20s/30s UK dance halls - a research request

Hi everyone!

I'm a recent recruit to VFG's forum and I'm really enjoying reading through lots of these fascinating threads! :o Its all too much!

At the moment I am obsessed with 20s/30s UK dance halls - I'm researching what people wore to go to them.

Since I know that many vintage fiends (myself included) also collect lots of reference material and associated ephemera, I wondered if anyone had photographs of dancers in UK dance halls in the 1920s or 1930s?

Here's an example, which I don't own but a lovely woman called Sheila who works at Walsall Museum let me have a copy of:



I'm after nice clear photographs of the dancers most of all, so I can see what style of clothes they're wearing, and ideally with as much provenance (date, place, even who's in it) as possible, although its not essential if the photograph is good enough ;).

If you do have something along these lines, and are willing to let me use a jpeg scan of it, I will credit you fully in my thesis. And you will have my undying gratitude. If there ever comes a day when I have the chance to publish then I will be in touch again to make sure eveything is aok with you (copyright etc).

If anyone has any ideas of the date of this photograph, that would be much appreciated too. There's two girls at the front right wearing distinctive handkerchief hem dresses so I'm guessing 1926-8 but you may well know better!

Sincere thanks for your help in advance!

Sarah

 

My grandmother who was born in 1913 used to go to dance halls when she was a teenager until she married my grandfather about 1931/1932 (yes, she married young).
Unfortunately she died in 1999 so I can't ask her anything else about her experiences with them but I remember her telling me that she used to go to the second hand shops in Cardiff (where my family is from) and buy old Victorian dresses and cut them up to make fashionable dresses to wear to the dance halls (I cried when she told me that!!) as she didn't have any money to buy new.
Her preferences was for green silk although she was known to buy reds and burgundys! Unfortunately, no photos exist of her in these dresses and of course, everything including dresses, got chucked out when they moved to Canada in 1956! :(
If my grandmother used to buy 19th century dresses second hand to cut up and make into dancing dresses, chances are that some of the dresses in your photos probably started out life in the previous century to!
Just thought that I would share that little tidbit with you.

Lei

 

Thanks Lei. That's so helpful, because my dance hall goers would have been mostly working or lower middle class and wouldn't have had much money to spend.

The re-use of old garments was probably quite common - it was a cheap and affordable option for cash strapped youngsters who wanted a new dance frock. While it hurts to think about the precious dresses that were chopped and re-made (bless you for crying!), I'm sure this has been going on for years.

I do sympathise though. When I worked in my mum's vintage clothes shop some of the customers would drive me mad! They'd try on an exquisite ivory satin 1930s evening gown (for example) and then say 'well I think I'll take this tacky corsage off, or maybe I'll chop off the bodice and make a skirt out of it, and dye it purple.' Honestly, I used to want to throw them out of the shop with a boot up the ****, and it hurt to have to sell the item to them, knowing they were intent on butchering it!

This is fabulous evidence, Lei, and I may be in touch so I can quote and credit you correctly in my thesis, if that's ok?

 

Lei thats so interesting...vintage has always been here!!

l wish my nana was still alive, (b1911-1981) she was a Phyliss Dixie dance girl, in a 'tableau'. ..naughty!! .and she worked in the chorus line mostly...l recall many of her stories but not about clothing. She was an early dance partner of Victor Sylvester...sigh no photos of her dancing...(it was frowned upon by her family...she later developed MS and it always quitely thought she got her desserts!) a shame.

She was my hero growing up!!

 

The thing is, back in those days, no one wanted Victorian clothing. They thought of it as we think of 80's and 90's (and even 70's!) clothing- there was plenty of it around then too.
My nana could never understand why I collected clothing as she preferred the current styles!

My naner was definitely working class, one of her jobs was working in a cake factory :D

Lei

 

Sara - how tragic about your nana, and such a shame that you have no photographs of her in her prime. There's sure to be surviving photographs of her, perhaps in an archive. I've had dealings with the Mander and Mitchenson Theatre Collection (held at the Trinity College of Music) and they're very helpful.

Plus the Theatre Museum's archive - it used to be in Covent Garden but is now closed, and the V&A holds the collection. What a fascinating research project that would be!

Lei - I think our attitudes are so different because we don't have to wear second hand clothes! If you've got no choice you're bound to resent it, and want brand spanking new gear as soon as you can afford it.

Plus I think we are generally much more aware of the historic interest and importance (and beauty and quality) of 'old' clothes, and there's actually a prestige attached to them now that they never used to have. We even call them 'vintage', and I'd be interested to know when that useage started, because when I started buying them nobody used that term. It was just 'secondhand'!

 

What a fascinating thread! I loved learning about your grandmothers, Lei and Sara...

I wonder if any of you UKers could provide a capsule definition of the dance hall scene? Was there anything analogous to it in the US at the time? I know my Brooklynite mother used to go dancing to all the swing bands in the early 40s (even ditching school once to see Harry James--a total aberration for her!), but that seems to be a bit later than what you are describing.

