Taxi dancer

A taxi dancer is a paid dance partner in a partner dance. Taxi dancers are hired to dance with their customers on a dance-by-dance basis. When taxi dancing first appeared in taxi-dance halls during the early 20th century in the United States, male patrons typically bought dance tickets for a small sum each. When a patron presented a ticket to a chosen taxi dancer, she danced with him for the length of a song. She earned a commission on every dance ticket earned. Though taxi dancing has mostly disappeared in the United States, it is still practiced in some other countries.

Etymology

The term "taxi dancer" comes from the fact that, as with a taxi-cab driver, the dancer's pay is proportional to the time he or she spends dancing with the customer. Patrons in a taxi-dance hall typically purchased dance tickets for ten cents each, which gave rise to the term "dime-a-dance girl." Other names for a taxi dancer are "dance hostess" and "taxi" (in Argentina). In the 1920s and 30s, the term "nickel hopper" gained popularity in the United States because out of each dime-a-dance, the taxi dancer typically earned five cents.

History

Taxi dancing traces its origins to the Barbary Coast district of San Francisco, which evolved from the California Gold Rush of 1849. In its heyday, the Barbary Coast was an economically thriving place of mostly men that was frequented by gold prospectors and sailors from all over the world. That district created a unique form of dance hall called the Barbary Coast dance hall, also known as the Forty-Nine ['49] dance hall. Within a Barbary Coast dance hall female employees danced with male patrons and earned their living from commissions paid for by the drinks they could encourage their male dance partners to buy.

Still later, after the San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 and during the early days of jazz music, a new entertainment district developed in San Francisco and was nicknamed Terrific Street. And within that district, an innovative dance hall, The So Different Club, implemented a system where customers could buy a token that entitled them to one dance with a female employee. Since dancing had become a popular pastime, many of the So Different Club's patrons went here to see and learn the latest new dances.

In 1913, San Francisco enacted a law against dancing in any cafe or saloon where alcohol was served. The closure of the dance halls on Terrific Street fostered a new kind of pay-to-dance scheme, called a closed dance hall, which did not serve alcohol. That name was derived from the fact that female customers were not allowed — the only women permitted in these halls were the female employees. The closed dance hall introduced the ticket-a-dance system, which became the centerpiece of the taxi-dance hall business model. A taxi dancer earned her income from the tickets she traded for dances.

Taxi dancing then spread to Chicago, where dance academies, which were struggling to survive, began to adopt the ticket-a-dance system for their students. The first instance of the ticket-a-dance system in Chicago occurred at Mader-Johnson Dance Studios. The dance studio's owner, Godfrey Johnson, describes his innovation:

I was in New York during the summer of 1919 and, while there, visited a new studio opened by Mr. W___ W___ of San Francisco, where he had introduced a ten-cent-ticket-a-dance plan. When I got home, I kept thinking of that plan as a way to get my advanced students to come back more often and to have experience dancing with different instructors. So I decided to put a ten-cent-a-lesson system in the big hall on the third floor of my building... But I soon noticed that it wasn't my former pupils who were coming up to dance, but a rough hoodlum element from Clark Street... Things went from bad to worse; I did my best to keep the hoodlums in check.

This system was so popular at dance academies that the taxi-dance system quickly spread to an increasing number of non-instructional dance halls.

Taxi dancers typically received half of the ticket price as wages and the other half paid for the orchestra, dance hall, and operating expenses. Although they only worked a few hours a night, they frequently made two to three times the salary of a woman working in a factory or a store. At that time, the taxi-dance hall surpassed the public ballroom in becoming the most popular place for urban dancing.

Taxi-dancing flourished in the United States during the 1920s and 1930s, as scores of taxi-dance halls opened in Chicago, New York, and other major cities. Like other nightlife venues, the taxi-dance hall ran the gamut from the classy establishment to the cramped and seedy hole-in-the-wall. Roseland in New York City, for example, which offered taxi dancing in the late 1930s, appealed to the more discerning patron. Far more common were halls catering to a working-class clientele. By the mid-1920s, taxi dancing had become a nightlife entertainment staple in many large American cities. Reflecting this popularity, the entertainment industry got into the act, releasing the crowd-pleasing song Ten Cents a Dance (1930) and the movies The Taxi Dancer (1927), with star Joan Crawford, and Ten Cents a Dance (1931), featuring Barbara Stanwyck. In 1931, there were over 100 taxi-dance halls in New York City alone, patronized by between 35,000 and 50,000 men every week.

