Dallas Striptease 1946-1960 A

FROM MIDWAY TO MAINSTAGE: DALLAS STRIPTEASE 1946-1960

A Thesis

KELLY CLAYTON

Submitted to the Graduate School of Texas A&M University-Commerce in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS May 2019 FROM MIDWAY TO MAINSTAGE: DALLAS STRIPTEASE 1946-1960

A Thesis

KELLY CLAYTON

Approved by:

Advisor: Jessica Brannon-Wranosky

Committee: Sharon Kowalsky Andrew Baker

Head of Department: Sharon Kowalsky

Dean of the College: William Kuracina

Dean of the Graduate School: Matthew A. Wood iii

Kelly Clayton

ABSTRACT

FROM MIDWAY TO MAINSTAGE: DALLAS STRIPTEASE 1946-1960

Kelly Clayton, MA Texas A&M University-Commerce, 2019

Advisor: Jessica Brannon-Wranosky PhD

The entertainment landscape of post-World War II Dallas, Texas included striptease in different types of venues. Travelling and local striptease acts performed at the city’s annual fair and in several nightclubs in the city. In the late 1940s, the fair featured striptease as the headlining act, and one of the city’s newspapers, the Dallas Morning News, described the dancers as the most popular attraction of the largest fair in the United States. Further, the newspaper reporting congratulated the men who ran the fair for providing Texans with these popular entertainment options. The dancers who performed at the fair also showcased their talents at area nightclubs to mixed gender audiences. Dallas welcomed striptease as an acceptable form of entertainment.

However, in the early 1950s, the tone and tenor of the striptease coverage changed. The

State Fair of Texas executives decried striptease as “soiled” and low-class. Dancers performed in nightclubs, but the newspaper began to report on one particular entertainer, Candy Barr, and her many tangles with law enforcement. Barr, a popular striptease dancer, became the face of vice in

Dallas, as the newspaper reported on her criminal activity. In ten years, descriptions of dancers in the newspaper reporting changed from celebrated to sleazy. This thesis reviews these changes in concert with those power brokers in the city who directed them. Striptease’s reputation in Dallas became a casualty of a growing religious and political fervor, McCarthyism, which defined patriotism through a specific lens. As space constricted, and striptease left high visibility venues, it became synonymous with wickedness.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to thank my advisor Dr. Jessica Brannon-Wranosky for her guidance and encouragement. I am continually amazed at what I can learn in a meeting with her, and I am so thankful that she shared her knowledge with me. I am also grateful to Dr. Sharon Kowalsky for the high expectations she set for my work and her feedback that assisted in the clarification of many key points. Dr. Andrew Baker provided foundational support for the time period, and I appreciate his direction.

I would like to extend my appreciation to my writing class professors and fellow students, especially Mykah Jones, who challenged me when needed and encouraged me to keep going when I thought it was hopeless. Thank you for helping me discover the story in that tangled mess of words I submitted on the first day.

Writing a thesis is a challenge. Doing so while also working full time, and trying to maintain some semblance of order in a household, requires a strong support network. Mine is amazing. Thank you to Kam and Teri De Leon for your encouragement and friendship. Many friends provided inspiration and held me accountable to complete the work. Heather, the Coven, the EDDC parents, and my East Dallas friends all listened patiently and cheered me on. I am so fortunate to have such wonderful people in my life.

The most love and gratitude goes to my family—Mark, Henry, and Katie. You are my favorite cheerleaders and I could not have completed the program without you. I know listening to recitations of proposals and papers was not how you imagined spending vacations, but I love that you did it without complaint. Thank you for listening to me when I tell you to cite your sources, even in an elementary school paper. And thank you for being the most amazing team.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

2. THE BIG REVEAL: STRIPTEASE AT THE FAIR AND IN NIGHTCLUBS, 1946-

1951...... 28

3. “SOILED MERCHANDISE:” THE CHANGING STORY OF STRIPTEASE, 1952-

1960...... 56

4. CONCLUSION ...... 81

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 91

VITA ...... 99

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Striptease (noun): a performance in which someone, usually a woman, takes off clothes

to entertain people watching, or this activity- Cambridge Online Dictionary

Sexually provocative dancing, or striptease, became popular in the United States as a part of burlesque shows during the early twentieth century. Many of the original performance venues were theaters, most notably in New York City, as growing working-class, urban audiences sought out entertainment options. As the profession evolved, dancers also travelled across the country to perform in nightclubs and at state fairs. These travelling burlesque shows were the precursors to twenty-first century “striptease industry,” a plethora of clubs in a particular part of town in which the sole entertainment was “exotic” dancing. From act to industry, striptease grew by permeating the entertainment landscape of various towns as dancers performed in a variety of spaces. But striptease has a tumultuous history, with periods of acceptance followed by those of vilification.1

Professional striptease dancers have been studied as objects of exploitation and empowerment for decades. This analysis identifies and reviews the origins of one of the twenty- first century striptease narratives in which clubs are a blight and the dancers are broken women.

By studying Dallas in the 1950s, and the space made available to the dancers compared to other eras, a pattern emerges in which striptease unwillingly became caught in the crosshairs of an

1Robert C. Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 45-46. This thesis uses “acceptance” to mean generally accepted by the public as professional entertainment. This analysis does not contend that burlesque or striptease is a form of entertainment heralded by the wealthy as profession one in their class may aspire to join or watch.

American struggle between McCarthyism, desegregation, and politics associated with the growing influence of religious popular culture.2

The idea of respectability hinges on the professional nature of the dancers. As this study unfolds, certain terms become important to the understanding of the supposed change in striptease in the following decades. Professionalism, the idea that the woman is a professional dancer and part of an accepted business relationship, changes over the course of the 1950s. This idea works in concert with the space allocated to the performance. Visibility in a public domain like the state fair, an area in which throngs of people can view a performance, is different than a nightclub in which a limited number of people can enter. Professional respectability and acceptability, then, is linked with visibility.

As with other forms of commercial sexuality, especially those that disturb prescribed societal norms, the movement of striptease performance from one geographic area to another demonstrated the acceptance or disapproval of the profession. In the late 1940s, provocative dancing was a staple of fair entertainment in Dallas, Texas. However, by the early 1950s, the men who ran the fair, and the city, removed the acts from the mainstages and the audiences’ view. The striptease performance space triggered a cultural change in its perception as an acceptable form of entertainment. The power brokers who facilitated the changes, including elected officials and a newspaper editor, simultaneously created a narrative of dancers’ criminality. This study argues that the striptease dancers’ professional reputations that existed in the 1940s and early 1950s were torpedoed by a partisan narrative in the name of political

2 Stephanie Wahab et al., “Exotic Dance Research: A Review of the Literature from 1970 to 2008," Sexuality & Culture 15, no. 1 (February 12, 2017): 56-79; Stacy Braukman, Communists and Perverts under the Palms: The Johns Commission in Florida, 1956-1965 (Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2012), 4, 9- 11. McCarthyism, named after Senator Joseph McCarthy, was the political ideology that began as a campaign against communism, but became a crusade to narrowly define American patriotism as white, straight, and Christian.

3 expediency. The changing space, as a tool of acceptability, and the ensuing newspaper coverage, altered the public perception of the profession. Twenty-first century history traces the historical roots of striptease to the theater, as a part of choreographed performances. In this context, striptease did not merely relocate to the enclosed fringes of geographic space because it was a seedy enterprise, but rather, Dallas lawmakers and those with power used the fear of sexually alluring women to craft a narrative of a disreputable business, directing the business locations to specific geographic areas.3

The study of striptease, despite decades of work, has merely scratched the surface in placing it in the broader context in the history of women, gender, and sexuality. There is an abundance of memoirs, collections of performance pieces, and broad-based chronological histories of striptease and burlesque that deliver a generous substitute for traditional archival work. In reviewing the works that study sexuality during the 1950s, it is apparent that striptease has not been exhaustively explored as a part of that history. How does a form of entertainment in which sexuality was crucial to the success of women fit into how we understand women’s sexuality in the 1950s? In researching, another question came into focus. How did a form of entertainment based on a woman’s sensuality change from culturally accepted to vilified in a decade? How did the narrative shift so dramatically? Focusing on the geographic space in which performances were held, this thesis will expand the understanding of the complex nature of

America’s relationship with commercial sexuality. The act of striptease in 1946 was not vastly different from that of 1960. However, the description of the profession changed, influencing space in which dancers were allowed to perform, reinforcing the narrative, and altering the business.4

3 Susan Stryker, Transgender History (Berkeley, CA: Seal Press, 2008), 66.

In 1950s Dallas, R. L. Thornton, the president of the State Fair of Texas, the organization that ran the state fair, systematically turned striptease into a stained industry. Thornton’s additional role as mayor of the city entangled him in a political movement that included growing religious sentiment and racial segregation. In its wake, striptease transformed from a form of entertainment worthy of fair crowds into a sleazy job. In their recollections of their work in this decade, striptease dancers cited the interior spaces of clubs and the gradual proximity to audiences as the downfall of what historians and dancers have described as the “Golden Era” of striptease. However, this idea ignores other forces that directed acceptance in popular culture, and limits the understanding of how the space enclosure happened in the first place. By researching the power brokers in Dallas, Texas, this study reveals a more complex story than researchers have previously described and identifies a growing narrative shift that enabled the changes the dancers and historians observed.5

In reviewing Dallas, a city striptease historians have previously not explored, this thesis recognizes the expansive nature of the industry in the United States, while providing an example of the ways in which influential entertainment centers directed the perception of striptease.

Centrally located between New York City and Las Vegas, two cities in which striptease and theatrical culture are synonymous with economic viability, Dallas offers a view of commercialized sexuality in additional venues, highlighting how dancers earned their living outside of theater hubs. In the 1950s, both local and national entertainers danced in Dallas

4 Stryker, Transgender History, 13. The terms “sexuality,” “sensuality,” and “sex appeal” all refer to the quality of being sexually attractive. The terms are used interchangeably. Stryker provides definitions for her study, but this thesis does not use them in the same way. Sexuality in this thesis does not mean preference, but instead the expression of oneself as a sexual being.

5 Jessica Glasscock, From Striptease: From Gaslight to Spotlight (New York, NY: Harry Abrams, 2004), 160; Rachel Shteir, Striptease: The Untold History of the Girlie Show (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004), 6, 341.

5 nightclubs and at the Texas state fair, the largest fair event of its kind in the United States. The style of dance was so prolific that one of the daily newspapers dedicated a column to identifying and advertising performances. Dallas complicates the existing history of striptease, including performance venues that have not been studied. Performances at the fair upend a tidy history that focuses on performances in theaters and nightclubs, or enclosed venues. The progression from the theatrical stages to the nightclubs present a change in proximity to the audience, but the study of the fair introduces visibility as a form of acceptance. The implications of changing space are further complicated when fairs as performance venues are studied.6

Many use the term “striptease,” a style of dance, interchangeably with burlesque.

