Dance Hall Days

Dance Hall Days PDF Author: Randy McBee
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814761194
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 486

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Book Description
The rise of commercialized leisure coincided with the arrival of millions of immigrants to America's cities. Conflict was inevitable as older generations attempted to preserve their traditions, values, and ethnic identities, while the young sought out the cheap amusements and sexual freedom which the urban landscape offered. At immigrant picnics, social clubs, and urban dance halls, Randy McBee discovers distinct and highly contested gender lines, proving that the battle between the ages was also one between the sexes. Free from their parents and their strict rules governing sexual conduct, working women took advantage of their time in dance halls to challenge conventional gender norms. They routinely passed certain men over for dances, refused escorts home, and embraced the sensual and physical side of dance to further accentuate their superior skills and ability on the dance floor. Most men felt threatened by women's displays of empowerment and took steps to thwart the changes taking place. Accustomed to street corners, poolrooms, saloons, and other all-male get-togethers, working men tried to transform the dance hall into something that resembled these familiar hangouts. McBee also finds that men frequently abandoned the commercial dance hall for their own clubs, set up in the basements of tenement flats. In these hangouts, working men established rules governing intimacy and leisure that allowed them to regulate the behavior of the women who attended club events. The collective manner in which they behaved not only affected the organization of commercial leisure but also men and women's struggles with and against one another to define the meaning of leisure, sexuality, intimacy, and even masculinity.

Dance Hall Days

Dance Hall Days PDF Author: Randy McBee
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814761194
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 486

Get Book Here

Book Description
The rise of commercialized leisure coincided with the arrival of millions of immigrants to America's cities. Conflict was inevitable as older generations attempted to preserve their traditions, values, and ethnic identities, while the young sought out the cheap amusements and sexual freedom which the urban landscape offered. At immigrant picnics, social clubs, and urban dance halls, Randy McBee discovers distinct and highly contested gender lines, proving that the battle between the ages was also one between the sexes. Free from their parents and their strict rules governing sexual conduct, working women took advantage of their time in dance halls to challenge conventional gender norms. They routinely passed certain men over for dances, refused escorts home, and embraced the sensual and physical side of dance to further accentuate their superior skills and ability on the dance floor. Most men felt threatened by women's displays of empowerment and took steps to thwart the changes taking place. Accustomed to street corners, poolrooms, saloons, and other all-male get-togethers, working men tried to transform the dance hall into something that resembled these familiar hangouts. McBee also finds that men frequently abandoned the commercial dance hall for their own clubs, set up in the basements of tenement flats. In these hangouts, working men established rules governing intimacy and leisure that allowed them to regulate the behavior of the women who attended club events. The collective manner in which they behaved not only affected the organization of commercial leisure but also men and women's struggles with and against one another to define the meaning of leisure, sexuality, intimacy, and even masculinity.

Dance Hall Days

Dance Hall Days PDF Author: Randy McBee
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 0814756204
Category : Family & Relationships
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
At immigrant picnics, social clubs, and urban dance halls, Randy McBee discovers distinct and highly contested gender lines, proving that the battle between the ages was also one between the sexes."--BOOK JACKET.

Dancehall Days

Dancehall Days PDF Author: Michael O'Reilly
Publisher: Gill Books
ISBN: 9780717164608
Category : Photography
Languages : en
Pages : 326

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Book Description
Blending dynamic live shots with intimate portraits and candids, Dancehall Days is a collection of over 300 stunning black-and-white photographs drawn from Michael O'Reilly's personal archive.

It Could Lead to Dancing

It Could Lead to Dancing PDF Author: Sonia Gollance
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503627802
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Dances and balls appear throughout world literature as venues for young people to meet, flirt, and form relationships, as any reader of Pride and Prejudice, War and Peace, or Romeo and Juliet can attest. The popularity of social dance transcends class, gender, ethnic, and national boundaries. In the context of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Jewish culture, dance offers crucial insights into debates about emancipation and acculturation. While traditional Jewish law prohibits men and women from dancing together, Jewish mixed-sex dancing was understood as the very sign of modernity––and the ultimate boundary transgression. Writers of modern Jewish literature deployed dance scenes as a charged and complex arena for understanding the limits of acculturation, the dangers of ethnic mixing, and the implications of shifting gender norms and marriage patterns, while simultaneously entertaining their readers. In this pioneering study, Sonia Gollance examines the specific literary qualities of dance scenes, while also paying close attention to the broader social implications of Jewish engagement with dance. Combining cultural history with literary analysis and drawing connections to contemporary representations of Jewish social dance, Gollance illustrates how mixed-sex dancing functions as a flexible metaphor for the concerns of Jewish communities in the face of cultural transitions.

