revival of interest in the social dances of the Victorian and ragtime eras.
Northboro is a very small city in Page County in the southwest corner of Iowa, bordering Missouri and not far from Nebraska (the nearest big city is Omaha, 75 miles away). Even at its peak in the 1920s and 1930s, its population was under 250 (it was 52 in the most recent census). I find it something of a wonder that Smith beat all other American authors to the punch by writing and self-publishing his call book.
Like Henry Ford a few years later, Smith advocated a revival of oldfashioned dancing. He asserted, “All good people are tired of that jazz lovey dovey dope,” claiming that the one-step and fox trot – the popular dances of the day – were nothing but plodding or marching set to music and had ruined most people’s dancing style: “Now anyone who knows they can walk, thinks they can waltz.” He alluded to a “constant call for teachers to teach the old fashioned square dance in the cities”; I would love to know more about that demand, and I’m sure you would too.
The standard chorus for squares, here as in most of the US and Canada, appears to be “allemande left, grand right and left, and promenade,” but here there is a twist: The turn with corner is referred to throughout as “all men left.” This is a logical piece of folk etymology, as the men do indeed go to their left to start the chorus. In fact, Smith specifies that “the ladies stand pat at their station” while “the gents pass to the left hand lady and clasp left hands.” Many of Smith’s descriptions include some important details but omit others; for instance, for the promenade he says merely “clasp both hands with your partner,” leaving us to guess which of four or more hand positions was favored in his area.
The 25 figures include such classics as Quarter Sashay, Three Ladies “Grand Change” (we know it as Three Ladies Chain), Swing at the Wall, Sides Divide, Wave the Ocean, Bird in the Cage, Forward Up Six, Ladies Bow (better known as The Basket or Swing Like Thunder), and Ladies to the Center and Back to the Bar (aka Texas Star). With one or two exceptions, Smith appears to be the first to describe these figures in print.
Most southern and western square dance traditions include a movement consisting of hand or arm turns with partner and corner or opposite, known as the do-si-do, docey-doe, do-si, or some similar name. Smith styles his local version “Ladies Do-C and Gents So-Lo.” His description is a little vague in parts, but as nearly as I can tell, his version is very close to the “docey-doe” that Lloyd Shaw describes in Cowboy Dances (1939) – although Shaw later modified the initial move of his.