At the same time taxi dancing was growing in popularity, the activity was coming under the increasing scrutiny of moral reformers in New York City and elsewhere, who deemed some dance halls dens of iniquity. To be sure, most establishments were properly run, respectable venues, but a handful were less so. In the less reputable halls, it was not uncommon to find charity girls engaged in treating working as dancers. Although treating activity did occur in many halls, and even in some of the more respectable places, it rarely crossed into prostitution. The taxi dancers who engaged in treating or receipt of "presents" typically drew sharp distinctions between the activity and that of prostitution, but they often walked a fine line between the two. Periodically, licentious "close" dancing also was happening (see taxi dancer experience below) in some of the shady halls. Considered scandalous and obscene by many reformers, this kind of dancing was another concern to the authorities. Before long taxi-dance hall reform gained momentum, leading to licensing systems and more police supervision, and eventually some dance halls were closed for lewd behavior. In San Francisco, where it all started, the police commission ruled against women's employment as taxi dancers in 1921. After that, taxi dancing in San Francisco forever became illegal.

After World War II the popularity of taxi dancing in the United States began to diminish. By the mid-1950s, large numbers of taxi-dance halls had disappeared, and although a handful of establishments tried to hold on for a few more years in New York City and elsewhere, taxi dancing had all but vanished from the nightlife scene in the U.S. by the 1960s.

Experience

In the 1920s and '30s, taxi-dancer work was seen by many as a questionable occupation, somewhat on the margins of proper society. Even though most taxi dance halls were respectable venues, staffed with ordinary young women just working to make a proper living, some establishments were more suspect. The less reputable halls tended to draw a rougher, lower-class clientele, as well as the ire of reformers, and the image of the taxi dancing profession as a whole suffered. Often the young women who took up taxi dancing determined not to tell their parents and neighbors about their employment or just outright lied if queried.

The dance halls, which were often sparsely decorated and dimly lit, were usually located on the second floors of buildings in the nightlife areas of cities. Several taxi-dance halls, for instance, were located in New York City's Times Square. A barker was normally stationed outside the venue, and patrons typically had to climb a stairs to enter the establishment. Before admittance, patrons had to buy a ticket or a set of dance tickets. Usually, they were not allowed in free to survey the scene.

In the hall, the taxi dancers were usually gathered together behind a waist-high rope or rail barricade on one side or corner of the room and, as such, were not permitted to freely mingle with patrons. Because the male patron selected his dancing partner, the dancers had to appeal to him from their quarantined position. This produced a competitive situation, and on slow nights, which were not uncommon, the taxi dancers often cooed and coaxed to draw attention in their direction. In time, and with more experience, a dancer usually developed some sort of distinctiveness or mannerism, in dress or personality, to attract the male patron. Those who did not were often not successful. Once selected, the taxi dancer tried to build a rapport with her partner so he stayed with her, dance after dance. Successful taxi dancers usually had a few patrons who came to a hall solely to dance with them, and for long periods. In some of the less reputable establishments the dancing at times was particularly close; the dancer used her thighs to make her partner erect, and if encouraged to continue, ejaculate.

Patrons who tired of dancing but wished to continue talking with a taxi dancer usually could do so. A section in the dance hall with tables and chairs was reserved for this purpose. It was called "talk time," although other terms were used. In 1939, at the Honeymoon Lane Danceland in Times Square, the fee to sit and chat with a dancer was six dollars an hour, a princely sum for the time. At Honeymoon, although the dancer and patron were able to sit side by side, a low fence-like structure separated them due to police regulations. It was not uncommon for taxi dancers to date patrons they had met in the dance halls, and this was generally acquiesced to by management. In 1923, author Henry Miller first met June, his second wife, at Wilson's Dancing Academy in Times Square where she was working as a taxi dancer. (Wilson's was later renamed the Orpheum Dance Palace in 1931.) Going by the alias June Mansfield or June Smith, she had started at Wilson's as a dance instructress in 1917 at age 15.

Background

Generally, what is known today about the life and lives of the taxi dancer of the 1920s and 1930s comes from a major sociological study published by The University of Chicago Press in 1932 (see Classic sociological study below). According to the study, the typical taxi dancer of the period was an attractive young woman between the age 15 and 28 who was usually single. Although some dancers were undoubtedly older, the taxi-dancer profession tended to skew strongly toward the young and single. A majority of the young women came from homes in which there was little or no financial support from a father or father figure. The dancers were occasionally runaways from their families, and it was not unusual for a young woman to be from a home where the parents had separated. Despite their relatively young age range, a sizable percentage of taxi dancers had been previously married.

Often the dancers were immigrants from European countries, such as Poland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, and France. Due to cultural differences, conflicts often arose between parents and their dancing offspring, especially if the parents were originally from rural areas. Sometimes a young woman of an immigrant family who worked as a taxi dancer was the primary financial support of the family. When this occurred and the young woman supplanted the parent or parents as breadwinner, sometimes she assumed an aggressive role in the family by "subordinating the parental standards to her own requirements and demands."