Burlesque, a form of entertainment similar to Vaudeville, consists of performances by comedians, singers, and dancers in front of an audience. Striptease became a part of the burlesque acts in 1866 as the play The Black Crook introduced audiences to risqué skits starring women clothed in flesh colored tights. Just two years later, Lydia Thompson and her troupe performed in New York City, exposing a scandalous amount of skin. Historians usually trace the introduction of striptease in the United States to the Chicago World’s Fair of 1893, identifying performers who introduced “exotic style” dance. Theaters adopted this novelty into their routines, and twenty-five years later, striptease was commonplace in burlesque performances.7

6 Nancy Wiley, The Great State Fair of Texas: An Illustrated History, 4th ed. (Dallas, TX: Taylor Publishing, 2012), 51.

7 For examples of historians’ discussion of Lydia Thompson, see Anne Corio with Joseph Dimona, This Was Burlesque (New York, NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1968), 14; Leslie Zemeckis, Behind the Burly Q: The Story of Burlesque in America (New York, NY: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013), 3; Robert C. Allen, Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1991), 224. Many historians consider Thompson the first burlesque dancer to introduce striptease in the United States to great acclaim. She was a British performer who performed with her “British Blondes” dance troupe in New York City theaters. This study differentiates burlesque from stand-alone striptease, but uses the term “burlesque” when referring to performances that included additional acts. Vaudeville was a theatrical performance that included music, dancing, and jokes. Burlesque typically included social commentary, satire, and perhaps bawdier acts.

In the early twentieth century, burlesque theaters in New York City produced travelling acts as part of a performance circuit, or “wheel” as it was often referred to by contemporaries.

Theaters in other cities easily duplicated these stock acts because they followed a set script, and by doing so set the industry standard for shows in the 1920s and 1930s. As regulations regarding obscene performances tightened in New York City in the 1930s, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia closed the city’s theaters, leading those in the industry to decry a “death of burlesque.” With their main performance hub closed to them, performers sought additional venues. Men translated their comedic acts to the screen as the motion picture industry grew. Famous comedy duo Bud Abbot and Lou Costello started on the burlesque circuit, but gained fame and notoriety for producing those acts in film. Female burlesque dancers travelled to perform in Las Vegas, Miami, and Los

Angeles. Unwelcomed by heavily censored motion picture productions, the women continued to refine their crafts on the stages of various theaters, nightclubs, and state fairs throughout the

United States. Burlesque may have been temporarily dead in New York City, but it was very much alive in other cities.8

Much of the knowledge of striptease between 1925 and 1960, often described as the

“Golden Era of Burlesque,” comes from memoirs and personal accounts from dancers and club owners who worked in New York City. A common narrative among these memoirs, and thus a theme of striptease historiography, is a nostalgia for the burlesque striptease of the early century.

As dancing became the lead act, and women the highlight of the shows, striptease evolved from sideshow to top billing. During this time period, societal norms accepted ever increasing nudity

8 R. Marie Griffith, Moral Combat: How Sex Divided American Christians and Fractured American Politics (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2017), 60-65. Griffith describes censorship in Hollywood in the 1930s. The women who performed their routines with less clothing had a harder time translating their acts to film. In the 1930s the Catholic Church worked with Will Hays, president of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, to develop the Motion Picture Production Code to regulate content. Costume review was a part of this code.

7 on stage and the performance space changed, drawing dancers closer to their audiences.

Striptease’s business model may have changed based on social, cultural, and economic forces, but the “Golden Era” misnomer incorrectly applies a nostalgic lens based on the primary source material available. This thesis considers striptease within this era, but identifies cities and venues that are not traditionally part of its story. This analysis also expands the meaning of “Golden

Era” by arguing the name is synonymous with acceptance and space, not style or substance. The large presence of striptease entertainment in Dallas during the 1950s allows for an additional narrative outside of heyday recollections. This approach will enhance the understanding of striptease operations and its popularity, placing it into a larger narrative of commercialized sexuality.

The historical narrative of striptease began in earnest with Anne Corio’s 1986 pictorial memoir This Was Burlesque. Driven out of New York City with the closure of the burlesque clubs by Mayor Fiorello La Guardia in 1937, Corio marked her return with a new burlesque show “This Was Burlesque” in 1964. Her remembrances captured in the book present a view of striptease as entertainment alongside comedians in a theatrical venue. Corio’s aim with the publication and the live show of the 1960s was to legitimize burlesque through her history. She traces striptease to the early twentieth century, but in jest mentions “that great First Lady, Eve of the fig leaf” who “started the whole thing.” According to Corio, onstage nudity began in the

1920s, and she describes the ambition of chorus girls to join the striptease ranks. Corio’s nostalgia is the theme of the book as she called her performances of the 1920s and 1930s the

“Golden Era of Burlesque.” Corio aims to present herself and striptease in a positive light, and while her work must be read with her bias in mind, she adds a great deal to the historical understanding of women in this industry. Her stories present the complex nature of women’s

8 roles. For example, Corio describes negotiating her performance rate, placing her business savvy on par with men in other entertainment fields. She sets the tone for the works that follow, and her story reminds readers that she was a professional.9

Corio argues some male comics were embarrassed to have their roots in burlesque because of the low brow nature of the entertainment, even though they used the acts they developed in burlesque to gain fame in film. Corio’s perspective identified a shift in performance space for men, leading to an increased focus on women’s sexuality in theatrical performances. In burlesque, women’s acts became central as the men left for more lucrative futures in Hollywood, avenues that were not open to women. While Corio does not explicitly call out censorship in

Hollywood, she indicates the lack of burlesque dancer cross-over to film. The men who performed their comedy routines in burlesque theaters changed their performance space, just as the female striptease performers did, albeit for different reasons. Corio’s influence on burlesque historiography is unmistakable and established a narrative of respectability in early century striptease. However, this study reveals the more complex nature of this argument. The “Golden

Era” of striptease has less to do with bawdy sexuality than the popular opinion of dancers and their professional status.10

As the years progressed, dancer and club owner recollections of the height of their popularity became the voice of striptease history. The narrative lived in New York City and centered on nostalgia for the early twentieth century. Robert C. Allen’s Horrible Prettiness:

Burlesque and American Culture offers both a comprehensive study of striptease origins in the

United States and a scholarly review. Allen’s focus is burlesque style performances, and the

9 Corio with Dimona, This Was Burlesque, 38-39, 71. She was referring to Eve from the Biblical story.

10 Corio with Dimona, This Was Burlesque, 4, 185.

9 comedic and striptease acts that comprised the theatrical shows. He argues the style of entertainment placed women in positions of high visibility in the theater in the 1920s. Allen describes the popularity of the shows, allowing working class audiences access to the theater.

Women shone in a space and business owned by men, in a form of entertainment that parodied gender, economic status, and race. Rooted in comedy, burlesque shows aimed to make fun of the

Victorian conventions of earlier decades. They were commentary, upending social conventions and exploring gender norms. For example, to demonstrate gender role reversal, a dancer may dress in a male gendered costume (cowboy) and strip down to reveal her femininity. Allen argues, however, that the female entertainer’s power became limited once striptease became central to burlesque, as they were silenced in favor of their overt sexuality. Allen describes striptease as something more than objectified nudity, analyzing the origins of a profession and identifying a gendered power structure. However, as Corio celebrated her sensuality, Allen asserts the increased focus on sexuality undermined the power women had. With these observations, Allen’s book provides a foundation for studying the striptease industry and builds upon Corio’s narrative of the professional striptease dancer.11

Allen offers analysis in a relatively sparsely studied industry, as only a handful of historical tomes follow his. However, he glorifies a certain era of burlesque for its perceived glamour as his focus remained in New York City. He concentrates on the story of burlesque and its evolution from “low class” entertainment to its dependence on striptease, ending his narrative in the 1930s, and briefly addressing the later part of the twentieth century in his final section.

Allen’s scope ends with the New York City club closures in 1937, and the subsequent use of his parameters by others reinforces the idea that burlesque died at that time. This is problematic in

11 Allen, Horrible Prettiness, 27, 282.

10 that it perpetuates a nostalgia for the “Golden Era” of striptease in the early century, limiting the historical understanding of this type of commercial sexuality in the post-war era. Allen’s work provides a comprehensive analysis of the professional role women played as they used their sexuality for economic gain, describing striptease performers as entertainers with professional roots.12

Although Allen’s study ends in 1937, burlesque did not cease with the New York City club closures and the idea of a “Golden Era” in striptease requires additional scrutiny. Like

Allen, Rachel Shteir examines the beginnings of striptease in the United States, delivering an overview throughout the century but expanding the timeline. Shteir’s Striptease: The Untold

History of the Girlie Show provides a broad based and comprehensive approach to the history of striptease. She too describes the height of the striptease popularity in the 1920s burlesque routines, but concludes her research in the 1960s nightclubs, extending her timeline beyond the previously observed “death of burlesque” of the 1930s. She recognizes a shift in the style of performance as she aims to expand upon the definition of burlesque’s “Golden Era.” She emphasizes the “tease” portion of the dancing ceased to exist after the 1950s. Shteir’s view delineates striptease as glamorous entertainment prior to the women’s movement of the 1960s, but as something seedier as sexual norms changed. Shteir surmises the shift from “tease” to topless dancing was because “nudity in theater became both a symbol of free love and a mark of men’s oppression of women.” Shteir marks a difference in striptease between the vaudeville style performance of the early decades and the twenty-first century form as a decline in the status of the dancers and the type of dance. She also argues the availability of pornography stymied striptease performances. Shteir identifies the easy availability of female nudity as the eventual

12 Allen, Horrible Prettiness, xiii.

11 end of professional respectability for striptease. In Shteir’s narrative, striptease dancers tried to keep up with other forms of available sexually explicit material, shifting the focus from dance to strip.13

While Shteir’s understanding of striptease progression provides a basis for this study, it also invites more questions. The history of striptease’s changing narrative is more complex than the abundance of sexually explicit material. With Playboy’s debut in 1954, Americans could find commercial nudity in the privacy of their own homes. As mothers penned letters to fight pornography’s arrival at their door step, and comic books were deemed salacious influences, striptease was enjoyed by mixed gender audiences in urban environments like Dallas. The space allocated to striptease performances became objectionable, but was intertwined with other forces like segregation and McCarthyism. America’s relationship with the woman’s role as a sexual object is complex. It is both revered and maligned. The shift Shteir described was more than availability of pornography and is worthy of additional study.14

As she reviews the changing landscape of striptease, Shteir identifies the link between acceptability and space. She argues the popular burlesque club Minksy’s move to uptown New

York City in the 1930s placed it on the radar of Depression-era vice-society reformers. These reformers were heirs to Anthony Comstock’s morality police, who monitored lascivious written material. Comstock, founder of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, a private group supported by New York City elites, “successfully lobbied for a federal anti-obscenity law, confiscated mail, condemned books and pamphlets, began to arrest pimps and gamblers, and

13 Shteir, Striptease, 4-5.

14 Carmine Sarracino and Kevin M. Scott, Porning of America: The Rise of Porn Culture, What It Means, and Where We Go from Here (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2008), 60.

