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American boys have been involved in dance to varying degrees and have worn a variety of dance costumes. Our information on dance is still very limited. Hopefully readers who know more about dance will be able to provide more detailed information. Many American boys participated in dances in the 18th century which are now seen as folk dancing. We have no idea about dance classes and schools. More information becomes available in the 19th century. We suspect that here were dance lessons for children at least by the late-19th children, although we do not yet have information. The industrialization of the United Statres created great wealth and created a much more affluent middle- and working-class. This meant that more families could afford nicities like instrumental music and dance lessos. A complicating factor here is that some religious groups objected to dance. We know nuch more about the 20th century. We have found photographic evidence of dance classes in the early-20th century. This includes both performance dancing and social dancing. Here there were gender differences. Performamnce dancing was primarily for girls. Social dancing lessons were more likely to involve boys. Mothers tended to be more insistent about social dancing, knowing that it was a valuable social skill. Boys often did not like the idea. We also notice social dancing classes in school, often as part of the P.E. program. Mothers were less likely to insist on performance dancing in which we mostly see younger boys involved. Some ethnic communities promoted national dance forms. This was particulrly notable with the German, Irish, and Scottish. Social dancing chnged in the sevcond half of the 20th century. The dance forms became more free style and less likely to be actually taught.
Many American boys participated in dances in the 18th century which are now seen as folk dancing. We have no idea about dance classes and schools.
More information becomes available in the 19th century, although we still know very little. We believe that children were mostly taught to dance at home by mothers. This would have been mostly social dances. We have no ibformation on ethnic dances like Irish step dancing. And as far as we know, children were not taught formal disciplines like balet dancing. We do not even know if there were balet schools in America. We believe that this was a European phenomenon. Here many churches would haved objedcted. There may have been balet performances by the late-19th century, but bthey would have been foreiogn touring troops. We suspect that here were dance lessons for children at least by the late-19th children, although we do not yet have information. And they would have been lessons in sovail dancing. The industrialization of the United States created great wealth and created a much more affluent middle- and working-class. This meant that more families could afford niceities like instrumental music and dance lessos. But dance classes were especially important and became also a requirement for the the well-to-do. One social historian writes, "In the late 19th century, so many of the Gilded Age robber baron types were looking for a sense of sophistication to place themselves in a kind of aristocracy. This is the kind of thing they did, or had their children do." [Paley] A complicating factor here is that some religious groups objected to dance, but this was primarily with non-elite churches.
We know nuch more about the 20th century. We have found photographic evidence of dance classes in the early-20th century. This includes both performance dancing and social dancing. Here there were gender differences. Performamnce dancing was primarily for girls. Social dancing lessons were more likely to involve boys. Mothers tended to be more insistent about social dancing, knowing tht it was a valuable social skill. Most upper-class boys attended danncing lessons. This was also very common for middle-class boys, but not virtually aequirement as was the case for upper-class boys. Boys often did not like the idea. We also notice social dancing classes in school, often as part of the P.E. program. Mothers were less likely to insist on performance dancing in which we mostly see younger boys involved. Some ethnic communities promoted nation 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 do not think the war was afactor, but kind of interest in national roots with th increasing second and third generation immogrant families. Social dancing changed in the second half of the 20th century. The dance forms became more free style and less likely to be actually taught.
Palry, Valerie. Paley is a historian at the New-York Historical Society who studies social elites and whose own children attended one of the city's remaining dancing schools with upper-crust throwbacks, the Knickerbocker Cotillion. Quoted in Nirnov, Sarah Maslin. "Dancing school gives children a taste of the elite," The New York Times (November 4, 2010).
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