Good luck with your research, Sarah--sorry I have nothing to contribute!

 

Oh this thread is going to bring back some memories of people long gone. I had a boyfriend in the 60s and his mother was engaged once to the pianist for Victor Sylvester. She was widowed and once we went to the Palais de Dance in Nottingham to see them play. It was a glamorous evening and she and her daughter still wore what we call vintage dresses. I remember them dancing together (her and the pianist) with stars in their eyes. I have always loved vintage but I think that she was the one who gave me the real bug. She was very elegant and the grandeur was somewhat faded but it has remained in my mind ever since. Not much help to you I know but if I find anything of interest I will post it. The boyfriend was much older than me and I am sure his mother etc are no longer with us.

Margaret - Chelsealace.

 

sarah, you have really got ME thinking now...l have tried to research my grandmothers dancing past, without any luck. l'm not sure of her stage name either...June Young l think, but unsure. I was the only grandchild that regualrly visited her, we lived opposite eachother, so l would leave my dingy bedsit, after l left home, and would sneak over to her, when she was tucked up in bed, and we would sit talking, she would listen to my teen probs, and meet my boyfriends, all my parents who lived in the house behind, unknowing..

as my mother is writing the family history just now, l have been able tor ecall things she obviously didnt know about, as she was in an ophanage,while nana was in london!!! ....a long story!!!!

l could ramble on all day...she was a lovely lady, who never moaned or groaned once, baout being paralized in a wheelchair for 20 yrs....(she was also supoosed to be the daughter of a viscount who live din eaton square, her mother wa sin service, but whch viscount, the name died with my great, great aunt midge!) l guess we could find that out too...somehow..

it would do her memory justice if could find out some snippets....

but this isnt helping you at all Sarah!! my mind ia ll a dither, as l keep remembering bits...

l shall ask my mum some questions, though she was a nurse and spent her free time in a dance hall, but in 50's, she danced with the gi's. so that isnt your era....

 

Greetings Sarah - I have nothing to contribute as well, being an American ... but my Mom was a flapper and I remember her telling me how scandalized the older generation was by them enjoying the Charleston and the Black Bottom. She taught me how to do the charleston properly - You move your ankles too. All her flapper clothes went into the "dress-up" box for us.

That picture is lovely - I am particularly intrigued with the similarity of hair styles. Pity the poor gal whose hair just didn't want to conform to a bob. I would guess the picture is late 20's.

Here in uptight Vermont my historical society bought a building in town and there is a stipulation in the paperwork that the building "...will never be used for dancing." And that's my big contribution from the other side of the water !

Amanda

 

This is such a gratifying response. I know no one's come up with a picture yet, but I'm loving all these stories! It just goes to show how important dancing was in people's lives.

Thanks for the good wishes, Carrie! I could try a super quick potted history for you:

The dancing craze in Britain was kicked off by the arrival of Ragtime from the US in about 1911. There were mad 'animal' dances like the Turkey Trot and the Bunny Hug, plus new simpler ballroom dances like the Quick Step. The famous dancer Irene and Vernon Castle helped popularise these all round the world.

During the First World War there was a huge dancing craze in London, and once the American soldiers arrived they taught us gawky Brits how to do it properly!

Shortly after the war the first new dance hall - The Palais de Danse in Hammersmith, London was built in 1919. The cost of entry was affordable for working people and it was immensely popular. I have to point out that prior to this you had to be fairly well off to dance to the new jazz music since it was only expensive restaurants, hotels and exclusive clubs that had jazz orchestras.

New luxurious dance halls were built all across the country and going dancing rapidly became the second most popular leisure activity after the cinema. It was mostly young, unmarried working and lower middle class people who attended dance halls - the middle classes on the whole would not dream of going to a 'pay to enter' dance (full of working people!) and had their own 'ticket only' affairs in tennis clubs and town halls etc.

About 1925 the Charleston hits the UK, followed by the Black Bottom and other crazy variants. More dance madness follows. Dance teachers are horrified and organise themselves, imposing 'approved' dances of standardised steps and tempo (Victor Silvester's 'strict tempo', does that ring a bell?!) and the dance scene calms down - the 'English' style of ballroom dancing is codified and spreads around the world. Whilst it was popular, it was tame and restrained - very English.

Towards the end of the 1930s new, wild 'swing' dances are starting to make inroads into British dance halls, danced by only a few in the know, and often quite badly. It took the next wave of US GIs to come over and teach us all over again how to do it right!

Well that takes you up to the 2WW at any rate!

 

Hi Margaret! Victor Silvester makes another guest appearance! Like you say, many of the people it would be useful to talk to are no longer here. I should have started this research twenty years ago!