12 persecuted abortionists and madams.” By the depression era, their scope included additional forms of commercial sexuality. Shteir provides an example of the society’s raid on burlesque theaters because of its move to the “respectable” part of town, thus the space occupied was central to cultural “acceptance." Shteir links the common narrative of the death of burlesque in

New York City with the physical space it occupied. As such, her study introduced the use of space as a limiting factor in striptease’s professional growth. She briefly discusses additional performance venues into the history of striptease, but does not explore them in length, leaving this analysis to pick where she left off. This thesis opens the door further into the discussion of space, respectability, and commercial sexuality. Relegating striptease to certain spaces delivers the narrative of undesirability, reinforcing an idea of “Golden Era” dancing.15

Building on Shteir’s work, Ben Urish’s “Narrative Striptease in the Nightclub Era” identifies distinct performance spaces linked to time periods. Urish dispels historiography’s reliance on a New York City timeline to understand the eras in which striptease operated. He places the nightclub era between two others in striptease history, the theatrical era of the early twentieth century and the topless era of the 1960s. Urish fills the gap that existed in earlier studies and contrasts a prior view of the “death of burlesque” in the midcentury, signaling not an end to the style of entertainment, but a change in format. In his analysis, Urish describes burlesque and striptease as a cultural commentary and a form of resistance. Like Allen, Urish explains that famed burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee’s performances were commentaries on

“gender, sexuality, and courtship interactions” and that she used humor with her striptease to

15 Shteir, Striptease, 31, 37, 209. For more information on Minsky’s theater, see Morton Minsky and Milt Machlin, Minsky’s Burlesque: A Fast and Funny Look at American’s Bawdiest Era (New York, NY: Arbor House, 1986). Morton Minsky’s theater was one of the more well-known performance spaces during the early twentieth century. Minsky penned his biography in 1986, describing his time in the burlesque business.

13 steer the narrative. However, Urish identifies a shift in female striptease from a theatrical performance secondary to male comedians, to the primary act in nightclubs, seemingly dispelling

Allen’s idea of striptease as a hindrance to the dancers. Urish names this type of striptease

“narrative striptease” because the dancers told a story with their acts using gimmicks to differentiate themselves professionally. In addition to identifying a timeline based on performance venues, Urish’s article recognizes a group, the Exotic Dancers League, the support organization for strippers that existed as a part of the American Guild of Variety Artists. He explains the formation of the group signified a shift in power for women in the profession, fighting for better work conditions and better pay. Urish offers additional understanding of the commercial viability of striptease beyond central entertainment locations and introduced striptease as a commercial enterprise, adding to the holistic view of the profession. As this study reviews striptease in Dallas, Urish’s ideas of performance space plays a large role in understanding the shift in the cultural acceptance of striptease as a form of entertainment.16

Laura Marie Agustin writes in her article “The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex” how to define the realm of commercial sex. Her work focuses on prostitution, but she defines the field of sex work as inclusive of striptease. Agustin broadens the scope of current studies, arguing that commercial sex should be understood as a culture, not only a study of the women engaged as the primary labor force. She argues the women should not be the only focus of analysis, expanding the view to include everyone who makes up the industry. Agustin does not remove women from the narrative, rather she sees them in a more holistic setting. The history of commercial sexuality does not lie only with the women who perform the work. Their history converges with the club

16 Ben Urish, “Narrative Striptease in the Nightclub Era.” The Journal of American Culture 27, no. 4 (June 2004): 157-165.

14 managers, city regulations, police department priorities, entertainment market, and the physical space they occupied. Historian Barbara Meil Hobson addresses similar concerns in her book

Uneasy Virtue: The Politics of Prostitution and the American Reform Tradition. As Hobson reviews the prostitution economy, she identifies a greater “sex commerce” than merely the labor, calling the sex trade “a commercial enterprise.” Hobson’s timeline centers on the early years of the century, but her ideas are applicable to the study of striptease in the mid-century. Striptease should be considered more thoroughly, taking into account its place in the economy, to fully comprehend the complexity of society’s response to commercial sexuality.17

As they researched the Exotic Dancers League, documentarian Kaitlyn Regehr and photographer Miranda Temperley explore striptease as a profession in their book (and documentary of the same name) The League of Exotic Dancers: Legends from American

Burlesque. Regehr and Temperley attended reunion shows in Las Vegas for several years, interviewing dancers and recording their craft in modern day surroundings. In doing so they deliver both an analysis of the group Urish identified and a memory piece. Regehr recognizes the problems inherent with addressing what others have considered the “Golden Age” of burlesque in the 1930s. She argues that nostalgia divorces this type of work from its modern day equivalents and removes it from consideration in the modern sex industry. Like Agustin, Regehr places striptease into the broader context of sex work in order to identify cultural influences on the profession. She states burlesque did not die like others claim, it merely changed, and concluded that it does in fact intersect with other types of sex work. This type of analysis offers a more complex view than those before it, including a discussion of race, gender, and age. Placing

17 Laura Maria Agustin, “The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex.” Sexualities 10, no. 4 (2007): 403-407; Barbara Meil Hobson, Uneasy Virtue: The Politics of Prostitution and the American Reform Tradition (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press), 141.

15 it into the broader category of sex work supplied a more nuanced study. In an industry built on sexuality, Regehr explored the effects of age on the career of the dancer. She contends the changing format of striptease during the twentieth century, from theater to nightclub, shortened careers “with serious consequences for both financial livelihood and identity.” As her study traces the careers of the Exotic Dancers League, she addresses the “Golden Age” question as one of society’s views regarding sexuality and age.18

This scholarship intersects with Regehr’s work, adding a layer that identifies a political gambit that affected careers. While Regehr suggested age was a factor in determining who could be sexually alluring, this research indicates a more pernicious link between what it meant to be a good American and the decline of striptease as acceptable entertainment. The mood of the mid-

1950s that swept American politics, heavily influenced by McCarthyism and segregation, threw sexuality as entertainment into a tailspin, forever reverberating in the striptease industry.

Striptease became embroiled in a broader entanglement, fueled by societal sentiment. Striptease may not have been the target, but it was a casualty.

Few of the aforementioned studies have situated striptease into the broader history of sexuality. A firm understanding of the views toward women’s sexuality is important to understanding striptease’s role as a commercial industry. Historian Marilyn M. Hegarty’s work

Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotutes: The Regulation of Female Sexuality During

World War II provides an understanding of how war employment altered gender norms. Hegarty recalls the media’s role in reminding the public that “under every working woman’s clothes remained a feminine body attired in silk and lace.” However, Hagerty also identifies what society

18 Kaitlyn Regehr and Miranda Temperley, The League of Exotic Dancers: Legends from American Burlesque (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2017), 10-12. Regehr and Temperley acknowledge in their book that the Exotic Dancers League was known by several names. They chose this iteration for their study.

16 considered “perceived dangers that surrounded female sexuality.” She frames this in an argument as an age old conundrum, citing examples from earlier in the century, but asserts the war exacerbated the conflict in understanding a woman’s proper place. This thesis begins where

Hegarty’s analysis ends, identifying forces in the following decade that affected the view of commercial sexuality. This conflict of acceptable forms of sexuality presents itself in the space allocated to view it.19

The media has been influential in crafting and driving popular opinion for years. Susan J.

Douglas reviews media messages during the 1950s in her book Where the Girls Are: Growing

Up Female with the Mass Media. Douglas recalls the conflicting messages women received from the media as they dictated the proper place for a woman in society. Douglas further states this view promoted white, male, upper class values. Her theory, although bound in television and magazines, provides support in this thesis. Reviews of newspaper articles in Dallas from 1946-

1960 present a changing view of striptease and commercialized sexuality. The voice of the white business elite loomed large in the Dallas narrative, directing the view of striptease.20

In Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960, Joanne

Meyerowitz describes Betty Friedan’s rage against the sexist machine as a homogenized account of women’s experiences in the 1950s. While Friedan is credited with sparking a feminist movement, and remains an important voice in understanding gendered roles during this time period, Meyerowitz asserted Friedan’s resistance was aimed at a middle class expectation.

Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique struck a nerve with women of a certain segments of society,

19 Marilyn E. Hegarty, Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotutes: The Regulation of Female Sexuality during World War II (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2008), 4-5, 113.

20 Susan J. Douglas, Where the Girls Are: Growing Up Female with the Mass Media (New York, NY: Three Rivers Press, 1994), 9, 11.

17 thrusting the inequalities into the national consciousness. Friedan’s words are representative of complex gender norms that invite more nuanced analysis. As my study unfolds, the complexity between what was accepted and what was not blurs. Striptease was a major form of entertainment in post-World War II Dallas, although classified as immoral the following decade.

While Friedan’s housewives subscribed to certain norms, striptease dancers were allowed their overt sexuality until it was politically dangerous for them to do so. This thesis posits striptease became a symbol of vice and anti-Americanism. Carefully scripted narratives used striptease and other forms of sexuality as depravities from which politicians could save the populace. As religion infiltrated politics, and racial segregation continued to spark debate, sexuality was political theater. It was both accepted and disavowed by the men in charge.21

Historical knowledge of striptease during the mid-twentieth century centers on the chronological development of this style of entertainment. With some exception, scholars explain the story of striptease in a linear fashion—it began with the cast of the The Black Crook merely appearing to be nude and progressed through the decades until nudity was central to the show. In this narrative, historians describe burlesque, the theatrical performance that gave rise to striptease, like a sexually provocative explorer as it left New York when venues shuttered for other entertainment hubs. This linear view limits the understanding of the business of striptease.

While entertainers did seek out new performance venues in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, they also performed their sexually explicit style of dance in various cities and different types of locations. As a commercial enterprise, striptease permeated various settings, not only the

21 Joanne Meyerowitz, ed., “Beyond the Feminine Mystique: A Reassessment of Postwar Mass Culture, 1946-1958” in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar America, 1945-1960 (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994), 231. For more information on the subject of Meyerowitz’s writing, see Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1963). For more on racial segregation in Dallas, see Michael Phillips, White Metropolis: Race, Ethnicity, and Religion in Dallas, 1841-2001 (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2006). Dallas was a racially segregated city during the era analyzed in this thesis.

18 nightclubs of cities that are now considered theatrical entertainment centers. Using trade magazines and national bookings, women earned a living dancing in many cities across the

United States. They booked their acts in the clubs of America’s growing urban centers and smaller rural towns, welcomed by the general populace. This thesis will focus on Dallas, Texas, as a central point for analysis. Dallas represents a large urban environment, and striptease performances appeared in different types of venues in the city. This thesis explores the city in the

1950s, presenting a growing religious population’s clash with the striptease industry.

Drawing the striptease industry from its roots in New York City and placing it in additional urban areas allows for a better understanding of this industry which hinges on women’s sex appeal. The historical understanding of striptease is limited, bound by geography and defined by decades. Building on that, this works seeks to expand the knowledge of the striptease business, arguing its pronounced space within the state fair, and the subsequent removal illustrate the widespread popularity but also the point in which the narrative of respectability begins to erode. As LaGuardia tried to rid his city of the vagrancies of striptease in the late 1930s, the city of Dallas continued to alter the perception of striptease twenty years later.

This country’s relationship with overt sexuality is multifaceted, and striptease demonstrates this complex nature as it became central to a firestorm of other issues. The study provides an important holistic understanding of how this female centric business operated in the late 1940s and 1950s.22

Striptease history in twentieth century Dallas typically rests with the tale of Jack Ruby’s shooting of accused Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby, owner of The Carousel Club,

22 “City of Dallas” refers to the city’s elected officials, the influential business sector, and the daily newspaper.

19 a nightclub in downtown Dallas which featured striptease, brought his dancers to the attention of the FBI after the jailhouse murder. But striptease in Dallas during the mid-century infiltrated popular culture beyond Ruby’s crime, and the city offers a worthy alternative to the current striptease historiography which centers on New York City. Exploring striptease in 1950s Dallas aids in understanding the attitudes toward sexuality in the United States by presenting the industry’s activities in a Southern city. In addition, Dallas’s creation story hinges on the same big business that directed the changing narrative of striptease during this time period. The study of striptease in Dallas investigates social acceptance of the form of entertainment and identifies the gradual demonization of the profession.

