Taxi Dancers and Jazz Bands

[hepkitten]

Hello! I'm new to the Lounge, and I hope I've chosen the right forum to post this question.

I'm researching taxi dancers (dime-a-dance girls) in the early 1940's for a novel. Specifically, I'm interested in details of the dance hall operation and the experience of the dancers. I've already accumulated quite a bit of material but I'd love to talk to anyone who knows stories, or knows people who were involved in this profession.

I'm also researching black-and-tan clubs (where white and black patrons mingled freely) and what it might have been like for a young, ambitious African-American trumpet player in Chicago in the forties.

Any help greatly appreciated. I've already picked up wonderful details about cars, clothes, and music by searching the archives. Thank you!

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

Hello! I'm new to the Lounge, and I hope I've chosen the right forum to post this question.

I'm researching taxi dancers (dime-a-dance girls) in the early 1940's for a novel. Specifically, I'm interested in details of the dance hall operation and the experience of the dancers. I've already accumulated quite a bit of material but I'd love to talk to anyone who knows stories, or knows people who were involved in this profession.

I'm also researching black-and-tan clubs (where white and black patrons mingled freely) and what it might have been like for a young, ambitious African-American trumpet player in Chicago in the forties.

Any help greatly appreciated. I've already picked up wonderful details about cars, clothes, and music by searching the archives. Thank you!

Sounds like fun! I'm sure lots of us who might not know enough to help you, would be curious to read a little something on both. Can you suggest good intro sources for a basic "what-is"? All I can find for "taxi dancers" on google is basically just the definition you gave.

Swing High,
- C H

 

[MK]

.

Welcome to The Fedora Lounge. I am glad found the joint. I have not heard of taxi dancers.

What part of Oregon are you in?

 

[flat-top]

Weren't "black and tan" clubs only for Spanish and black people, and NOT for whites? I think that's what I've read. I bet those were the COOLEST joints in town! Imagine how great the clothes were!!! I'm thinking of the night club scene from "Devil in a Blue Dress".

 

[magneto]

Hi!

I'm sorry this is probably almost no help, but I was browsing in a used bookstore recently and noticed a sociologist's book on taxi dancers and dancehalls in the USA, I think published in the 1970s or 80s. So that might be something to look for if it's useful to you (I don't have the author or title unfortunately). I was flipping through it and the one thing I remember was the discussion how such dancehalls were heavily patronized by (male) Filipino immigrants.

 

[hepkitten]

Wow! Thanks for the responses!

Cousin Hepcat, taxi dance halls were popular throughout the US from the 20's through the end of WWII. The halls catered to male customers, who for 10 cents a dance were able to dance with any girl of their choice. The girls were hired by the hall. Girls kept half the dance price (which is how they got their other nickname, "nickel-hoppers"), and they also earned tips. Some girls also "fished" their customers for spending money, dresses, jewelry, and nights on the town. It wasn't considered a respectable profession--but a good taxi-dancer earned easily twice what she could get in any "respectable" line of work. Many of the halls called themselves "dance academies" and the female dancers "instructresses" to make themselves seem more legitimate.

MK, I'm glad I found the joint, too. I'm in the Portland area.

Flat-top, I've read this too, which conflicts with other info I've found. Perhaps it depended on the city? I learned about the black-and-tans from the taxi-dance references I have--apparently, some of the customers would take dancers there after the taxi-dance hall closed for the night. But so far I've only been able to find a few references to the black-and-tans, so I'm still searching.

Magneto, I think I have the book you're referring to. It's called "The Taxi-Dance Hall", by Paul Cressey. It was originally published in 1932, then reprinted in 1969. It's a sociological study of "the taxi-dance hall problem," commissioned by the city of Chicago. Mostly the problem was that no one knew whether the halls were innocent entertainment, or dens of vice that should be shut down! Cressey has an entire chapter devoted to the Filipino customer.

I originally got interested in taxi-dancing after finding out that my mother's aunt was a taxi-dancer in NYC in the 20's and 30's. She was thrown out and declared dead to the family. To this day, there are branches of our extended family who don't even know this woman existed.

Thanks everyone! If anyone comes across anything that might be helpful, don't hesitate to holler.

 

[carebear]

"Private Dancer" by Tina Turner is more or less about a taxi dancer, not a stripper. The video makes it pretty clear.

Not sure that that added anything, but it's a pop culture reference.

So... there ya go. [huh]

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Eva Duarte -- "Evita" -- the Argentine who married General (and later President) Juan Peron, began as a taxi dancer in Buenos Aires.

.

