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

Browse Items (1930 total)

Website

Square Dance, Oakland, CA - 1919

This silent newsreel footage from Gaumont News, a French company, shows several sets of dancers doing a quadrille in an outdoor setting. The brief title before the action reads: "Choose… View item
Sound

Wedding Quadrille (clip) - Gene Gowing

This short clip includes just one time through the figure. The tune is Haste to the Wedding. Gowing does each couple in turn, then two head couples, two side couples, and finally all couples going at… View item
Sound

Crooked Stovepipe (clip) - Gene Gowing

This is the start of Gene Gowing's recording of a classic New England singing square. Gowing half sings, half chants the figures, in somewhat the same manner-- though less melodiously-- as his… View item
Sound

Polly Wolly Doodle (clip) - Gene Gowing

This dance uses the familiar children's song as the basis for a singing square. It's unclear whether caller Gene Gowing is singing the song at the beginning; the quality of the voice… View item
Sound

Quadrille #1 - Gene Gowing

Gene Gowing, here accompanied on piano by Willa Semple, prompts a quadrille to the tune of "Turkey in the Straw." Gowing was an associate of Ralph Page for many years, a co-producer of their… View item
Moving Image

My Little Girl - singing square - Gene Ward

Singing square dance called by Gene Ward; recorded at the Original Dulcimer Players Non-Electrical Funfest, Evart, Michigan, July 18-22, 1990. Ward, a caller from Durand, Michigan (near Flint), was… View item
Document

Clayton Eighters - guidelines

Toward the start of the square dance boom in the St. Louis area, there were three clubs that sponsored Lloyd Shaw's visit: The Lancers, Boots and Belles, and The Promenaders. However, at the same… View item
Document

George Greene - Lloyd Shaw letters

This is correspondence between St. Louis dance organizer George Greene and Lloyd Shaw, setting up a 1952 visit by Shaw to the area. Note that Shaw indicates (p. 3) that he will come for expenses and… View item
Moving Image

Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane - George Hodgson

The song was written by William Shakespeare Hays in 1875, and George Hodgson is the caller for the singing square, recorded January 16, 2004, at the Ralph Page Dance Legacy Weekend, Durham, NH. The… View item
Moving Image

Square dance - Ary, KY - 1963 (big set)

The caller is Corbett Grigsby, with music provided by fiddler Marion Sumner and guitarists Martin Young and Roscoe Holcomb. Grigsby introduces the figure as "around behind, lady in the lead."This… View item
Moving Image

Square Dance - Ary, KY - 1963 (4 cpl square)

see previous item A search for "Grapevine Twist" in this project's digital collection will return references, audio clips, and video clips showing that figure, including Elizabeth Burchenal's silent… View item
Document

Square Dancing in the Park

Short article describing the start of Ed Durlacher's program of teaching square dancing in Riverside Park in New York City. The Additional File ("Youth and the Squares") will provide a… View item