Despite the popularity of striptease, the history has been limited as it is overwhelmingly white. African American dancers enjoyed prolific careers in striptease, or shake, and their exclusion from the history is troubling. This study, however, does not rectify this omission.

While this review recognizes the racial tension and segregation of the mid-century, including at the state fair and in nightclubs, it does not dissect the complicated relationship between sexuality and race. Dallas is a city rich in both African American and Latino culture, but the scope of this thesis focuses solely on white striptease because of limitations in time and availability of sources. The newspapers studied provided limited examples of shake dancing in Dallas in comparison to striptease, and descriptions of non-white dancers did not explicitly indicate their race. However, as the field of striptease history grows, work on the history of women of color who danced, along with the implications of race and sexuality, should be fleshed out further.

Dallas lore demonstrates its long relationship with striptease in public spaces. In the race to choose which city would represent the state of Texas for its one hundred year anniversary,

Dallas’s leaders won despite the city’s own lack of history. Dallas, a city that was not formed

20 until after the state’s declared birthday in 1836, triumphed over those whose municipal history was synonymous with the celebration itself. This success has become part of Dallas legend, highlighting what the city could do when tested and how something grand could be built by the ingenuity of business leaders. The heroes in Dallas’s origination tale are the wealthy businessmen (painted as underdogs) who seized the opportunity, drawing upon their acumen and financial strength to prevail over the frontrunners and host a grand Texas sized party.

After the celebration, the city of Dallas gained a reputation as a large commercial and cultural influence, along with Chicago and New York City. Light Cummins described the

Central Centennial Celebration as one in which Texas exceptionalism was codified. In addition, his analysis identified the use of female sexuality as an advertising tool for the event, describing the public relations campaign as relentless. Cummins described the exposition space, the crux of the event, as inclusive of sexuality, not just in the advertising. Popular attractions included a

Sally Rand style performance, focused on the prospect of female nudity, and Orgyville, an arcade and peep show. That this event highlighted female sexuality is now lost in the grand narrative of Dallas “greatness” origins. Dallas history is built upon the Centennial, an event which demonstrated its sophistication and place as a global city in 1936, but featured female sexuality and nudity to do so. Less than two decades later, the same business leadership that used sexuality to build and advertise Dallas as a modern municipality, vilified the women. As the political winds shifted, the narrative of acceptance of female sexuality changed as well.23

23 Light Townsend Cummins, “From the Midway to the Hall of State at Fair Park: Two Competing Views of Women at the Dallas Celebration of 1936,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, 114, no. 3 (January 2011), 225- 251. Sally Rand was a famous striptease dancer who used a fan dance as her signature. She was a prolific performer. R. L. Thornton, featured in this analysis as both the President of the State Fair of Texas and the Mayor of Dallas, was a key organizer of the Centennial.

Understanding who controlled the city’s political and media realms in the 1950s gives context to the sources used to identify attitudes on exotic dance in Dallas. As such this analysis will focus on the influence of white elite who made up the political arm of Dallas, the same group who built the Centennial Celebration. They elected the city government, hired the chief of police, and managed the content of the newspaper. Patricia Evridge Hill introduced the business man as a politician in Dallas: The Making of a Modern City as she charts the progression of their influence since 1937. The Dallas Citizens Council (DCC), a self-selected group of business executives, found it easier to accomplish their goals if they committed their own time and money in city affairs instead of seeking democratic consensus. Upon their success with the centennial, they aimed to drive policies of expansive growth, by promoting a slate of leaders who would then build a city favorable to big business. These business men directed every aspect of city governance and influenced real estate decisions that formed the city. The owners of the Dallas

Morning News, the city’s morning daily newspaper, were also members who acted as an unofficial public relations outlet for the DCC’s initiatives. During this time, the city council ballot was based on the DCC’s slate of members who were elected to represent the entire city.

The influence of the DCC, whose slate elected all but two mayors between 1939 and 1985, has been long lasting. This view is the baseline for historical inquiry and allows historians to trace

Dallas’s stories in the context of the ruling elite.24

This thesis contends striptease dancers became targets of the expectation of female sexuality ingrained in McCarthyism, which was spurred by increasing religious influence in politics. Edward H. Miller’s Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern

24 Patricia Evridge Hill, Dallas: The Making of a Modern City (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1996), 1,122, 163; William Neil Black, “Empire of Consensus: City Planning, Zoning, and Annexation in Dallas, 1900-1960” (PhD diss., Columbia University, 1982), 18-25, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Strategy places Dallas business elites at the center of the 1950s politically conservative movement, identifying the relationship between religion and segregation. Miller discusses the rise of conservative Bruce Alger as an anti-integration candidate, and Alger’s popularity and influence in Dallas speaks to the relationship between white and African American Dallas. Miller also describes Billy Graham’s arrival to Dallas in the early 1950s, as a member of W.A.

Criswell’s growing First Baptist Church. Criswell, whose church would go on to support Jerry

Falwell’s Moral Majority campaign of the 1970s and 1980s, gained prominence during mid- century, riding the tidal wave of conservative sentiment. The growth of religious conservatism, which railed against vice and integration, provided another link to the decline of striptease in visible spaces. As the city’s elite business men controlled the media, they crafted the story of what it meant to be “good.” Societal norms and expectations were built and communicated based on the politically influential businessman’s views towards religion and segregation.25

This is all to say that the changes in striptease, and subsequent end of the “Golden Era” must be viewed in a broader context. While conservative church leaders gained prominence in

Dallas in the 1950s, and the Civil Rights movement was hotly contested, striptease dancers became a part of a public narrative of vice. Arrests for sex offenses in Dallas among the general population, which included lewd behavior, sharply declined during the 1950s. Striptease, emblazoned in Dallas history as a staple of the Centennial, became a vice worth of eradication from public view by the early 1950s. In the right type of spaces, though, striptease continued its successful business. As the Dallas Morning News’s narrative of striptease shifted to

25 Susan M. Hartmann, “Women’s Employment and the Domestic Ideal in the Early Cold War Years,” in Not June Cleaver: Women and Gender in Postwar American, 1945-1960, ed. Joanne Meyerowitz (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1994), 85; Edward H. Miller, Nut Country: Right-Wing Dallas and the Birth of the Southern Strategy (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2010), 13; Phillips, White Metropolis, 2.

23 accommodate the changing political atmosphere, the space allocated to dancing became limited to nightclubs and led to the eventual description of striptease as sordid business.26

In the late 1940s, dancers did not limit their acts to the enclosed environs of downtown clubs. In the fall season, striptease acts found a home on the midway, the grouping of rides, games, and entertainment of the state fair. Run by the eponymous organization, The State Fair of

Texas, the annual fair hosted various performers during their season. The Dallas Morning News heralded striptease acts as the fair’s most popular attractions between 1946 and 1952. Striptease was a popular form of legal commercialized sexuality, operated in various locations in Dallas, and was publicized by the city’s newspaper. With various venues in an important part of the striptease national circuit, Dallas provides an abundance of material for review.

While the fairs of the twentieth century were “modern day” affairs, county gatherings have entertained Americans for centuries. The tradition of fairs is as old as the nation itself with the first event of its kind held in York, Pennsylvania, in 1775. Fairs began as functioning agricultural markets in which vendors showcased their various produce and livestock. The county fair joined communities as they shared resources, as well as provided entertainment and socialization. As the nation matured, new innovations were sought to amaze the fairgoers, and presumably to draw them to the event. Some of the most well-known carnival staples like the

Ferris wheel debuted at the fairs, which had grown to include both local and national events. As

26 Miller, Nut Country, 25; City of Dallas Police Department, Annual Reports 1951-1956, box 1, folders 1 through 6, Office of the City Secretary, Dallas Municipal Archives and Records Center; City of Dallas Police Department, Annual Reports 1957-1959, all in box 2, folders 1 through 3, Annual Reports 1957-1970, Office of the City Secretary, Dallas Municipal Archives and Records Center [hereafter cited as DPD Annual Reports]. For more on the making of Dallas, and the myth that surrounds its growth, see Harvey Graff, The Dallas Myth: The Making and Unmaking of an American City (Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). During the time period analyzed in this study, Criswell was the pastor of First Baptist Dallas, one of the most influential Baptist churches in the country. Although this study focuses on the ruling white elite, the contributions of people of color and working class men and women in building Dallas should not go unnoticed.

24 commercial entertainment changed over the decades, fairs responded by broadening their offerings, adding horse racing and dancing to their lineup. In addition to singers, “freaks,” and magicians, fairs also introduced striptease to broad audiences as it became a key part of fair entertainment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Recollections from the 1893

Chicago World’s Fair indicate a crowd enthralled with the exoticism of Little Egypt’s Hootchy-

Kootchy dance and the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair debuted Sally Rand’s fan dance to large audiences. Fairs, as centers for entertainment for both urban and rural Americans, played an important role in the understanding of striptease in this country. In the mid twentieth century, as cities boomed and the country’s population shifted from rural farms to city centers, the fairs helped introduce striptease to the masses.27

Fair entertainment mirrored popular culture, and striptease was no exception. Fair shows modeled their striptease acts after the industry’s theatrical performances, as the space the dancers occupied and their style of delivery changed from burlesque stages to nightclubs. Striptease entertainers in theaters progressed from chorus line to headlining ensemble performers to solo dancers over the course of a century. And so it was with fairs as burlesque performances gave way to more private, and less visible, tents. As stripping became less of a marquis type event, shows for those willing to pay entry fees were favored. However, in the mid- twentieth century, burlesque performers of stage and screen worked the fair circuit as headliners. Fairs booked famed striptease dancers like Sally Rand and Gypsy Rose Lee as their featured performers, but also sought out acts to book on their midway shows. The fairs used the popularity of Rand and

Lee to draw crowds, but also provided those audiences with the best in midway entertainment,

27 “History,” York Fair: America’s Oldest Fair Since 1765, accessed June 15, 2018, http://yorkfair.org/our- history.

25 including other popular striptease acts. As such, striptease acts were key components of state fair entertainment.

Billboard Magazine was an entertainment guide for industry insiders, catering to the music, motion picture, and fair businesses. Each periodical included over one hundred pages of rankings, stories, and advertisements. Issues reported on the midway contracts for fairs, serving as a guide and an advertisement, to those who operated similar events. Reminiscent of the burlesque wheels of the early twentieth century, amusement companies contracted with fair owners and operators to bring the latest in entertainment to each location. In addition, fair organizers attended industry conferences hosted by their professional associations.

By the end of World War II, fair entertainment was big business, with many facets to booking entertainment. Fair companies were prominent corporate entities who employed talent scouts, contracted with entertainment booking companies and freelance operators, and advertised their relationships to highlight their prominence. Striptease occupied an important role in this large industry. The women who cultivated their acts were not only important to their own profession, they played key roles in the expansion of fair business. Thus the business relationship was mutually beneficial. Fairs introduced striptease to a wide audience, but striptease provided fairs with profits made from those audiences.

