The Dance Hall Diaries

     Back in the Roaring Twenties, cities all across the country were crawling with young people living a life that up until then was just the stuff of fantasy. Up until then, most young people went straight from their education to working on the family farm until they shook off this mortal coil. But things were changing. America's population was moving from the farms to the cities. No more did a young woman have to settle for a dreary existence as the wife of a farmer. Instead, she could move to the big city, take a job as a secretary or a telephone operator, and live her life the way she wanted to.

     One of those ways was ballroom dancing. This was the new hip thing to do, the way to let young people feel free and loose, much the same way rock and roll would do so 40 years later. One associated phenomenon was the dance marathon. This is where couples would go to a ballroom, and start dancing. The last couple dancing would win. These proved wildly popular to the young folks, but just like rock and roll, it was frowned upon by the powers that be. A Chicago judge at the time said that dance marathons capitalized on "the morbid curiosity of the same class of observers who avidly view a bull fight or a cock fight". Nevertheless, dancers were able to stay one step ahead of the law. One such contest that was held in New York City was interrupted by the local police, forcing the competitors to dance over to a waiting vehicle which spirited them away to New Jersey. After another interruption, they were shuttled back to Harlem, and then finally all the way to Connecticut, where the contest was stopped and the winning couple established the record of 69 continuous hours of dancing.

     However, that record was not destined to last long. On August 30, 1930, 126 couples stepped on to the dance floor at the Merry Garden Ballroom in Chicago. More than 7 months later, 1 couple was left standing. Mike Ritof and Edith Boudreaux had smashed the record for longest Dance Marathon at 5,148 hours(and 28 minutes). To this day, the record still stands.