Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-lrf7s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-30T07:51:39.716Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Athena Meets Venus: Visions of Women in Social Dance in the Teens and Early 1920s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 July 2014

Julie Malnig
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

In a 1915 editorial of The Ladies Home Journal, social commentator Dorothy Mills pondered the issue of the “woman question,” and in a few vivid sentences summed up much of the public's reaction to women's readjusted place in society during the Progressive era. What was one to make of the fact that women were declaring the right to vote, divorcing their husbands at a greater pace than ever and demanding fulfilling work outside of marriage? Said Mills:

The “New Girl” that some of us proclaim, and many of us don't believe in at all and more of us dread, is not a fantastic creature, a third sex, a superwoman. She is the eternal woman, with her love for man and child her eternal necessity, plus perhaps only one thing: a certain awkward realization of herself as more of a personality, a unit. Do you see how that can be the starting point of an infinite variety of developments, of activities, of theories? (Mills 1915, 3)

Type
Articles
Information
Dance Research Journal , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , Fall 1999 , pp. 34 - 62
Copyright
Copyright © Congress on Research in Dance 1999

References

REFERENCES

Banes, Sally. Dancing Women: Female Bodies on Stage. London and NY: Routledge, 1998.Google Scholar
Banner, Lois. American Beauty. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1983.Google Scholar
Banta, Martha. Imaging American Women: Idea and Ideals in Cultural History. NY: Columbia University Press, 1987.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burns, Judy. “The Culture of Nobility/The Nobility of Self-Cultivation.” In Moving Words: Rewriting Dance, edited by Morris, Gay. London and NY: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Caspary, Vera. The Secrets of Grown-ups. NY: McGraw Hill Company, 1979.Google Scholar
Mr.Castle, and Mrs.Vernon, . Modern Dancing. NY: The World Syndicate Company, 1915.Google Scholar
Chambers, John Whiteclay II,. The Tyranny of Change: America in the Progressive Era, 1900–1917. NY: St. Martin's Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Cogan, Frances. All American Girl: The Ideal of Real Womanhood in Mid-Nineteenth Century America. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1989.Google Scholar
“The Costume of the Dance: As Interpreted By The Fashion Shop of America.” The Modern Dance Magazine (February 1917): 25.Google Scholar
Daly, Ann. Done Into Dance: Isadora Duncan in America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
“Dancing the Source of All Human Art: With Modern Dance Symbolizing the New Spirit of Self-expression.” The Modern Dance Magazine (March 1917): 9.Google Scholar
Degler, Carl N. Out of Our Past: The Forces That Shaped Modern America. NY: Harper and Row, 1959.Google Scholar
Diner, Steven J. A Very Different Age: Americans of the Progressive Era. NY: Hill & Wang, 1998.Google Scholar
Douglas, Ann. Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s. NY: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1995.Google Scholar
Douglas, Edgar. “My Wife Wanted to Dance, I Thought It Was Wrong, Here's What Happened!” Dance Lovers Magazine (November 1923): 29; 30; 31; 60.Google Scholar
Duncan, Isadora. “The Ideal Form of Woman.” The Modern Dance Magazine (December 1916/ January 1917): 22.Google Scholar
Duncan, Isadora. “What Modern Women Want.” The Modern Dance Magazine (December 1916/ January 1917): 11; 17.Google Scholar
“Effect of the Modern Dance on Women's Dress.” The Modern Dance Magazine (January 1914): 14–15.Google Scholar
Endres, Kathleen L. and Lueck, Therese L., eds. Women's Periodicals in the United States (Consumer Magazines). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Erenberg, Lewis A. “Everybody's Doin' It: The Pre-World War I Dance Craze, the Castles, and the Modern American Girl.” Feminist Studies (Fall 1975): 155–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erenberg, Lewis A. Steppin Out: New York Nightlife and the Transformation of American Culture. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981.Google Scholar