 

[Novella]

I just think of Ruth Etting's song "Ten Cents a Dance" -

Ten cents a dance, that's what they pay me
Gosh, how they weigh me down
Ten cents a dance, pansies and rough guys
Tough guys who tear my gown

Seven to midnight I hear drums
Loudly the saxophone blows
Trumpets are tearing my eardrums
Customers crush my toes

Sometimes I think I've found my hero
But it's a queer romance (I just copied and pasted these lyrics - when I listened to the song I thought this one was "But it's a queer old man")
All that you need is a ticket
Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance!

(Sorry, not much help.)

 

[Cousin Hepcat]

I just think of Ruth Etting's song "Ten Cents a Dance" -

Ten cents a dance, that's what they pay me
Gosh, how they weigh me down
Ten cents a dance, pansies and rough guys
Tough guys who tear my gown

Seven to midnight I hear drums
Loudly the saxophone blows
Trumpets are tearing my eardrums
Customers crush my toes

Sometimes I think I've found my hero
But it's a queer romance (I just copied and pasted these lyrics - when I listened to the song I thought this one was "But it's a queer old man")
All that you need is a ticket
Come on, big boy, ten cents a dance!

(Sorry, not much help.)

lol Those sound more like lyrics I would have expected from Bessie Smith.


Swing High,
- C H

 

[hepkitten]

I love the lyrics to "Ten Cents a Dance" -- it really seems to sum up the typical experience of a taxi dancer, especially the line about "it's a queer romance..." Some of the guys who frequented taxi-dance halls were intimidated by the public dance halls; they may have been short, or very tall, or have some physical "defect" that made them shy about asking women to dance...many were immigrants who were unwelcome at public dance halls, and some of them were just plain shy. In a taxi-dance hall, they could dance and talk with a nice girl, with no fear of rejection...just so long as they kept handing over the tickets.

Re Tina Turner's "Private Dancer", until I started researching this topic I never realized what that song was about. Definitely a "d'oh" moment.

Marc, I knew Eva Peron was an actress, but I didn't realize she got her start taxi-dancing. Talk about social climbing...

 

[Novella]

I'm not sure what information you've already come across from your research, but here is something that I thought was interesting and you hopefully haven't seen yet. This is from The Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science © 1954 Northwestern University:

"The Passing of the Taxi Dance Hall.
Clyde B. Vedder of the University of Flordia, writing in SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH, states in part: With the taxi-dance hall's decline an established fact, it is not difficult to list a few contributing factors toward the end. One factor, unheard of during hte earlier days, has to do with fingerprinting. In Detroit, the polic fingerprint the employers and managers when they apply for taxi-dance hall licenses, while in Los Angeles, the police fingerprint only prospective taxi-dancers. The New York police fingerprint both employers and taxi-dancers. Other factors would include the ending of the Prohibition Era, the gradual return of the saloon and cocktail lounge, and the concomitant emergence of the "B" girl, who solicits customers for drinks.

"The passing of the taxi-dance hall will be attended by few mourners," states Vedder. Successful taxi-dancers, who for the most part are both mercenary and predatory, are attracted to a social situation in which physically and socially handicapped men may be exploited. Taxi-dancers may assume the mores of the larger community only long enough to capitalize upon the huanitarian impulses of the patron, if and when they occur. In addition to the social disorganization present in the milieu of the taxi-dancer, there are factors which contribute to the personal disorganization of the girls who enter this profession.

The dictum of the veteran taxi-dancer, "you've got to cheat," is accepted as a matter of course by girls who remain in the taxi-dance hall. No longer may the taxi-dancer be depicted as the "good" girl forced to dance with "bad" men, but rather as a girl determined to exploit everyone connected with the establishment as much as possible, and even today, the tax-dance hall resembles its prototype of four decades ago, for in relation to society and the larger community, the taxi-dance hall is still found to be located on the periphery of the respectable, tolerated, but no condoned - From an article, The Decline of the Taxi-Dance Hall, by Clyde B. Vedder, University of Flordia, appearing in SOCIOLOGY AND SOCIAL RESEARCH, July-August 1954, as a resume and a follow-up of a larger study by the same author, An Analysis of the Taxi-dance Hall as a Social Institution with Special Reference to Los Angeles and Detroit (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Southern California, 1947)."

Hopefully not too many typos in there, and although it's about the decline of the taxi-dance hall I thought there were still some interesting and potentially useful tidbits in there. If you hadn't read it before it might be worth trying to get a hold of Clyde B. Vedder's 1947 USC dissertation.

 

[ortega76]

As an odd movie reference, Madonna's character in A League Of Their Own was a taxi dancer.

As far as Black-and-Tan clubs, I understand the term to be applied to both Hispanic-Black clubs and to clubs where whites would slum with blacks. In the former, such socialization was still rigidly controlled by management and police harassment.