These conflicts in values between young women taxi dancers and their parents frequently caused the young women to lead so-called "double lives", denying that they worked at a taxi-dance hall. To further this divide, the young women sometimes adopted aliases so news of their activities might not reach their families' ears. When parents found out, there were three typical outcomes: the young woman either gave up her dancing career, left home estranged from the family or was encouraged to continue.

Despite the frequent hardships, many taxi dancers seemed to enjoy the lifestyle and its enticements of "money, excitement, and affection". Most young women interviewed for the study spoke favorably about their experiences in the taxi-dance hall.

One dancer [case #15] from the 1920s describes her start at a taxi-dance hall:

I was working as a waitress in a Loop restaurant for about a month. I never worked in a dance hall like this and didn't know about them. One day the "boss" of this hall was eating in the restaurant and told me I could make twice as much money in his "dancing school." I went there one night to try it – and then quit my job at the restaurant. I always liked to dance anyway, so it was really fun.

A dancer from Chicago [case #11] spoke positively of her experiences:

After I had gotten started at the dance hall I enjoyed the life too much to want to give it up. It was easy work, gave me more money than I could earn any other way, and I had a chance to meet all kinds of people. I had no dull moments. I met bootleggers, rum-runners, hijackers, stick-up men, globe-trotters, and hobos. There were all different kinds of men, different from the kind I'd be meeting if I'd stayed at home with my folks in Rogers Park... After a girl starts in the dance hall and makes good it's easy to live for months without ever getting outside the influence of the dance hall. Take myself for instance: I lived with other dance-hall girls, met my fellows at the dance hall, got my living in the dance hall. In fact, there was nothing I wanted that I couldn't get through it. It was an easy life, and I just drifted along with the rest. I suppose if something hadn't come along to jerk me out, I'd still be a drifter out on the West Side.

Classic sociological study

In 1932, The University of Chicago Press published The Taxi-Dance Hall: A Sociological Study in Commercialized Recreation and City Life by researcher Paul G. Cressey. In its examination of Chicago's taxi-dancing milieu of the 1920s and early 1930s, the book, utilizing vivid, firsthand interviews of taxi dancers as well as their patrons, brought to light the little known world of the taxi dance hall. The study is now considered one of the classic urban ethnographies of the Chicago School.

Vocabulary

As taxi dancing evolved to become a staple in the American nightlife of the 1920s and 30s, taxi dancers developed an argot of their own. In his 1932 sociological study, Cressey took note of the specialized vocabulary in the Chicago dance halls:

• black and tan – a colored and white cabaret
• buying the groceries – living in a clandestine relationship
• class – term used by Filipinos to denote the taxi-dance halls
• fish – a man whom the girls can easily exploit for personal gain
• fruit – an easy mark
• hot stuff – stolen goods
• line-up, the– immorality engaged in by several men and a girl
• make – to secure a date with
• mark – a person who is gullible and easily taken advantage of
• monkey-chaser – a man interested in a taxi dancer or chorus girl
• monkey shows – burlesque shows with chorus girls
• nickel-hopper – a taxi dancer
• on the ebony – a taxi-dance hall or taxi dancer having social contacts with men of races other than white
• opera – burlesque show
• paying the rent – living in a clandestine relationship
• picking up – securing an after-dance engagement with a taxi dancer
• playing – successfully exploiting one of the opposite sex
• professional – a government investigator; one visiting the taxi-dance hall for ulterior purposes
• punk – a novitiate; an uninitiated youth or young girl, usually referring to an unsophisticated taxi dancer
• racket – a special enterprise to earn money, honestly or otherwise
• shakedown – enforced exaction of graft

Sweet Charity

Sweet Charity (full title: Sweet Charity: The Adventures of a Girl Who Wanted to Be Loved) is a 1969 American musical comedy-drama film directed and choreographed by Bob Fosse in his feature directorial debut, written by Peter Stone, and featuring music by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields.

The film stars Shirley MacLaine and features John McMartin, Sammy Davis Jr., Ricardo Montalbán, Chita Rivera, Barbara Bouchet, Paula Kelly and Stubby Kaye. It is based on the 1966 stage musical of the same name – also directed and choreographed by Fosse – which in turn is based on Federico Fellini, Ennio Flaiano and Tullio Pinelli's screenplay for Fellini's film Nights of Cabiria (Le Notti di Cabiria, 1957). Whereas Fellini's film concerns the romantic ups-and-downs of an ever-hopeful prostitute, the musical makes the central character a dancer-for-hire (taxi dancer) at a Times Square dance-hall.

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