Sara - I would start by researching the famous people she knew, like Victor Silvester and Phylis Dixie and see what comes up. There's bound to be lots of material available on them. And I've just thought - the British Music Hall Society might be worth trying. I contacted their historian, Max Tyler, when I was researching the costumes of a glamorous female impersonator of the 20s/30s, and he was incredibly helpful and knowledgeable. Plus they have a regular magazine, The Call Boy, where you can place an advertisement asking readers for information.

Amanda - how fantastic that you can Charleston! Maybe that's an idea for a future workshop?! ;) The Charleston and the like were truly shocking for the older generations, and it was often banned from dancehalls. Or they had signs up saying 'PCQ' - Please Charleston Quietly'! I'll pass over the lost flapper dresses . . .

 

Sarah--Wow, that is just fascinating! How interesting that dance became stratified along class lines, even though dancing to jazz was originally an elitist pursuit (kind of like how haute couture styles wind up on the mass market, I guess...)

The notion of dance teachers mortified by the Charleston is just delicious...

Thanks so very much for educating me!

 

Its hard to shut me up once I'm started, Carrie!

And British society as a whole was strongly 'stratified along class lines' (very elegantly put!) in those days. Some might argue it still is to some degree . . .

What interests me greatly is how much influence the US had on UK culture - this era marked the beginning of America's cultural dominance. Obviously Hollywood played a huge part in this and it defined glamour for young working people. And when you're preparing to go to the dance and want to look your best, chances are that you'll take your cues from what you've seen onscreen.

So I'm fascinated by how a young factory girl might try her hardest to copy Ginger Rogers' hairstyle, or a young apprentice might try and look like James Cagney with a Burton's pinstripe suit and suavely tilted hat.

Does anyone have any anecdotes (secondhand or otherwise!) along those lines?

 

Forgot to say - UK or US, I don't mind. Who cares about my remit? - I'm enjoying the responses too much!

 

My grandmother told me how she burned off her fringe and singed her forehead in the 1920's trying to use the crimping tongs that they used to have to put on the fire! She had fine hair not like my wild and wooley mess so I guess the heat was too much for her hair. I have a photo of her in her wavey 1920's hairstyle that I will try to find and scan.

 

Sarah--

I think you're absolutely right. Both my parents--who were incredibly stylish young people in the late 30s/early 40s (dunno what happened as they aged ) took their cues from Hollywood.

I actually dissected my dad's style in a blog post several months back--old photos of him have definite echos of Cagney, Sinatra, Robert Mitchum in them, in the way he dresses, stands, and even tilts his hat. (He grew up street-wise in a very blue collar, ethnically Polish neighborhood in Maspeth, NY, and I think he must have identified with the tough guys on the screen because they made the gritty somehow glamorous...)

My mother, on the other hand, probably identified most with dancing actresses (she loved Cyd Charisse, for instance, who had dark hair like her, and was Jewish too!) She was an excellent dancer herself and very proud of her gorgeous legs--always wore sexy pumps to show them off...

 

Lei - I would love to see that picture of your nan. Hairdressing techniques were pretty brutal then, weren't they? I always wondered how they could tell that the iron tongs were at the right temperature, but your account suggests there was no way of knowing!

Carrie - I want to read about your father! Could you link it for me? I think movie gangsters and tough guys had equal appeal for working class/blue collar young men on both sides of the Atlantic. When you look at British films of the time (for the most part, don't bother!) it was all upper class drawing rooms and cut glass accents which few ordinary people could relate to. Plus American films offered exciting fantasies of advancement and success (by fair means or foul) - they were more democratic in their approach.

Cyd Charisse is one of my favourites too. I love her gamine haircuts, and her slinky style. Your mother had good taste - and the good fortune to resemble her!

 

Ouch! (I'd love to see the photo of your grandmother, Lei...)

I think female self-injury in the pursuit of beautification is a timeless peril--I think of my daughter, when she was 14 or so, using so much Nair on her upper lip (she thought the hair there was freakishly dark, which of course, it wasn't) that she ended up with a red moustache for 3 days...

Sarah, here is the link to my blog post (part 1 of 3--the Sinatra lookalike photo is in the 2nd installment!):
http://cur.io/?m=200605

 

Thanks Carrie. I really enjoyed reading about your dad and his progression of styles. Of course it was about much more than that, but then that's why I'm doing this work right now. Style is not superficial. It reveals so much about hopes, beliefs, aspirations, ideals. OK, stop me now, I'm getting all undergrad on you!

Everyone knows that young people judge so much by appearances, but that's not as crass as some might think because they are aware that all their peers are sizing them up in precisely the same (critical) way. And they're right!

Referring back to my borrowed photograph at the top - you'd find it difficult to pick out who earned the most money, or who was the poorest. They all did their best to look fabulous, and they did a really good job. There's lots of hidden effort, and scrimping and saving and resourcefulness behind that image. Isn't that great? I feel proud of them even though I have no idea who they are.

And blimey your mother was pretty!