 

[flat-top]

As an odd movie reference, Madonna's character in A League Of Their Own was a taxi dancer.

As far as Black-and-Tan clubs, I understand the term to be applied to both Hispanic-Black clubs and to clubs where whites would slum with blacks. In the former, such socialization was still rigidly controlled by management and police harassment.

That's what I have read also--that it was kind of a weird thing for whites to be seen in a black and tan. This is also, once again, referenced in "Devil in a Blue Dress".

 

[flat-top]

Strangely enough, there was a "sports bar" down the block from my house that had dollar- a- dance girls working in it. They were Latin women and the place was frequented mostly by Latin men. This was only about 2 years ago mind you, so this sort of thing is alive and well! I've heard them referred to as "Slow Dance Clubs" sometimes.

 

[hepkitten]

Novella, that's a GREAT lead. Thank you very much! I'm definitely going to try to get my hands on that.

ortega76 and flat-top, those are also excellent references. I'm really curious about the black-and-tans, mostly because I'm having such a hard time finding anything on them. Duke Ellington wrote the "Black and Tan Fantasy" that was part of a movie (name escapes me just now), but I don't believe it's available--the movie, that is. I am going to rent Devil in a Blue Dress, though. Saw it when it first came out, and I don't remember the black-and-tan club.

flat-top, I did find an article written a couple of years ago in the L.A. Times on the modern taxi-dance hall. They are still around, although not nearly as popular as they were. The striking thing to me was that the attitudes of both patrons and dancers are the same as when Cressey wrote about them in 1937, and Vedder in '54...

 

[mmeckel]

taxi-dancers & taxi-dance halls



Greetings to Everyone,

I just discovered your site and this thread last night. My name is Mary and my interest in taxi-dancers and taxi-dance halls is both personal and professional. I think I am the sociologist to whom someone earlier referred. I completed my PhD. in sociology in 1988 at the University of Nebraska and the title of my dissertation was, Continuity And Change Within A Social Institution: the role of the taxi-dancer.

My dissertation was eventually published in 1995, by The Edwin Mellen Press under the title, A Sociological Analysis of The California Taxi-Dancer: The Hidden Halls. My book is still in print and can be found at discounted prices at Amazon and many, many other book stores both on and off line.

I, myself, was employed as a taxi-dancer back in the 1960s when many of the nation's young people flocked to California seeking an education, political activism and the just plain bizarre. During this decade, working in a taxi-dance hall was not considered all that far out.

During the months of my employment, I, too, kept notes, intending to eventually write a novel. My B.S. and M.A. degrees were in English, with a good many hours in Theatre Arts and Speech Communication. I didn't become a sociologist until I returned to college in the early 1980s when I returned to graduate school, eventually completing my doctorate in Sociology.

At any rate, my book is also available at many university libraries and some public libraries, as well. It might be worth while to run the title of my book through a Google search engine, with or without my name. If you are considering buying my book, you can find the cheapest prices available on the internet. Within the near future my book will be available in a far more attractive cover and back cover.

Many are intrigued by the reality that the taxi-dance halls continue to exist to this very day. I, personally, defined a taxi-dancer or dance hostess as:

"A Caucasian, Black, Latina or Asian female between the ages of 18 and 25 (sometimes older), employed by a public dance establishment which caters to the tastes or male customers by providing paid women partners for dancing within a reasonably acceptable social sphere." (Meckel, A Sociological Analysis of The California Taxi-Dancer: The Hidden Halls, 1995, p. 3.)

Paul Cressey wrote the classic book about the dance hall in The Taxi-Dance Hall Hall: A Sociological Study in Commercialized Recreation and City Life Cressey's book was published in 1932, in The University of Chicago Press.

Clyde Bennet Vedder wrote an unpublished dissertation in 1947 called, An Analysis of The Taxi-Dance Hall As A Social Institution with Special Reference To Los Angeles and Detroit.

Lawrence K. Hong and Robert W. Duff published two academic papers in 1976 and 1977, called Gentleman's Social Club: Revival of Taxi-Dancing in Los Angeles Journal of Popular Culture. 9 (Spring): pp. 827 - 832 and

Ibid., , 1977 "The Significance of Neutralization in A Semi-Deviant Occupation." Sociology of Work and Occupations. 3 (August): pp. 327 - 342.

Hong and Duff have since published additional articles, but you'd best check the years and titles of these journal articles. There are many other resources available. Do a computer search. I think this is essential.

All of us, as authors, conducted extensive interviews with the taxi-dancers, themselves. We have all, as authors, sought to examine the factors contributing to her acceptance of a job as a taxi-dancer. What socio-economic forces have channeled some women into the taxi-dance hall.

