The Fan

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In an interview with H. Allen Smith, recounted in his book Low Man On A Totem Pole, ©1941, Sally Rand said she invented the Fan Dance as a way to skirt obscenity laws.  Nudity was allowed on stage as long as the person was motionless, but nude dancing was prohibited.  Her plan was to conceal herself as she danced, then periodically strike a pose with the fans open- "vogueing" sixty years before Madonna.

For the most part the police weren't concerned with the finer points of the law, so she was still arrested pretty regularly.

(In this clip she is wearing a swimsuit, so nobody should be scandalized.)

Let's Dance!

Let's Dance!

 

Better Than None

Excerpted from Civil War in Pictures by Fletcher Pratt, ©1955:

Our soldiers believe in the literal interpretation of the dictum of the Wise Man that “there is a time to dance.”  But to put their faith into works is not the easiest thing in the world, owing to the lack of partners of the feminine persuasion.  However, by imagining a bearded and pantallooned fellow to be of “t’other kind,” they succeed in getting up what they call a “Stag Dance,” which is better than none.

This has been a really interesting little book that I found for $1.29 at a thrift store.  There was no way to reproduce a photograph in a newspaper at the time, so newspapers sent out sketch correspondents and reduced their drawings to woodcuts to print them in the paper.  Drawings like these are how most people got to "see" the Civil War unfold.

I'll be posting a few more over the next few weeks.