As striptease piques the interest of academics, especially sociologists and political scientists, an abundance of their studies reflect the current day fascination with striptease as exercise, entertainment, and sexual empowerment. These sex positive studies intermingle with others aiming to link striptease to prostitution, mental illness, sexually transmitted disease, and violence. The literature which informs this thesis includes the most comprehensive histories of striptease, as well as writings about female sexuality and sex work. In addition, this thesis draws

26 from histories of Dallas, Texas, to form a complete view of the geography considered. While striptease history supplies the dominant source of background material, 1950s sexuality and

Dallas history inform the analysis.

Drawing upon Agustin’s “The Cultural Study of Commercial Sex,” this study aims to present a more complete picture of striptease and how the changing social landscape influenced the narrative of professional respectability. By reviewing the performance space and newspaper coverage, this thesis identifies the prolific presence of commercial sexuality in the United States while identifying the societal changes that drove striptease industry changes. In this thesis, striptease is a pawn in a much larger game of cultural definitions. A thriving, sexually explicit, commercial enterprise, with roots in theater, offered entertainment to a growing nation. As the decade progressed, the striptease industry became less of a form of female led popular entertainment and more a scandalous novelty. As other forms of overt commercial sexuality, like

Playboy Magazine, became objectionable as they were allowed to invade the private space of people’s home, striptease performances could be seen in a plethora of publicly accessible venues.

Striptease was a vital part of the social culture, an industry of commercialized sexuality.

However, in 1950s Dallas several forces combined to begin the long journey to modern day niche entertainment that exists in remote parts of town.

This study is divided into two parts. Chapter two describes striptease in 1946-1951 and chapter three reviews the changes from 1952-1960. Since space is paramount to acceptability, the second chapter reviews the space in which striptease was performed in Dallas, the state fair and nightclubs, and identifies the fair as a powerful economic force. Performance then in this space signaled striptease acceptance as entertainment. The chapters use newspaper reporting to understand how the media presented the dancers and their performances at the fair and the

27 nightclubs. Chapter two explores striptease as an important part of the state fair’s success, and the local economy, and demonstrates suitability for general (white) audiences.

In 1952, however, there was an obvious shift in how Dallas’s daily newspaper wrote about striptease, coinciding with a mayoral election. As the 1950s progressed, the description of striptease dancers changed in the Dallas Morning News reports. Chapter three reveals the shift in striptease press, introducing a salaciousness in the way in which the dancers were defined. The third chapter also highlights the forced geographic move of the performance space, from the open audiences of the state fair to the enclosed nightclubs. Caught in the crossfire of

McCarthyism and integration, striptease became synonymous with vice in Dallas, altering the perception of the performers and aiding in the denigration of the profession.

Chapter Two

THE BIG REVEAL: STRIPTEASE AT THE FAIR AND IN NIGHTCLUBS, 1946-1951

The years immediately following World War II ushered in big personalities onto the political stage in Dallas. Twenty-first century Dallasites know these “great men” as their monikers grace major highways, landmark Supreme Court cases, and a bevy of public buildings.

As one of these men, R. L. Thornton’s rise to prominence defines the crux of 1950s elite white

Dallas. Thornton, a founding member of the Dallas Citizens Council (DCC), president of the

State Fair of Texas, and mayor of Dallas, used his business network to oversee municipal building projects such as the construction of Love Field Airport. Thornton’s motto “Keep the

Dirt Flying” earned him the nickname “Mr. Dallas,” propelling his legacy. The man’s business friendly projects became a part of Dallas mythology, and his name has become associated with an era of abundant public works improvements.28

The DCC played a prominent role in city politics in the mid-century. Historian Patricia

Evridge Hill describes their governmental involvement as one not of partisan politics, but as heralds of business friendly policies. The members believed what was good for business was good for the citizens. As they touted the city’s history as a market center to entice industries’ relocation to Dallas, they built the city into a major urban center. Hill contends Dallas differed

28 Joan Jenkins Perez “Robert Lee Thornton,” Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association, accessed January 4, 2019, https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fth34. R. L. Thornton Freeway, United States Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, and Lew Sterrett Justice Center and County Jail include names of prominent Dallas politicians. For more on 1950s Dallas city and business leaders see Hill, Dallas; Graff, The Dallas Myth; and Darwin Payne, Big D: Triumphs and Troubles of an American Supercity in the 20th Century (Dallas, TX: Three Forks Press, 1994). For more on Dallas mythology, see Harvey Graff, The Dallas Myth. The public face of Dallas’s post-war period includes the building of large-scale infrastructure projects, like US Highway 75, but belies the racial tensions marked by bombings and housing shortages in the African American community. As mentioned in the introduction, racial segregation was rampant—and government sanctioned—during this time period. However, this analysis covers striptease in the white community only, and throughout this thesis, the author uses the term “white” to remind the reader of this exclusive point of view.

29 from other cities that experienced rapid growth in the post-war decades because of the

“remarkable duration of the Citizens Council influence,” which lasted well into the 1970s.

Its power reverberated throughout the nation, as their work in Dallas affected both the economy and political policy in a major urban setting.29

As the city population exploded, the DCC and Thornton’s policies built upon the postwar growth. Between 1940 and 1960, Dallas’s population more than doubled, increasing from approximately 295,000 to 680,000. During this time, the city also grew in acreage, expanding out from the city center. Annexations abounded, as Dallas engulfed many small outlying towns into its footprint. As a result of this population boom, the city’s leaders introduced plans to address issues associated with development. They further outlined placement of residential and commercial locations, a process known as “zoning.” Beginning in 1915, zoning became the way for Dallas to divide its land into six “use districts; dwelling, apartment, local retail, commercial, and first and second manufacturing districts.” Over the course of the decades, zoning discussions dominated the political arena. As such, in subsequent decades, city leaders worked to manage the pressures placed by an ever-growing populace by using this bureaucratic tool.30

And so the regulation of space became a political gambit in the early 1950s, when the

DCC chose their mayoral candidate. With suburban areas newly annexed, and highways built to

29 Hill, Dallas, 163-165.

30 “Texas Almanac: City Population History from 1850-2000,” Texas Almanac, accessed March 10, 2019, https://texasalmanac.com/sites/default/files/images/CityPopHist%20web.pdf; DPD Annual Reports, 1954; Black, “Empire of Consensus,” 18, 33. For more on zoning history in the United States, see Alan Rabinowitz, Urban Economics and Land Use in America: The Transformation of Cities in the Twentieth Century (New York, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2004). For more on zoning as it relates to adult entertainment, beginning in the 1970s, see Phil Hubbard, et al, “Away from Prying Eyes? The Urban Geographies of ‘Adult Entertainment,’” Progress in Human Geography 32 (3), 2008, pages 363-381. For more on Harland Bartholomew, the zoning expert hired by Dallas in 1943, see Richard Rothstein, The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America (New York, NY: Liveright Publishing, 2017), 48-54. Per Rothstein, Bartholomew separated single-family homes from other businesses and multi-family housing, in an effort to racially segregate the city. Per Black, court challenges led to state laws created to address the issues with zoning.

30 connect downtown to the outer reaches of the city limits, the political leaders in Dallas who were also the business elite, needed a mayor who could shepherd plans they favored. In his study of

Dallas zoning, William Neil Black connects R. L. Thornton’s support of DCC’s plan and his subsequent bid for mayor. Thornton, the President of the State Fair of Texas, and the architect of the city’s rise to dominance in the early twentieth century, supported the DCC’s expansion plans and was their candidate in 1952.31

As city leaders used the strategies of zoning to segregate people and businesses in the first half of the twentieth century, striptease was not yet subject to zoning. Space is an important factor in the study of race relations and has been well documented; it is also crucial to understanding the history of marginalized people, including those who fall outside heteronormative expectations. Those who deviate from sexual norms, or are perceived threats, were treated similarly. Susan Stryker writes about the zones of sexuality in which transgender people were relegated to less desirable parts of town in San Francisco beginning in the early part of the twentieth century. And for striptease, the early twenty-first century equivalent resides in strip clubs sequestration to less desirable neighborhoods and strict zoning enforcement for sexually oriented businesses. Likewise, this analysis explores the intersection of segregated spaces as it relates to commercial sexuality, connecting the geographic separation used by city leaders and their desire to separate themselves politically from striptease.32

31 Black, “Empire of Consensus,” 110-112. For more on the Dallas Citizens Council (DCC), see Hill, Dallas. R. L. Thornton was mayor of Dallas from 1953-1961. As a founding member of the DCC in 1937, he represented the archetype of Dallas businessmen upon whom the city’s legacy is built.

32 Michelle L. Edwards, “Gender, Social Disorganization Theory, and the Locations of Sexually Oriented Businesses and ‘Secondary Effects,’” Deviant Behavior 31, no. 2 (February 2010): 135-158; Chapter 102 Sexually Oriented Businesses, Subtitle C Business Operations, Title 5 Regulation of Businesses and Services, Business and Commerce Code, State of Texas Statutes, accessed February 12, 2019, https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/BC/htm/BC.102.htm; Stryker, Transgender History, 66. For more on regulation and repression of homosexual population in San Francisco, see Gayle Rubin’s “Thinking Sex” in Pleasure and Danger: Exploring Female Sexuality. For more on the use of space in sexually oriented business, see

This story begins in 1946 Dallas, as the political personalities of the 1950s gained their popularity. The city, teeming with economic activity, faced growing pains, and the charismatic leaders seemed to provide the remedy through their development of big business and zoning plans. This chapter reviews striptease as an accepted form of entertainment, but in the context of the ruling businessmen in Dallas. This chapter explores the performance spaces and connects striptease to the mythology of the business elite, ending in 1951 as change appears on the horizon. This thesis also finds striptease space relatively open and a key component to success of the State Fair of Texas, the largest event of its kind and a definitive example of Dallas’s greatness. This study reviews the use of media to craft narratives, and this chapter provides examples of striptease acceptance in Dallas using Dallas Morning News articles. Striptease, a form of sexually explicit entertainment, regaled audiences who welcomed the style of dance in various venues. The city’s leaders, who were instrumental in stimulating economic progress, promoted striptease as an important part of the state fair’s entertainment lineup. As such, the following pages present numerous examples which highlight a contrast to the current regulatory environment and detail a time in which striptease was just another part of the economy.

After World War II, the striptease acts of the burlesque stages expanded their reach beyond the theaters of entertainment hubs like New York City and Chicago. Dancers booked jobs in various towns in an assortment of venues. Striptease dancers of the mid-century travelled to perform at state and county fairs, including the largest of these events, the State Fair of Texas in Dallas. Situated on 187 acres of city owned property aptly named Fair Park, the State Fair of

Texas operated their annual event just four miles from downtown Dallas, the business center of

Hubbard, et al “Away From Prying Eyes? The Urban Geographies of ‘Adult Entertainment.’” As defined by Texas Business and Commerce Code, a sexually oriented business includes nightclubs that offer striptease. Edwards points out that zoning regulations of the sex industry did not emerge until the 1970s.

