Figure 1.--Here we see a press report on thge De Rham dancung school. The caption read, "Dancing Class for New York'Society Children: The De Rham Dancing School, situated in New York's elegant 'Silk Stocking' district, has for years taught dance steps and manners to the children of New York's socially prominent people. Its graduates include Rosalind Russell, Jacqueline Kennedy, George Hamilton, and the Ford children. Estblished by De Rham, the vchool is now run by his widow," The photgraph was taken February 7, 1968. The children are John Brayton and Bonnie Anajan. John wears a light-colored suit. Most of the boys wore blak or navy blue suits as you can see in the background.

We see examples of social dnceing classes through the 1960s. A good example was a 1968 newspaper article. The caption pf a photograph read, "Dancing Class for New York'Society Children: The De Rham Dancing School, situated in New York's elegant 'Silk Stocking' district, has for years taught dance steps and manners to the children of New York's socially prominent people. Its graduates include Rosalind Russell, Jacqueline Kennedy, George Hamilton, and the Ford children. Estblished by De Rham, the school is now run by his widow," The photoraph was taken February 7, 1968. The dance steps being taught were basic ballroom dancing. The parents were apparently given strict instructions on how the children should be dressed. Notice the girls'white dresses and the boys' short pants suits and knee socks. We see these dancing classes and the De Rham stufio being picked up by the press in the 1950s and 60s, becsuse the children came from such socially prominent families in Americ's most inflential city at the time. There were similar dancing lesseons in mant differnt cities round the country, but received less media coverage. Some ethnic communities promoted nation ethnic dance forms. This was particulrly notable with the German, Irish, and Scottish communities. This seems to have increased in popularity after World War II. We see Irish step dancing becoming increasingly important. We do not think World War II itself was a factor, but it did help generte an inceasing interest in national roots among the second and third generation immigrant families. Dancing became an important activity at the popular Irish feises--events similar to Sottih Highland gatherings. The Irish feises were different in that the dancing competitions were commonly the major activity.

Created: 11:05 AM 7/13/2022
Last updated: 11:05 AM 7/13/2022