Henry Ford's Dance Revival and Fiddle Contests: Myth and Reality

Abstract

Henry Ford's interest in reviving the dances of his youth and publicizing old fiddlers was a major media phenomenon of the 1920s. The claims of one fiddler became the source of the often repeated, but erroneous, assertion that Ford sponsored a national fiddlers' contest, which in turn has become a part of country music lore. This article, based mostly on archival sources and newspapers, attempts to describe the particular musical and dance traditions that interested Ford, his personal activities and ambitions in this area, his motivations, and the larger popular interest in the subject itself.

Squaring Off: The Forgotten Caller in Cape Breton Square Dancing

“…Philip Jamison has investigated the evolution of square dance calling (2003) and both Jamison and Susan Spalding have written about square dancing in their books on Appalachian dance (jamison 2015; Spalding 2014). Colin Quigley has written about the effort to have square dancing declared a national folk dance in the U.S. (2001) while Henry Ford's interest in vernacular social dance and fiddling music has also received some scholarly attention (Brucher 2016;Gifford 2010; La Chapelle 2011). socio-cultural pressures that likely had an impact on the calling tradition.…”

Contraculture: Bird Names and the Degendering of Contra Dance

“…American contra and square dancing, formations that continue to overlap in many dance communities, went through two major revivals in the twentieth century with polar opposite political intents: a nationalist revival in the early twentieth century (Quigley 2001;Gifford 2010; La Chapelle 2011; Brucher 2016) and a leftist revival in the 1970s (Dart 1992;Hast 1993 and1994;Turino 2008;Alexander 2014). Henry Ford, a racist who regarded 1920s popular music as black and Jewish, promoted a national square dance revival, seeking to enshrine square dance as the official national dance.…”

Sing, Play, Dance! Music and Music Education in Industry

“…61 Generally, these dances were held each Tuesday and Thursday evening, with about thirty-five to forty couples in attendance. 62 Ford and his wife, Clara, even authored a dancing text, which he distributed to his workers and to schools. Benjamin Lovett, Ford's dance instructor, continued the Ford tradition, "revisiting" the original book with a new edition.…”