32 the city. The board of the State Fair oversaw the one of the largest events in the city, as well as the largest fair in the country, welcoming approximately two million visitors each year. In the mid-twentieth century, over the course of a three week engagement, the state fair drew a crowd four times the city’s population.33

The significance of the event lies in its size and prominence. In the entertainment industry, big acts often perform in big locations, and two million audience members provided entertainers with plenty of publicity that would boost their star power. And, in ensuring their venue would draw as many fairgoers as possible, the State Fair of Texas aimed to book top talent. Tommy Dorsey, Elvis Presley, and Frank Sinatra all performed on the mainstage during the fair’s run, as did striptease performers Gypsy Rose Lee and Sally Rand. In addition to featuring striptease as a mainstage performance, the fair included striptease or “girlie” shows on the midway. The midway area housed the most popular attractions and games at the fair, drawing crowds as they walked from one area of the fairgrounds to the other. Striptease and commercial sexuality was imbedded in the fair’s entertainment lineup, and the shows were regularly hailed by the Dallas Morning News as popular draws to the midway.34

The State Fair of Texas began in 1886 as a way for Dallas to showcase its industrial prominence. The fair displayed the latest models of farm equipment in the Southwest and has

33 Wiley, The Great State Fair of Texas, 145; “Miss Sally Rand’s Arrival Brightens Fair Park’s Day,” Dallas Morning News, October 4, 1949, accessed May 10, 2018; “Fair Out to Set Attendance Mark,” Dallas Morning News, October 6, 1950, accessed May 5, 2018; “Big State Fair Getting Ready” Dallas Morning News, September 19, 1954, accessed December 2, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. The attendance number does not take into account visits, but gate receipts. Two million may not describe the number of individuals who attended, but the number of visits made to the fair. “Girlie” shows indicate a striptease performance. The Dallas Morning News used the words “girlie” and “striptootsie” to describe striptease and the dancers who performed.

34 “Fair Out to Set Attendance Mark,” Dallas Morning News, October 06, 1950, accessed June 1, 2018; “Boss of Midway Amazed at Crowd,” Dallas Morning News, October 08, 1950, accessed July 18, 2018; “Negro Day Nets Fair Fourth Boomer in a Row,” Dallas Morning News, October 17, 1950, accessed May 5, 2018; “Entertainment for All Tastes To Be Offered by State Fair,” Dallas Morning News, September 15, 1951, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

33 long since held on to its agricultural roots with livestock shows, tractor sales, and food preparation contests. As a business, the fair executives positioned the event as one of Dallas’s greatest success stories and the back upon which the city’s story is built. In 1936, as the state looked for a place to celebrate the centennial, business leaders in Dallas touted Fair Park, the site of the fair, as the natural location. As the story goes, business leaders took it upon themselves to successfully promote Dallas as the location of the centennial celebration, despite the relative youth of the city. From this effort sprang the formation of the DCC, the group of business executives whose political action committee influenced Dallas politics and economic growth for decades. This powerful lobbying group aimed to define the city and formed its persona. The

Centennial established Dallas as an economic powerhouse in the state, thus making it an origin story of what civic boosters describe as Dallas exceptionalism. By legacy, the fair is a part of

“the Big D” myth. Further intertwining the city’s activities and economic future with this event,

Dallas’s mayor also served as president of the State Fair of Texas in the 1950’s. The fair, with its link to the DCC and big business, was representative of the booming Dallas economy. The

Dallas Morning News reported often on the fair’s gate receipts and the profitability of the State

Fair of Texas, making it synonymous with big business and politics in the city. By the 1950s, the state fair in Dallas was the largest in the country. Described as a “$25,000,000 institution,” the non-profit organization included forty-eight directors, including local businessmen.35

35 Mickey Huffman, “Local Fair Grew Into State Event,” Dallas Morning News, February 5, 1956, accessed May 5, 2018; Hill, Dallas, 116; Steve Brown, “Time for some made-up Dallas-area names to die? Say, Telecom Corridor or $5 Billion Mile?” Dallas Morning News, July 27, 2018, accessed December 2, 2018, https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2018/07/27/big-d-telecom-corridor-5-billion-mile-part-tradition- local-made-place-names; W.H. Hitzelberger, “Builds Without Subsidy! Dallas, Now $25,000,000 Expo, Has Unique Operational Set-Up,” Billboard Magazine, November 29, 1947, accessed March 10, 2019, https://books.google.com/books?id=0x8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA111&dq=texas+state+fair+non- profit+corporation&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjN9q2UxengAhUNIqwKHZm0DgsQ6AEIQzAF#v=onepage&q= texas%20state%20fair%20non-profit%20corporation&f=false. In this analysis, the terms “fair” and “state fair” refer to the event. The term “State Fair of Texas” refers to the organization that runs the event. R. L. Thornton led the organization of the Centennial Exposition in 1937. John Neely Bryan settled Dallas in 1841, while Houston’s

During the war years, the autumnal fair did not operate and the fairgrounds served as a military installation. When World War II ended, the fair’s executives sought to celebrate

America’s international dominance with the reconstituted event and aimed to draw a large crowd. As the 1946 fair season approached, the United States Military moved out of Fair Park and vendors and entertainers moved back in. The State Fair of Texas expected to provide a grand event worthy of the country’s victory, while recognizing the general global mood; the first postwar fair in Dallas fêted with the theme “Post-War Unity.” In the months leading up the fair, the newspaper heralded it as an event worth seeing, an exciting and triumphant return to normalcy, but a leap toward a more sophisticated grandeur. The fair continued its focus as an agricultural showcase with an exhibit on irrigation techniques, but also positioned itself as a cultural education center highlighting the Chini-Poblana people of Mexico and their native costumes. As a modern enterprise, fair displays varied and executives solicited volunteers from the local women’s clubs to act as ambassadors to the thousands of people who attended each day.

Hospitality areas opened in several buildings and the clubs worked their designated day, including the Daughters of the Republic of Texas who opened the 1946 fair. The fair represented

American patriotism embedded in southern hospitality.36

With days marketed to subsets of Texans, the “East Texas Day” and “Fort Worth Day” for example, the fair cast a wide net to ensure outsized attendance. Although they were all

Texans, the delineation of geography for distinct invitations suggested that Dallas was somehow

birthdate is recorded at 1836 and San Antonio has a three hundred year history. Per these dates, Dallas was not yet an incorporated town when Texas declared independence from Mexico in 1836. One nickname for Dallas is “the Big D.” Dallas Morning News columnist Paul Crume dubbed his column with this moniker and famed singers Bing Crosby and Mark Chestnutt both refer to the nickname in their songs.

36 Fairfax Nesbitt, “Luminaries Sparkle in Dorsey Shoe,” Dallas Morning News, October 7, 1946, accessed May 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. Prior to the 1946 opening, the State Fair of Texas offered summer events, but not the two-three week annual state fair.

35 bigger and better than the rest. These special days meant to increase the fair’s reach, but they also managed to set Dallas apart from other municipalities. Dallas invited those from neighboring areas to indulge in the greatness represented by the fair. The fair’s entertainers served as a showcase for Dallas’s business might, demonstrating the city’s arrival as an important metropolitan center in which businesses could thrive.37

As a symbol of Dallas, fair entertainment required greatness. To this end, the State Fair of

Texas spent $60,000 (approximately $800,000 in 2018 dollars) to refurbish the auditorium where they showcased their headliners. Employment of bandleader Tommy Dorsey, popular comedian

Jackie Gleason, and legendary striptease performer Gypsy Rose Lee ushered in an era of postwar economic exuberance, at a reported price tag of $100,000 ($1.3M in 2018 U.S. dollars). This burlesque performance mirrored those of the earlier century as musicians, comedians, and striptease dancers shared a stage. Billed as “Prima Donna Nuda,” Lee performed every night of the fair and twice on the weekends. The DMN described Lee’s act as “her regular strip.” While

Lee’s exact level of undress is unclear from the newspaper reporting, her reputation as a striptease performer resulted in drawing large crowds of fairgoers during the event.38

Lee was one of the most well-known striptease stars of early twentieth century burlesque.

Female burlesque performers did not find fame in the motion picture industry, but Lee was a notable exception. Lee was the most commercially marketable, and she used her talents for

37 “Rash of Special Days on Tap for State Fair,” Dallas Morning News, August 25, 1946, accessed December 12, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

38 John Rosenfield, “Auditorium Shows from 1925-1941; then the 1946 Fair,” Dallas Morning News, September 29, 1946, accessed December 12, 2018; Advertisements, Dallas Morning News, September 20, 1946, accessed May 5, 2018; “Luminaries Sparkle in Dorsey Show,” Dallas Morning News, October 07, 1946, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Ben Cosgrove, “Striptease Superstar: Rare and Classic Photos of Gypsy Rose Lee,” Time Magazine, January 8, 2014, http://time.com/3638201/striptease-superstar-rare-and-classic-photos- of-gypsy-rose-lee/, accessed December 19, 2018. A photograph in Cosgrove’s article depicts Lee waving to crowd of women at fair in Memphis. To her right are dancers, one clad in panties, fishnet stockings, and a robe that covers her breasts but exposes her legs and midriff.

36 cinematic, literary, and live performance bookings. Lee’s brand was unmistakable. Like other striptease acts, she performed with a gimmick. Quips accompanied her striptease, making Lee’s brand one of beauty and brains. As a performer at the fair, she represented the best the country had to offer. A major urban center, Dallas showcased its prominence with a burlesque show on the country’s largest fair stage.39

As one of the city’s newspapers, the Dallas Morning News reported extensively on the

State Fair of Texas and their major event. Not only did the DMN report on the fair itself, but frequently highlighted executives and their plans. The DMN was a positive voice for the company and its event, regularly emphasizing its ever growing splendor. During the late 1940s, the DMN’s reporting described the fair seemed as a fairy tale, in which ordinary people experienced magical fun due in large part to the men who ran the State Fair of Texas. Articles demonstrated the executives’ prominence in the fair community and in Dallas, and frequently advertised fair business in article format. The city’s newspaper served as a de facto public relations vehicle for the fair and its governing body. In addition to the space the paper devoted to the fair and its operators, the newspaper’s own history links it to the DCC (along with DCC founder and fair president during this time, R. L Thornton). DMN founder George Bannerman

Dealey and his son Edmund (Ted), who became publisher of the newspaper in 1946, were also members of the exclusive group of businessmen. They displayed their support of Dallas business dealings with their reporting on the State Fair of Texas. With such strong ties to the DCC, the

39 Corio with Dimona, This Was Burlesque, 86-90; Cosgrove, “Striptease Superstar.” For more on women in film, see Griffith, Moral Combat, 49-82. In Cosgrove’s article he describes Lee’s earnings on the fair circuit. She found it to be extremely profitable.

DMN’s role is important to this analysis. Their voice both represented and shaped popular opinion.40

In a listing of the 1946 fair’s entertainment line-up, the DMN recognized Dorsey and Lee as the top fair attractions. The daily newspaper covered Lee as they would any other entertainer, without any indication that her act was lewd or untoward, and they described her show exuberantly. By the end of the 1940s, Lee had starred in seven motion pictures and had written two books. She was known for her burlesque striptease performances, which expressed her sexuality but also showcased her intellect. Lee’s performance at the state fair coincided with her apex of fame and her crowd at the fair surpassed the number of people who attended the performance by Elvis Presley the following decade. When Presley performed in 1956, shortly after his appearance on Ed Sullivan’s television show, he attracted 26,500 excited fans in his

Cotton Bowl concert, compared to Lee’s show which reported 39,500 in attendance. Lee was a national sensation, made famous by her sexuality, and the State Fair of Texas used that popularity to draw crowds.41

Lee’s routine included the banter she was known for as she disrobed, followed by a comedic performance by performer Jackie Gleason and accompanied by Dorsey and his forty- one member band. If there was any confusion as to Lee’s style of performance, an ad in the DMN cleared things up. Outfitted in pseudo-antebellum dress, and adorned with a large hat and high necked frilly blouse, Lee demurely exposed a garter worn on her upper thigh. This seductive and

40 Peter Elkind, “The Legacy of Citizen Robert,” Texas Monthly, July 1985, accessed December 2, 2018, https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-legacy-of-citizen-robert. For more on how media shapes public opinion regarding women’s issues, see Mara Altman Gross Anatomy: Dispatches from the Front (and Back) (New York, NY: GP Putnam and Sons, 2018).

