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DANCING ARCHIVES – ARCHIVE DANCES: EXPLORING DANCE HISTORIES AT THE RADCLIFFE COLLEGE ARCHIVES A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE TEXAS WOMAN’S UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF DANCE COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES BY THOMAS HECHT M.A., M.PHIL. DENTON, TEXAS AUGUST 2012 DEDICATION To all dancers at Radcliffe College whose histories have inspired my archive stories. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to gratefully acknowledge the many individuals who have contributed to this dissertation. I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my committee chair Dr. Linda Caldwell for her encouragement to pursue this research topic and think critically outside the box. I would not have been able to complete this dissertation without her expertise, guidance, and patience. I would also like to thank Dr. Claire Sahlin for introducing me to women’s studies and her unwavering support for the story of women in higher education. I wish to express my thanks to Mary Williford-Shade for her faith in my scholarly abilities. My research was supported by a two-year visiting fellowship at Harvard University in affiliation with the Committee on Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and I wish to thank Dr. Brad Epps who has graciously supported my fellowship. Special thanks go to the staff at the Schlesinger Library for their tireless assistance in my search for dance stories at the Radcliffe College Archives. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Sue Lanser for sharing her wise counsel at the Graduate Consortium for Women’s Studies’ Workshop for Dissertation Writers. For their insightful comments and suggestions, I acknowledge and thank my peers from the workshop. Finally, my greatest debts are to my partner Ulrich Fischer-Hecht for his unceasing patience, generosity of spirit and support of my research through many difficult times. iv ABSTRACT THOMAS HECHT DANCING ARCHIVES – ARCHIVE DANCES: EXPLORING DANCE HISTORIES AT THE RADCLIFFE COLLEGE ARCHIVES AUGUST 2012 The purpose of the study is to explore the Radcliffe College Archives at Harvard University’s Schlesinger Library in order to discover a lost history of dance as an extracurricular activity at Radcliffe College during the first half of twentieth century. Using archival story-ing as a methodology, an approach in which narrating the archival processes elucidates the researcher’s actual encounter with archives and archival sources, three archive stories were created. The first archive story, “The Strongest Girl in Radcliffe College,” focuses on an encounter with the archival material of Eleanor Stabler Brooks, a student at Radcliffe College in the early 1910s. It illuminates ideas of how young women were beginning to think of themselves as physical beings—as females who could compete, not just for social reasons, but also for the pure joy of physical accomplishments. In the second archive story, “The Teacher who Danced with Knives,” the archival journey leads to Katharine Schroeder, a teacher of dancing at Radcliffe College during the late 1930s and early 1940s. It sheds lights on an innovative teacher who could engage the talents and interests of students as performers of a new American dance. The third archive story, v “From Dancing Elephants and Men at Radcliffe,” explores the gym suit in the early 1910s and the male Harvardian entering the female Radcliffian dancing space in the late 1950s. This archival narration provides insights into how both men and women were questioning limitations put on their bodies by enforced gender roles and how they navigated and moved through forty years of restrictive spaces at Radcliffe College. The three archive stories illuminate the various entries, crossroads, and paths that the archival researcher came across during his actual “dance encounters” at the Radcliffe College Archives, giving profound insights into what it means to walk in the footsteps of Radcliffe dance history. Narrating archive stories offers a new approach to the writing of dance history that brings the archival researcher into the discourse and opens new readings of and possibilities for historiographies in the past and future. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION............................................................................................................iii ACKNOWLEDMENTS ............................................................................................. iv ABSTRACT................................................................................................................. v LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................... xi Chapter I. INTRODUCTION: MAPPING DANCING ARCHIVE – ARCHIVE DANCES ...1 Telling Archive Stories.................................................................................... 1 Moving from Archival Theory to Archive Stories as Scholarly Research ...... 5 Radcliffe College: The “Coordinate Sister” of Harvard University ................ 7 Narrating Archive Stories from the Radcliffe College Archives................... 16 II. CONTEXTUALIZING THE ARCHIVAL DISCOURSE: THE PARADIGM SHIFT FROM PRACTICE TO THEORY ............................ 21 The Scholarship of Archiving........................................................................ 21 From Archival Practice to Archival Theory: A Historical Survey ................ 22 The Digital Turn in Archiving ....................................................................... 29 Digital Archives in the Performing Arts........................................................ 39 Preserving and Documenting Dance in America........................................... 43 vii III. ARCHIVAL METHODOLOGY: EXPERIENCING THE ARCHIVAL DISCOURSE........................................... 47 First-hand Experiences of the Archival Discourse ........................................ 47 Archive Stories from Around the World ....................................................... 49 More Tales from the Archives ....................................................................... 54 Archive Stories in the Performing Arts ......................................................... 60 Archival Story-ing as Methodology............................................................... 64 Creating, Drawing Upon, and Experiencing Archive Stories at the RCA..... 66 IV. ARCHIVE STORY I: THE STRONGEST GIRL IN RADCLIFFE .................. 71 The First Visit to the Radcliffe College Archives ......................................... 71 A Chance Encounter: Finding Eleanor Stabler Brooks ................................. 75 How Can I Introduce Eleanor to You? .......................................................... 80 The First Lead: “Said Mine Would Do”........................................................ 84 Eleanor’s Gymnasium Schedule: Advanced-Level Classes .......................... 88 Eleanor’s Gym Suit: Essential Clothing for Physical Education................... 92 Eleanor’s Athletic Ambitions: The Strongest Girl in Radcliffe..................... 97 Eleanor’s Athletic Schedule: Her Father Disapproves ................................ 103 My Ending Dance Alongside Eleanor ......................................................... 106 viii V. ARCHIVE STORY II: THE TEACHER WHO DANCED WITH KNIVES .... 109 Turning Over a New Leaf............................................................................ 109 How I Meet Katharine Schroeder ................................................................ 113 Katharine Schroeder, Teacher of Dancing at Radcliffe College.................. 121 Katharine’s Dance Offerings at Radcliffe College ...................................... 132 Milestones in Katharine’s Dance Career ..................................................... 136 Katharine’s Teaching Philosophy: Dancing is Primarily a Joyful Affair.... 141 The Pleasure of “Seeing” Katharine ............................................................ 146 Dancing Between the Clashing Blades........................................................ 149 VI. ARCHIVE STORY III: FROM DANCING ELEPHANTS AND MEN AT RADCLIFFE .............................................................................................. 152 A Snow Day: How Nature is Affecting Scholarship ................................... 152 An Archival Detour: The Return of the Gym Suit....................................... 157 Pretty Horrible: “I Feel Like an Elephant Trying to Dance in Them”......... 161 Bridging the Archival Gap: Viewing Sources in their Historical Context .. 164 Living the Historical Context as an Archival Lead ..................................... 172 Connecting to John Holden.......................................................................... 179 Exploring Gender within the History of Harvard-Radcliffe........................ 181 Coeducational Issues in the Radcliffe Gymnasium ..................................... 185 Dancing Together with Elephants and Men................................................. 187 ix VII. ARCHIVAL STORY-ING: EXPANDING THE POSSIBILITIES OF WRITING HISTORIES ............... 192 How Not to End an Archive Story ............................................................... 192 The Archive as a Living-Site-of-Knowledge............................................... 195 The Archive-Outside-the-Archive ............................................................... 198 The Archive as Archival History-in-the-Making......................................... 200 Archival
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