Has she made a pragmatic, lucrative decision or does she feel forced, through a lack of occupational alternatives, to adopt a position considered by many to be semi-deviant. You, as a researcher, will notice a pronounced difference in the theoretical perspectives employed by each of us as writers or scholars.

I'm afraid I've written entirely too much, but I must admit my excitement in knowing that one or more young writers are pursuing the topics of the taxi-dancer and the institution of the taxi-dance hall.

If, by chance, you would like to contact me with questions, please feel free to do so.

If you're still reading this, I heartily commend you.

With Warm Wishes,

Mary M.

**********************************************************

[

Wow! Thanks for the responses!

Cousin Hepcat, taxi dance halls were popular throughout the US from the 20's through the end of WWII. The halls catered to male customers, who for 10 cents a dance were able to dance with any girl of their choice. The girls were hired by the hall. Girls kept half the dance price (which is how they got their other nickname, "nickel-hoppers"), and they also earned tips. Some girls also "fished" their customers for spending money, dresses, jewelry, and nights on the town. It wasn't considered a respectable profession--but a good taxi-dancer earned easily twice what she could get in any "respectable" line of work. Many of the halls called themselves "dance academies" and the female dancers "instructresses" to make themselves seem more legitimate.

MK, I'm glad I found the joint, too. I'm in the Portland area.

Flat-top, I've read this too, which conflicts with other info I've found. Perhaps it depended on the city? I learned about the black-and-tans from the taxi-dance references I have--apparently, some of the customers would take dancers there after the taxi-dance hall closed for the night. But so far I've only been able to find a few references to the black-and-tans, so I'm still searching.

Magneto, I think I have the book you're referring to. It's called "The Taxi-Dance Hall", by Paul Cressey. It was originally published in 1932, then reprinted in 1969. It's a sociological study of "the taxi-dance hall problem," commissioned by the city of Chicago. Mostly the problem was that no one knew whether the halls were innocent entertainment, or dens of vice that should be shut down! Cressey has an entire chapter devoted to the Filipino customer.

I originally got interested in taxi-dancing after finding out that my mother's aunt was a taxi-dancer in NYC in the 20's and 30's. She was thrown out and declared dead to the family. To this day, there are branches of our extended family who don't even know this woman existed.

Thanks everyone! If anyone comes across anything that might be helpful, don't hesitate to holler.

 

[Mr. 'H']

Welcome -

Dear Mary,

I am just an observer of this thread/discussion, indeed I did not know about taxi dansers.

But I would like to thank you for the above reply, it is very informative.

Welcome to the Lounge, and I am sure that you will continue to be surprised and entertained by the fact that there are lots of young people who appreciate and love things from the Golden Era.

I myself have fould the Fedora Lounge to be a veritable treasure trove of exiting information.

Best Regards.

 

[herringbonekid]

the novelist Henry Miller fell in love with and married a woman who worked as a taxi-dancer, his wife June. the story is mentioned in his novel 'Sexus'. it is also suggested that there were several other, often wealthy men besotted by her, who she used as sugar daddies. Henry Miller endured this set up because they both needed the money.
let's be honest, part of the shady mystique of the taxi-dancer lies in our wondering how many of these women would, if offered enough money, sleep with their dance partners.

 

[mmeckel]

Taxi-dancers/my thanks to Mr. H. & Herringbonekid

I extend my thanks to you both and to everyone who has posted about this topic. As you can easily see, I still become very enthusiastic when discussing this subject.

Mr. H, your gracious note of thanks is deeply appreciated. You've truly touched my heart.

Herringbonekid is right on target about Henry Miller falling in love with and marrying a taxi-dancer who appeared in his novel /sexus The mystic surrounding is, indeed, intriguing and multifacted. There's no doubt that some men wonder *how many arms have held you.*

Another consideration that cannot be ignored is this: illusion. Both the dance hall and the taxi-dancer thrive upon illusion.

I'll never forget the night the dance hall manager took me aside and reprimanded me for talking about my accurate, cronological age. One customer had asked me if I were about 23. I corrected him and said, "no, I'm actually almost 29." The manager told me in no uncertain terms that, "we deal with illusion, not reality."

Love and Laughter,

Mary M.

Dear Mary,

I am just an observer of this thread/discussion, indeed I did not know about taxi dansers.

But I would like to thank you for the above reply, it is very informative.

Welcome to the Lounge, and I am sure that you will continue to be surprised and entertained by the fact that there are lots of young people who appreciate and love things from the Golden Era.

I myself have fould the Fedora Lounge to be a veritable treasure trove of exiting information.

Best Regards.