Ernst, Robert. Weakness is a Crime: The Life of Bernarr Macfadden. NY: Syracuse University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Evans, Sara M. Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America. NY: The Free Press, Macmillan, Inc., 1989.Google Scholar
Ewen, Elizabeth. Immigrant Women in the Land of Dollars: Life and Culture on the Lower East Side, 1890–1925. NY: Monthly Review Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Ewen, Stuart. Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of the Consumer Culture. NY: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1976.Google Scholar
Ewen, Stuart. Channels of Desire: Mass Images and the Shaping of American Consciousness. NY: McGraw Hill Publications, 1982.Google Scholar
Filene, Peter G. Sex Roles in Modern America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. 1974.Google Scholar
Fiske, John. Television Culture. London and New York: Routledge, 1987.Google Scholar
Fiske, John. “Popular Culture.” In Critical Terms for Literary Study, edited by Lentricchia, Frank and McLaughlin, Thomas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Gaw, Walter A. “Some Important Trends in the Development of Magazines in the United States as an Advertising Medium.” Ph.D. Dissertation, New York University, 1942.Google Scholar
Harris, Barbara J. Beyond Her Sphere: Women and the Professions in American History. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Higham, John. “The Reorientation of American Culture in the 1890s.” In The Origins of Modern Consciousness, edited by Weiss, John. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1965.Google Scholar
Hofstadter, Richard. The Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1955.Google Scholar
Hollander, Anne. Seeing Through Clothes. NY: Viking Press, 1978.Google Scholar
Kellermann, Annette. “The Perfect Woman,” a promotional card from the Hyperion Theatre, ca. 1915. Annette Kellermann Clipping File, New York Public Library for the Performing Arts, The Billy Rose Theatre Collection.Google Scholar
Kellermann, Annette. “Why Women Lack Health, Grace and Beauty of Form.” Physical Culture (March 1915): 23a.Google Scholar
Kendall, Elizabeth. Where She Danced. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1979.Google Scholar
Leach, William. Land of Desire: Merchants, Power, and the Rise of a New American Culture. NY: Vintage Books, 1993.Google Scholar
Lears, T.J. Jackson. No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture, 1880–1920. NY: Pantheon Books, 1981.Google Scholar
Lears, T.J. Jackson. “From Salvation to Self-Realization: Advertising and the Therapeutic Roots of The Consumer Culture, 1880–1930.” In The Culture of Consumption, edited by Fox, R.W. and Lears, T.J. Jackson. NY: Pantheon Books, 1983.Google Scholar
Leutenberg, William. The Perils of Prosperity. Chicago: The University Press, 1958.Google Scholar
Lever, James, ed. Costume and Fashion: A Concise History. NY: Thames and Hudson, 1995.Google Scholar
Link, Arthur. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressive Era: 1910–1917. NY: Harper, 1954.Google Scholar
Lissak, Rivka Shpak. Pluralism and Progressives: Hull House and the New Immigrants, 1890–1919. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Malnig, Julie. “Two-Stepping to Glory: Social Dance and the Rhetoric of Social Mobility.” Etnofoor X (1/2) (1997): 128–50.Google Scholar
Marchand, Roland. Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity, 1920–1940. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maule, Frances. “The Woman Appeal.” Printers' Ink (31 January 1924): 105–106.Google Scholar
May, Elaine Tyler. “Myths and Realities of the American Family.” In A History of Private Life: Riddles of Identity in Modern Times, edited by Prost, Antoine and Vincent, Gerard; translated by Goldhammer, Arthur. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
May, Henry. The End of American Innocence: A Study of the First Years of Our Time, 1912–1917. NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 1959.Google Scholar
McGovern, James R. “The American Woman's Pre-World War I Freedom in Manners and Morals.” The Journal of American History (September 1968): 315–353.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meyer, Susan. America's Great Illustrators. NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1978.Google Scholar
