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November 13, 1998
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Volume 6, Number 6 |
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About OCNCover
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ARCHIVESA look back at the role of dance chaperonesA brief account of how the chaperone - or patron - role at college dances mirrors the mores of the century.
The other day, I got browsing through Michael Taft's Inside These Greystone Walls (1984), a book of anecdotes and commentary about people, trends, and incidents at the University since its beginning. One chapter includes coverage of University dances and how student and faculty behavior at these dances reflect the respective times. The role of chaperones at these dances is as good a bellwether as anything of the changing campus mores down the years. In the early years of the U of S, for example, chaperones took their role seriously. In the book, Lil and Herb Larson, who both graduated in the '20s tell how one man, apparently from the Childrens Aid Society, went to all the dances to keep an eye on everyone to make sure that they danced properly. "And at all the dances," Lil continues, "there were patronesses. You shook hands with [them] when you went in. And if they were able to sit out the whole evening, then you would shake hands with them when you left. There was an air of dignity."
Herb goes on to tell how President Murray's wife once "...put another girl and I off the floor...[for] dancing cheek to cheek. That wasn't permitted." On the other hand, tells one Ed Lovell, Mrs. Murray's daughter, [Jean], would dance sedately around the floor, only to break into a risqué fox-trot when she moved out of view of her mother, who was surveying the dance floor from the Convocation Hall balcony. "By the '30s," Taft says, "the dances were less formal, although many of the old traditions, such as the dance program, persisted. Drinking was somewhat rare, but perhaps a little more common than a decade earlier." The late Jack Pringle, who became the University's controller for many years, recalls how you, as a male student, would go to a dance with "your girl," agree on how many dances you would share, then fill in your dance program, "...and you danced with all sorts of people and you danced every dance." "And," Pringle continues, "there were patrons. There was occasional drinking, but you tended to be pretty careful on that. If the president's wife was there and caught you, you were in dire trouble." Following WWII and the return of hundreds of veterans whose sensibilities had been somewhat coarsened, notions of propriety - and the role of chaperone - changed. "Whereas Mrs. Murray would have been aghast at any presence of liquor at a dance," Taft writes at one point, "chaperone George Millar [of Physiology] took part in the exciting, clandestine 'speak-easy' atmosphere of his era." Millar tells how he and his wife often agreed to go to dances at a downtown club, where Kleenex tissues were used to cover bottles of scotch as they were surreptitiously sipped around the floor. On one occasion, he recounts, "...the police raided the joint...[and proceeded to pick up] bottles all over the place. My wife was able to hide the 'bottle of Kleenex.'"
In the '40s, the role of chaperone gave way to that of 'faculty representative.' The earlier formality and distance between faculty and students evolved into a quaint arrangement whereby - to preserve a façade of early-century propriety - a hotel room would be supplied for the chaperones. In Taft's book, Leon Katz [Physics, now ret.] tells of how a number of students were enjoying a wee nip in a chaperone's hotel room when a knock came at the door and President and Mrs. Thomson appeared "...and so everybody quickly tried to hide their drink, of course. [But] Mrs. Thomson turned to Dr. Thomson and said, 'James, are we drinking tonight?' And he said, 'Of course,' And that relaxed the atmosphere enormously." "By the late 1950s," Taft writes, "even the symbolic civility of the chaperone system was gone...[c]ertainly at the downtown dance halls..." For example, behavior at the Club 400, on Third Avenue, deteriorated into such a degree of rowdiness that President W.P. Thompson declared it 'off limits.' By the '60s, though, a vestige of the chaperone idea persisted. In the Taft book, Don and Mildred Kerr recall how they played the role: D. "You just sat there feeling stupid...We took our duties with absolute seriousness: we did absolutely nothing, which is what one should do, isn't it?" M. "I had to dress up in a long gown and stand looking very official, with older faculty. I think they made a point of having a young couple." Ed Abramson [Sociology] makes a similar point: "...in those days, we owed it to each other to be able to overlook whatever the hell they were up to and for them to make it easy for us to overlook. So I couldn't tell you that they were up to anything that they shouldn't have been." By the '70s - when Taft's account of University dances concludes - chaperoning had truly gone and dances become bacchanalian. Listen to mid-'70s graduate Edna Warrington [who now works in the Main Library]: "Oh the Shakes, man!...[they'd] open Marquis Hall, both rooms, and pack in 1,300 students...and get a rock group from the States...the really heavy rock groups. And we used to go there. Kids would get drunk, make out in the bathrooms, under the stairs, over the ramps. Really weird. Oh, the Shakes were fun. You know, the feeling you had in there was 'now's the time to have a good time because tomorrow you've got to study, right?' So we'd go in there and we'd get just really buzzed. Just really high on people! And you couldn't help it because what they did was they packed all the tables in one area. So you couldn't get from table to table without walking on somebody, just about. We used to jump on the tables." - W.E.
For further information, visit the web site or contact communications@usask.ca
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