• Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen

Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen

Hardcover

DanceRegional: WestWorld War II

ISBN10: 0822357429
ISBN13: 9780822357421
Publisher: Duke Univ Pr
Published: Oct 23 2014
Pages: 408
Weight: 1.55
Height: 1.10 Width: 6.20 Depth: 9.20
Language: English
Open from 1942 until 1945, the Hollywood Canteen was the most famous of the patriotic home front nightclubs where civilian hostesses jitterbugged with enlisted men of the Allied Nations. Since the opening night, when the crowds were so thick that Bette Davis had to enter through the bathroom window to give her welcome speech, the storied dance floor where movie stars danced with soldiers has been the subject of much U.S. nostalgia about the Greatest Generation. Drawing from oral histories with civilian volunteers and military guests who danced at the wartime nightclub, Sherrie Tucker explores how jitterbugging swing culture has come to represent the war in U.S. national memory. Yet her interviewees' varied experiences and recollections belie the possibility of any singular historical narrative. Some recall racism, sexism, and inequality on the nightclub's dance floor and in Los Angeles neighborhoods, dynamics at odds with the U.S. democratic, egalitarian ideals associated with the Hollywood Canteen and the Good War in popular culture narratives. For Tucker, swing dancing's torque-bodies sharing weight, velocity, and turning power without guaranteed outcomes-is an apt metaphor for the jostling narratives, different perspectives, unsteady memories, and quotidian acts that comprise social history.

1 different editions

Also available

Also in

Regional: West