| "All those dancing there that night have undergone trial and affliction. ...every young man there has been in at least one battle since, and every woman has cried over her son, brother or sweetheart, going away to the wars, or lying sick and wounded. and yet we danced that night, and never thought of bloodshed!" |
| Sarah Morgan, April 12, 1861 |
This entry in A Confederate Girl's Diary is one of many treasures to be found in the Passano Collection. As a dance historian passionately involved in researching American ballroom dancing as a metaphor for American culture, I am thrilled and proud to have the opportunity to use these diaries, journals, biographies and other materials of Southern women here in our library.
The Goucher library also has rich holdings of contemporary Baltimore newspapers, American dancing manuals and etiquette books, as well as Baltimore and Maryland history. These treasures, with the wonderful holdings of the Maryland Historical Society and my own collection, have provided primary and secondary sources for a chronology of social dance, political and military events in Baltimore; step vocabulary and sequences, methodology and musical scores for the reconstruction of waltzes, polkas, schottisches, mazurkas, quadrilles, cotillions and country dances enjoyed by Baltimoreans during the Civil War; and a broad cultural context interwoven by multiple voices and alternative views as varied in gender, class and political affiliations held by those individuals who experienced the Civil War.
My study of American ballroom dancing as a metaphor
for American culture has just begun, and so far the journey has been absolutely
exhilarating!
| -- Chrystelle Trump Bond, professor of dance and artistic director, Choregraphie Antique |
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