Dance Hall, Dance, Gender Identity, Women, Flapper, Ragtime, Jazz, American
Abstract
Dance halls were incredibly popular during the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. In New York City there were four hundred and seventy six licensed dance halls in 1920 and this number increased to seven hundred and eighty six just five years later in 1925. As dance halls grew in popularity a moral panic ensued as women came to hold a prominent place within the space of the dance hall. Dance halls gave women the freedom to move, dance and behave in ways that never would have been acceptable or even possible in other social settings. Through dance, women were able to renegotiate their place within society and define what it meant to be modern woman in America.