41 “Fair Has Hit At Auditorium,” Dallas Morning News, October 13, 1946, accessed July 18, 2018; Tony Zoppi, “Presley Thrills Crowd of 26,500,” Dallas Morning News, October 12, 1956, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

38 teasing photograph indicates a striptease show that Lee was known for. This traditionally

Southern and decidedly naughty advertisement demonstrated the allure of Lee’s sexuality and her act. As her engagement in Dallas ended, the DMN legitimized Lee’s stature as an artist by describing her delivery of dressing room keys to their new owner, the maestro of the Dallas

Symphony Orchestra. During Lee’s time in Dallas, she used the dressing room that would eventually house the conductor. The newspaper photograph depicted a fashionable Lee, conservatively attired, smiling with conductor Antal Dorati, dressed in his finest suit. According to the DMN, this was an exchange between two prominent artists.42

Later in the decade, another notable burlesque star, Sally Rand, graced the midway stage as the featured striptease act. She performed with her large ensemble during the sixteen day engagement, in addition to playing a midnight fundraiser with club owner Pappy Dolsen. Rand’s signature dance included two oversized fans made of ostrich feathers that covered her front and back. As she swayed to the music, she switched the fans from back to front and vice versa, teasing the audience. To those watching, she appeared nude, as if a mere slip of the fan would reveal her naked body. While considered tame to modern day standards, law enforcement officers in other cities found her act to be lewd. Rand’s act came under scrutiny by other jurisdictions, but when pressed in an interview, Rand surmised her prior arrests coincided with election years. Despite the scandal at other fairs, she was one of the headlining acts for the largest show of industrial might and business prowess in Texas, and Dallas welcomed her.43

42 Advertisement, Dallas Morning News, October 3, 1946, accessed July 18, 2018; “Beachcombers Top Bill at Colony Club,” Dallas Morning News, October 21, 1946, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

43 “Benefit Variety Show at Casino Tuesday Midnight,” Dallas Morning News, October 13, 1949, accessed May 10, 2018; “Miss Sally Rand’s Arrival Brightens Fair Park’s Day,” Dallas Morning News, October 4, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018; “Striptease Act Opponents Differ,” Dallas Morning News, October 21, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; “Sally Rand Fan Dance [1942]”, YouTube, accessed January 4, 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYeUx4kOQwI. For more on Pappy Dolsen, see Curtis Gregory, “Pappy’s

Rand was well known in Dallas. In 1936 she performed her show “Sally Rand’s Nude

Ranch” during Fort Worth’s Texas Frontier Centennial. To compete with Centennial Expo in

Dallas, wealthy Fort Worth Telegram publisher and civic booster Amon Carter hired Rand to produce her show in neighboring Fort Worth. Rand’s show in San Francisco featured women wearing only their cowboy hats, holsters, and boots. It is unclear what performers wore in the

Fort Worth show, but her work in other states demonstrated the type of event Rand produced and was known for. To promote her time in Fort Worth, Rand acted as a flight hostess for local airline Braniff Airways’ inaugural commercial flight to Corpus Christi, Texas. Her public relations stunts marketed her sexuality, but did so in a way that was linked to area big business.

With their memories of the act in the prior decade, Dallas executives and audiences welcomed her in 1949 as the headlining performer at the fair with a vast stage and tremendous presence.44

Rand made the most of her time in Dallas to promote her show at the fair. She participated in the opening parade, riding in a convertible car, waving to throngs of admiring fans. Her vehicle followed the mayor of Dallas, as well as the governors of Texas and Oklahoma, signifying the place of acceptability and reverence she held for Dallas audiences. Rand’s sexually suggestive act was well-known and appreciated in Dallas at this time, as audiences and booking agents viewed her show as acceptable and/or profitable. Rand was not just a striptease

Girls,” Texas Monthly, accessed https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/pappys-girls. Dolsen was a club owner in Dallas, operating clubs that featured striptease. He also acted as a manager for striptease dancers.

44 Tom Peeler, “State Fair! Nintey- six years of fat stock, football, Ferris wheels, and fun,” D Magazine, October, 1982, accessed December 12, 2018, https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d- magazine/1982/october/state-fair/; Sally Rand papers finding aid summary, accessed December 12, 2018, http://chsmedia.org/media/fa/fa/M-R/RandSally-inv.htm; “Remembering Yesterday: Fifteen Years Ago Today,” Dallas Morning News, August 15, 1951, accessed June 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Wiley, The Great State Fair of Texas, 151. Wiley’s book includes a picture of Rand’s performance space and writes her show was “sanitized” compared to the 1936 show. According to the picture, the stage and surrounding billboards appear to be thirty feet tall and fifty feet long. There is a crowd of approximately 100 men and women gathered in front of the stage.

40 act; she was a business woman and mother. While these complex personas are often removed from the descriptions of popular striptease dancers, the DMN reported on her time in Dallas as such. Rand travelled with her adopted toddler, Sean, and the DMN highlighted her maternal role in their coverage of her Dallas residency. Her trip to the city was indeed a family affair as her mother and stepfather joined her for a family reunion, and her brother wrote for her show and acted as her master of ceremonies. The paper, a public relations vehicle for the fair, described their featured entertainer as both doting mother and sexually alluring dancer.45

Rand’s show included her fan dance, several musical numbers featuring scantily clad dancers, and comedic performances. Shifting the burlesque dynamic to highlight striptease as the main act, as opposed to a supporting role, Rand’s thirty-five minute show was a smashing success among white audiences. She performed twelve shows per day in an eight hundred seat tent on the midway, except on “Negro Day” when her show was replaced by a “negro revue,” and the headliner did not perform. It is unclear if the talent (Rand) or the fair executives required her show’s hiatus on “Negro Day,” but the girlie shows operating on the midway remained open continuously.46

45“Tidying Remains For Fair Booths,” Dallas Morning News, October 7, 1949, accessed May 10, 2018; “Miss Sally Rand’s Arrival Brightens Fair Park’s Day,” Dallas Morning News, October 4, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018; “Sally Rand Here Early for Full Pre-Fair Schedule,” Dallas Morning News, October 1, 1950, accessed May 10, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

46 Sally, Fans And Revue,” Dallas Morning News, October 10, 1949, accessed May 10, 2018; “Miss Sally Rand’s Arrival Brightens Fair Park’s Day,” Dallas Morning News, October 4, 1949; “Day Saved for Show. Sally Rand Manager’s Peace Bond Dismissed,” Dallas Morning News, October 12, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018; “Negro Day Nets Fair Fourth Boomer in a Row,” Dallas Morning News, October 17, 1950, accessed June 5, 2018; “Rochester to Head Show in Rand Tent,” Dallas Morning News, October 16, 1950, accessed June 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. “Negro Day” or “Negro Achievement Day” is the moniker bestowed upon the day presumably by fair organizers. It is not the author’s word. The fair was a segregated event until the midcentury, in which the fair executives set aside one or two days for African American entry. The tone of the fair advertising was quite different in the African American newspaper, the Dallas Express. While the DMN exalted fair executives and the event, coverage in the Dallas Express was limited.

In addition to Rand’s large tent and top billing, the fair also hired striptease dancers for other midway shows. In 1949, the Texas Employment Commission (TEC) stationed a temporary employment agency on the fairgrounds. Their purpose was to pair those needing work with employment opportunities at the fair immediately. The TEC segregated jobs by gender, with men filling roles of welders, booth salesmen, and policemen, while they placed women in administrative and performance roles. When performances required a striptease dancer, the TEC successfully solicited for local talent, establishing a job for the duration of the placement and, as reported in the DMN, a more permanent assignment. The TEC, a government organization, worked to place women in striptease roles at the end of the decade, and even lamented the lack of women who sought out those jobs in 1949 as opposed to years past. Thus, the fair was a training opportunity for local women to find professional employment in various occupations deemed appropriate for women, including striptease. Performance sexuality was not only accepted in the post-war period, it was a part of the economy. As the economy was growing with population surges, striptease occupied a role in both the creation and celebration of era’s economic success. As government agencies like the TEC helped women in Dallas find careers in striptease through the fair, the event served not only as a marketing tool for the city, but a way for people to find employment. The inclusion of striptease in this effort further demonstrates the acceptability of public striptease as a performance and profession.47

The performances on the midway were clearly visible. Large signs advertised the shows, a barker attracted audiences, and scantily clad dancers flanked the tents on stage. Women danced provocatively in the open space in lingerie or swimsuits, signifying the nature of the interior

47 “TEC Finds State Fair Jobs for Stripteasers, Welders,” Dallas Morning News, October 15, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

42 show. Once inside, fairgoers witnessed striptease acts. One such show advised women how to undress for men, while another involved strategically placed gardenias which were detached to exposed a flesh-colored bra. The dancer then removed her bra. These shows were also advertised by the DMN, including a magazine insert inside an October 1951 edition. The DMN insert, produced to advertise the fair, illustrated the most popular attractions. Included in the picture collage was the peep show. The scene includes a mixed gender white crowd gathered in front of a stage. Women in either swimsuits or lingerie posed beside a barker under signs which read

“(illegible) proudly presents Peep Show,” “Queen of French Sunbathers Nudema,” and

“Burlesque at its Best.” Not only did the newspaper advertise the headlining performances of

Rand, but they also highlighted the presence of striptease on the midway.48

The Dallas Morning News reported extensively on striptease, including Rand’s time in

Dallas, and their tone was always one of support. When a vendor filed suit against her business manager, the newspaper reported the dismissal of the charges with a quote from the presiding judge: “We can’t have any trouble at the State Fair, the biggest show in the world. Case dismissed.” This idea that the vendor suing for compensation may tarnish the fair’s reputation, but Rand’s performance would not, is telling. In the reporting, the language used indicated an act that was welcomed at the fair. Rand’s celebrity drew consumers to the fair, but not in a tawdry way. The general public welcomed striptease as a viable and popular entertainment option.49

48 “Striptease Act Opponents Differ,” Dallas Morning News, October 21, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Advertisement, Dallas Morning News, October 2018, Dallas Municipal Archives, Dallas Public Library; “A Fair to Remember,” Media Projects, Inc, accessed December 1, 2018, http://www.mediaprojects.org/films/american-history/a-fair-to-remember; “A Fair to Remember” trailer, accessed December 1, 2018, https://vimeo.com/78939335. Fair General Manager from 1965-1972, Joseph B. Rucker, Jr, described the midway during his tenure as consisting of twelve girl shows on the midway. In the trailer available on Vimeo, those interviewed recalled the girl shows during the midcentury fairs. Videos of barkers were included.

49 “Day Saved for Show. Sally Rand Manager’s Peace Bond Dismissed,” Dallas Morning News, October 12, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

Rand found herself in Dallas courts more than once, each a question of business practices and none targeting Rand for “lewd” behavior. In each case, the reporting presented Rand as a business executive caught in the crosshairs of disputes by men whose business entered her orbit.