In the Watches of the Night

In the Watches of the Night PDF Author: Peter C. Baldwin
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226036030
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Before skyscrapers and streetlights glowed at all hours, American cities fell into inky blackness with each setting of the sun. But over the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth century, new technologies began to light up streets, sidewalks, buildings, and public spaces. Peter C. Baldwin’s evocative book depicts the changing experience of the urban night over this period, visiting a host of actors—scavengers, newsboys, and mashers alike—in the nocturnal city. Baldwin examines work, crime, transportation, and leisure as he moves through the gaslight era, exploring the spread of modern police forces and the emergence of late-night entertainment, to the era of electricity, when social campaigns sought to remove women and children from public areas at night. While many people celebrated the transition from darkness to light as the arrival of twenty-four hours of daytime, Baldwin shows that certain social patterns remained, including the danger of street crime and the skewed gender profile of night work. Sweeping us from concert halls and brothels to streetcars and industrial forges, In the Watches of the Night is an illuminating study of a vital era in American urban history.

Texas Dance Halls

Texas Dance Halls PDF Author: Gail Louise Folkins
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
"Blending literary and photo-journalism, history, and storytelling, essays examine eighteen Texas dance halls in terms of their music, culture, and community. Also considers the predominantly Czech and German heritage from which these halls evolved, as well as the cultural dynamics that enable them to continue as centers of community"--Provided by publisher.

The March of Spare Time

The March of Spare Time PDF Author: Susan Currell
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
ISBN: 081220171X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
In The March of Spare Time, Susan Currell explores how and why leisure became an object of such intense interest, concern, and surveillance during the Great Depression. As Americans experienced record high levels of unemployment, leisure was thought by reformers, policy makers, social scientists, physicians, labor unions, and even artists to be both a cause of and a solution to society's most entrenched ills. Of all the problems that faced America in the 1930s, only leisure seemed to offer a panacea for the rest. The problem centered on divided opinions over what constituted proper versus improper use of leisure time. On the one hand, sociologists and reformers excoriated as improper such leisure activities as gambling, loafing, and drinking. On the other, the Works Progress Administration and the newly professionalized recreation experts promoted proper leisure activities such as reading, sports, and arts and crafts. Such attention gave rise to new ideas about how Americans should spend their free time to better themselves and their nation. These ideas were propagated in social science publications and proliferated into the wider cultural sphere. Films, fiction, and radio also engaged with new ideas about leisure, more extensively than has previously been recognized. In examining this wide spectrum of opinion, Currell offers the first full-scale account of the fears and hopes surrounding leisure in the 1930s, one that will be an important addition to the cultural history of the period.

Being boys

Being boys PDF Author: Melanie Tebbutt
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526130734
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
This original and fresh approach to the emotions of adolescence focuses on the leisure lives of working-class boys and young men in the inter-war years. Being Boys challenges many stereotypes about their behaviour. It offers new perspectives on familiar and important themes in interwar social and cultural history, ranging from the cinema and mass consumption to boys’ clubs, personal advice pages, street cultures, dancing, sexuality, mobility and the body. It draws on many autobiographies and personal accounts and is particularly distinctive in offering an unusual insight into working-class adolescence through the teenage diaries of the author’s father, which are interwoven with the book’s broader analysis of contemporary leisure developments. Being Boys will be of interest to scholars and students across the humanities and social sciences and is also relevant to those teaching and studying in the fields of child development, education, and youth and community studies.

Blinded by the Lyrics

Blinded by the Lyrics PDF Author: Brent Mann
Publisher: Citadel Press
ISBN: 9780806526959
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 212

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Book Description
Explores the fascinating and surprising stories behind the most mysterious and inscrutable lyrics in rock & roll history. In Billy Joel's famous tune Piano Man, he sings: "Now Paul is a real-estate novelist, who never had time for a wife". This strange lyric cries out for an explanation. What in the world is "a real estate novelist"? Blinded By The Lyrics has the unusual answer.

The Little Black Book of 80s Hits

The Little Black Book of 80s Hits PDF Author: Wise Publications
Publisher: Wise Publications
ISBN: 085712918X
Category : Music
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
This edition of The Little Black Songbook presents the complete lyrics and chords to over 70 stellar hits from the 80s! This handy chord songbook is perfect for any aspiring guitarist, ideal for group singalongs, a spot of busking or simply to explore all that the 80s had to offer. This little book includes: An Englishman In New York [Sting] Ashes To Ashes [David Bowie] Borderline [Madonna] Call Me [Blondie] Christine [Siouxsie & The Banshees] Crazy Crazy Nights [Kiss] Don't Dream It's Over [Crowded House] Eye Of The Tiger [Survivor] Goody Two Shoes [Adam Ant] Heaven Is A Place On Earth [Belinda Carlisle] Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now [The Smiths] I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues [Elton John] Karma Chameleon [Culture Club] Livin' On A Prayer [Bon Jovi] Love Will Tear Us Apart [Joy Division] Mad World [Tears For Fears] Oh Yeah [Roxy Music] Pride (In The Name Of Love) [U2] Pure [The Lightning Seeds] Purple Rain [Prince] Real Gone Kid [Deacon Blue] Relax [Frankie Goes To Hollywood] Rock The Casbah [The Clash] Summer Of '69 [Bryan Adams] Take My Breath Away [Berlin] This Ole House [Shakin' Stevens] Thorn In My Side [Eurythmics] Thriller [Michael Jackson] Town Called Malice [The Jam] True [Spandau Ballet] Walk Like An Egyptian [The Bangles] You Shook Me All Night Long [AC/DC] You Win Again [The Bee Gees] And many more!