Square Dance History Project
The rich story of North American square dance finally has a home in the digital age.

Browse Items (357 total)

  • Collection: Northern squares
Sound

Bumps-A-Daisy

The figures of this dance mirror the basic pattern found in Solomon Levi, Nelly Bly, and others; each couple in turn stands back to back, dances around the outside of the set-- in this one, just… View item
Document

Community Squares - Ed Durlacher

Writing for Sets in Order, Ed Durlacher looks back at his successful program of outdoor dancing in New York City parks.===The first evening was more or less a nightmare. ... From the hundred or so the… View item
Document

Saturday Night in Central Park

This song is from a 1947 musical, Make Mine Manhattan, and refers to the popular Saturday night square dances led by Ed Durlacher in Central Park. Clearly, the dances were enough of a phenomenon that… View item
Website

First Lady to the Right - Joe Robertson

The recording comes from a Fretless album, 1973, with Robertson accompanying himself on electric guitar. Robertson, a stone mason from White Creek, NY, close to the Vermont border, was also an… View item
Document

"Kitchen Junket"

This evocative portrait of a New England kitchen junket ran over the first four issues of Ralph Page's Northern Junket magazine. Page draws on his own memories to paint a detailed picture of the… View item
Document

Jim Hopkins Remembers The Neighbourhood Dance Parties Of The 1940s

Detailed recollections of dancing in central Ontario in the 1940s, including neighborhood house parties, dancing at larger halls, and teaching square dance in schools. In other regions, these house… View item
Document

Friday Night Supper Dances - Windham, VT

This is an account of social dances in a small southern Vermont town, held from 1926 until about 1940. The first two pages of the PDF show the article as it appeared, followed by a clean copy of the… View item
Sound

Keeler Calling - audio

These six files are the recordings contained in Keeler Calling, the 1950 release by New York caller Elisha Keeler.The album's first three disks contained the six dances, one on each side; the final… View item
Document

Keeler Calling

This four-disk set of 78rpm records features caller Elisha Keeler and the band with whom he recorded, Mac Ceppos and his Country Rhythm Boys: Mac Ceppos, violin Eddie Smith, accordion Bill Horan,… View item
Moving Image

Square Dancing in Sudbury, Ontario

This film, made in 1959 by members of the Mine, Mill, and Smelter Workers Union Local 598 in Sudbury, Ontario, illustrates the wide range of programming that the union provided for the community.… View item
Still Image

Buffalo Boy Go Round the Outside

Lawrence Loy is the caller, working with Carson Robison and his Old Timers. (Click on the Additional Files link to hear the audio clip.) You can also download the cover or the instructions from inside… View item
Still Image

West Newbury, VT - square dance competition

This is a newspaper account (and acccompanying poem) describing the 1941 success of a team from West Newbury, Vermont, in a dance competition. We often think of square dance contests in Texas, but… View item