This was the dance the Hobart College _Herald_ disgustedly called a "syncopated embrace." And the Cincinnati _Catholic Telegraph_ wrote: "The music is sensous, the embracing of partners--the female only half-dressed--is absolutely indecent; and the motions--they are such as may not be described, with any respect for propriety, in a family newspaper. Suffice it to say that there are certain houses appropriate for such dances; but those houses have been closed by law."
In the 1920s, this "new style of dancing" was denounced in "family" publications as "impure, polluting, corrupting, debasing, destroying spirituality, increasing carnality," and decent folk were called upon to "raise the spiritual tone of these dreadful young people." [Holly Gallup holly@janus.la.platsol.com ]
And the dance? Foxtrot.
Our Networks