Mills, Dorothy. “The New Girl's ‘Goblin,’” editorial. The Ladies Home Journal (May 1915): 3.Google Scholar
“The Modern Dance and Physical Culture.” The Modern Dance Magazine (March 1914): 13.Google Scholar
Mumford, Lewis. “From Revolt to Renewal.” In The Arts in Renewal, edited by Bradley, Sculley. NY: A.S. Barnes and Company, 1951.Google Scholar
N. W. Ayer & Sons: Directory of Newspapers and Periodicals. Fort Washington, PA: IMS Press, 1913–1930.Google Scholar
Novarro, Ramon. “Why a Perfect Dancer Makes A Perfect Lover.” Interview with Nanette Kutner. Dance Lovers Magazine (April 1924): 30; 56.Google Scholar
Ohmann, Richard. “Where Did Mass Culture Come From? The Case of Magazines.” Berkshire Review 17 (1982): 85–101.Google Scholar
Ohmann, Richard. Making and Selling Culture. New Hampshire: Wesleyan University Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Ordway, Edith B. The Etiquette of Today (revised and enlarged). NY: George Sully and Company, 1920.Google Scholar
Peiss, Kathy. Cheap Amusements: Working Women and Leisure in Turn-of-the-Century New York. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986.Google Scholar
Peterson, Theodore. Magazines in the Twentieth Century. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1964.Google Scholar
Powell, Rita Kirk. “Cultural Patterns as Revealed by the Content of Selected Dance Magazines.” Ph.D. Dissertation, Texas Women's University, 1976.Google Scholar
Reed, David. The Popular Magazine in Britain and the U.S.: 1880–1960. London: The British Library, 1977.Google Scholar
“The Romantic Adventures of a Dancing Venus (As Told By Herself).” Dance Lovers Magazine (November 1923): 11; 24; 56.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Rosalind. Beyond Separate Spheres: Intellectual Roots of Modern Feminism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.Google Scholar
Rudnick, Lois. “The New Woman.” In 1915: The Cultural Moment, edited by Heller, Adele and Rudnick, Lois. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1991.Google Scholar
Ruyter, Nancy L.C. Reformers and Visionaries: The Americanization of the Art of Dance. Brooklyn: Dance Horizons, 1979.Google Scholar
Smith-Rosenberg, Carol. Disorderly Conduct: Visions of Gender in Victorian America. NY: Oxford University Press, 1985.Google Scholar
Standard Rate and Data Service. Wilmette, IL: Standard Rate and Data Service, 1913–1930.Google Scholar
Stein, Sally. “The Graphic Ordering of Desire: Modernization of a Middle-Class Women's Magazine, 1914–1930.” Heresies 18 (1985): 7–16.Google Scholar
Tebbel, John and Zuckerman, Mary Ellen. The Magazine in America: 1741–1990. NY: Oxford University Press. 1991.Google Scholar
Tebbel, John. The American Magazine: A Compact History. NY: Hawthorn Books, 1969.Google Scholar
Thomas, Helen. Dance, Modernity & Culture. London and NY: Routledge, 1995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tomko, Linda. “Fete Accompli: gender, ‘folk dance,’ and Progressive-era political ideals in New York City.” In Corporealities, edited by Foster, Susan Leigh. NY and London: Routledge, 1996.Google Scholar
Mr.Valentino, and Mrs.Rudolph, . “Married Life is a Dance! How We Dance It and Keep Healthy and Happy.” Dance Lovers Magazine (November 1923): 19; 63.Google Scholar
Weeks, Ada Mae. “I Danced My Way Out of Nervousness and Into Health!” Dance Lovers Magazine (January 1924): page numbers obscured.Google Scholar
Whorton, James C. Crusaders for Fitness: The History of American Health Reformers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1982.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiebe, Robert H. The Search for Order, 1877–1920. NY: Hill & Wang, 1967.Google Scholar
MrsWilcox, Winona. “Glands and Conduct.” McCall's (January 1923): 72.Google Scholar
Willet, C. and Cunnington, Phillis. The History of Underclothes, 1951. Reprint. NY: Dover Publications, 1992.Google Scholar
Wilson, Christopher P. “The Rhetoric of Consumption: Mass-Market Magazines and the Demise of the Gentle Reader, 1880–1920.” In The Culture of Consumption, edited by Fox, Richard Wrightman and Lears, T.J. Jackson. NY: Pantheon Books, 1983.Google Scholar
Wilson, Elizabeth. Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.CrossRefGoogle Scholar