While she was heralded as a central figure in that her show was a focus of the arguments, Rand’s sexuality was not the target of the cases. The newspaper described the legal troubles as business actions, not questions of decency or immoral behavior.50

Although seemingly welcome in Dallas, the business case for striptease sometimes included a balancing act, in which fair executives would offer the entertainment, while professing their disdain for overtly sexual shows when needed. In 1949, representatives of the

State Fair of Texas offered testimony in the 134th District Court concerning their employment of striptease acts. Purveyors of popular midway shows sued the organization for half of Sally

Rand’s profits (estimated at $100,000), arguing their midway shows were denied a contract in

Dallas because they included striptease. The plaintiffs declared Dallas’s employment of Rand, a striptease dancer, nullified the fair’s complaint that the vendor’s midway shows were not appropriate. State Fair of Texas booking agent Roy Marsh Brydon, testified the midway shows at the Dallas event did not include nudity because the fair leadership “wouldn’t stand for it.”

Brydon argued that other municipalities had shut down the plaintiff’s shows and defended the

Rand show as a tease, but devoid of actual nudity. However, his testimony seemed to center on his need to avoid contractual obligations. A witness, the plaintiff’s attorney, testified that he saw shows on the midway that included nudity. While Rand’s show may have eschewed nudity for the mere perception of undress, the shows on the midway did not. The DMN article goes on to

50 “Arguments Delivered in Sally Rand Case,” Dallas Morning News, October 24, 1950, accessed May 10, 2018; “Last 24 Hours in Dallas,” Dallas Morning News, December 23, 1951, accessed May 10, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

44 posit that perhaps the real issue Brydon and fair officials had with the midway show operators was short changing of revenues by ticket takers. Nudity was the center of the lawsuit, but it was imbedded in another more profit driven motive. The State Fair of Texas declined to do business with the vendor in order to protect profits, but claimed it was due to the type of acts they produced. This case illustrated the line the State Fair of Texas executives walked in booking striptease acts. The acts were not performed in secret, and the executives’ insistence in claiming a lack of nudity on display despite the evidence supports a duplicitous approach to commercial sexuality. In this example, the State Fair of Texas hired striptease dancers as both a headliner and on the midway, but claimed they did not as they were defending their actions in a contract dispute.51

Rand’s performance at the 1950 fair may have included more clothing than her 1936 Fort

Worth performances, but her reputation assisted in continually selling tickets to her show. As

Rand returned to Dallas for her gig at the fair, a newspaper report hinted at a more modest approach in her performance compared to prior years. However, Rand, in her forties, confirmed in a subsequent DMN interview that she would perform her standard dance, playfully negating rumors to the contrary. Her performance included bubbles in lieu of her fans, as she was the featured entertainer alongside musician Frank Sinatra. Her show continued to draw large crowds, as the DMN reported a fifty-foot long line for her show throughout the day. While she may not have been nude, her brand was sexuality and she made no attempt to convince fairgoers

51 “Show’s Fund Split Denied,” Dallas Morning News, October 22, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018; “Striptease Act Opponents Differ,” Dallas Morning News, October 21, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. The plaintiff’s attorney was the source who described the shows on the midway, referenced in prior pages of this analysis. As the plaintiff’s attorney he no doubt presented bias. However, numerous DMN articles referenced in this thesis described the presence of striptease on the midway and the 1951 insert indicates the presence of nudity just inside the tent. In addition, on page 155 of Wiley’s State Fair of Texas, the author recounts Divena who “descended into a 550 gallon tank and disrobed.” If the fair executives did not want nudity in 1949, they certainly accepted it by 1951.

45 otherwise. In addition to her performances at the fair, Rand followed a speaker’s circuit, attending half a dozen lunch club meetings as a special guest for pre-fair publicity. During her time at the fair, Rand performed up to twenty-nine shows per day, while also participating in a fair cooking demonstration as a public relations stunt. Rand’s brand preceded her arrival in

Dallas, and she continued to build it with her many appearances. Her time was spent connecting with fans, and further cementing her role as an entertainment powerhouse. Her sexuality was popular and on display in Dallas.52

In 1950, as in other years, the fair continued to offer striptease on the midway in addition to the headlining performance of Rand. One of the midway acts included many burlesque dancers, and the paper described the star of the show as “hawking her wares.” The descriptions of the shows centered on the attendance and the record profitability of the fair. As in 1949, the

DMN did not claim the shows were lascivious, but a part of the continued success of the booming economy associated with the fair. As the 1950s began, the city’s newspaper continued to regale the striptease dancers as performers who added prominence to the fair. These dancers were not only top draws, but professionals who were celebrated as sexually desirous for the fair’s audiences. To book shows and midway acts, the fair employed talent scouts who attended shows throughout the United States to seek out the best acts. Brydon, who held this position in 1951, indicated he wired the acts his proposal and waited for their responses. Brydon’s role was to enhance the experience of the fair, providing fairgoers with popular entertainment of the day, which included striptease dancers like Rand and Nudema. The shows were enclosed in a tent, but

52 “Boss of Midway Amazed at Crowd,” Dallas Morning News, October 08, 1950, accessed July 18, 2018; “Sally Rand Here Early for Full Pre-Fair Schedule,” Dallas Morning News, October 1, 1950, accessed May 10, 2018; “Fair Attractions Hit a Peak in Football Week End,” Dallas Morning News, October 16, 1950, accessed May 10, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

46 with the prominence of the fair and the publicity surrounding Rand’s role there, the space occupied by the dancer was quite visible. There was no question about the type of entertainment fairgoers would see.53

While the Dallas Morning News may have presented the fair entertainment as respectable, not all comments were positive. In 1949, the Dallas Federation of Women’s Clubs objected to Rand’s state of undress in her performances. The DMN responded with commentary, defending Rand and her sexuality, asking readers to consider how to draw the line between objectionable and acceptable material. They included a quip in which they were reminded of the

“actual story” of a gentleman who saw a leg show at the fair. “Shocking,” replied his wife, to which he observed it was no more skin than he would see in his own swimming pool. In a 1950

Fort Worth Press article, the reporter chastised the city of Dallas for its flagrant nudity on display on the midway. The article claimed police officers partook of the available gambling, while watching the “sexsational” shows. The Press claimed their photographer hid a camera in his coat to get the evidence of the nudity at the state fair. He also claimed the barker, in an effort to entice patrons to enter the show, said “it ain’t clean.” However, the DMN’s reporting argued the impetus of The Press’s story was retaliatory. The week prior, the DMN reported on gambling in Fort Worth. The DMN defended the nudity on display at the fair in their reporting on striptease acts employed there.54

53 “Ray Marsh Brydon Hires Fair Freaks,” Dallas Morning News, September 10, 1951, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

54 “Legs at the Fair,” Dallas Morning News, November 5, 1949, accessed June 5, 2018; “Fort Worth Shudders at Fair’s Nudity,” Dallas Morning News, October 14, 1950, accessed June 25, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; “Note to Dallas Reporter Who Probed Cowtown Gambling: Our Reporter Uncovers Some Bare Facts in Big D, Too,” Fort Worth Press, October 13, 1950, Fort Worth Public Library.

The fair, subject to local ordinances like all Dallas businesses, faced no admonishment by local law enforcement. In fact, the DMN reported in 1946 that the midway and its shows were little trouble for the Dallas Police Department officers who were stationed there. Expecting pick pockets and traffic jams, officers spent much of their time attending to drunk patrons and lost children. The commercial sexuality available on the midway did not seem to draw any crime worth reporting in the post-war years.

The 1951 fair, however, began to signal a change in how the press treated striptease performers. Citizen complaints of gambling led the Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade to investigate the use of games of chance on the midway with City Manager Charles Ford and

Dallas Police Chief Carl Hansson. Wade’s conservative view of this category of gaming led him to shut down all midway games for three days as he investigated their categorization as games of chance and hence, gambling. No game was immune to his investigation, including fair staples like the weight and age guessing game. In this game, a carnival barker attempted to guess the weight or age of the fairgoer. If he or she was wrong, the fairgoer won a prize. It was noted by the newspaper, however, that the “girlie shows” and the African Dip game remained open. It is unclear if the games sidestepped the strict enforcement of Wade’s interpretations, but one thing is clear- the dancing women and the dunking booth in which an African American was the dunkee were of no concern at the time. Citizen complaints that were made to the City Council, and led to Wade’s actions, indicated a concern with children’s exposure to gambling. State

Representative Doyle Willis of Fort Worth led the protest to shut down the games despite the public’s desire to keep them open. Wade, an elected official who ran on a platform to eradicate gambling in the area, required half of the games to remain closed. But with pressure mounting

48 from the city’s Chamber of Commerce, a group of influential business leaders, and presumably some DCC members, many of the games of the midway reopened.55

Despite the law’s apathy toward striptease and the many DMN proclamations of excitement and profit from the girlie shows, the fair entertainment changed in the early 1950s.

Broadway musicals and ice skating dancers replaced the Rand’s headlining show; however, the striptease shows on the midway continued and the daily paper featured them as key fair attractions. The fair invited Rand to produce a show on the midway, although not as a main attraction, and dancers occupied valuable space in both the fairgrounds and in the advertisements for the fair.

The DMN advertised Tirza and her wine bath in 1951, but the paper did not treat her with the star power of the prior performers, citing her performance as a “musical revue.” Popular striptease dancer Tirza Duval (nee Leona Duval) developed a wine bath where she would shower and undress as part of her act. In her 1948 club performance in Dallas, the newspaper described her as dancing in a flowing robe while drinking a glass of wine. She then climbed into the specially made apparatus on stage, which held three floor length mirrors, forming an alcove.

Glass containers holding red liquid worked like hose, spraying the “wine” onto Duval as she undressed. The DMN also reported her travels took her to many cities in which plumbers were possibly members of a trade union. Union rules may have required a licensed plumber to fix any

55 “Some of Fair’s Games Reopen,” Dallas Morning News, October 20, 1950, accessed June 25, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Wiley, State Fair of Texas, 155; Tom Peeler, “State Fair! Nintey- six years of fat stock, football, Ferris wheels, and fun,” D Magazine, October, 1982, accessed December 12, 2018, https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1982/october/state-fair. Wade joined the District Attorney’s office in 1947 and was elected District Attorney in 1951. He remained DA for over thirty-six years, overseeing such cases as United States Supreme Court cases Roe v. Wade and Baker v. Wade. The “African Dip” game was a dunking booth in which an African American served as the dunkee. While the mechanics are unclear, based on modern day dunking booths, when white patrons struck the target, the African American man would be dunked into the water. Recent BBC documentary “Lights Out Big Tex” describe this game as it was played during the second half of the century and Darwin Payne’s Big D includes a photograph (not dated, but presumed late 1940s).

49 failings in her system. To avoid the need (and the time) to hire a local professional, Duval acquired her plumbing license to fix her contraption as needed.56

Although the newspaper noted Tirza’s act in the midway, they did not cover Rand’s show with the spectacle of earlier years. There were no photo ops or recordings of invitations to luncheons. As the DMN reported heavily on the dancers and the midway performances, and the

State Fair of Texas advertised extensively in the 1940s, by 1951 the support shifted. Articles continued to identify striptease as the top draw at the fair and speak of it fondly, but striptease as a headlining act disappeared. The midway operated as an open space for audiences to view the shows, but dancers became enclosed in the shifting performance space and perception of mid- century Dallas. In addition, this year marked the end of striptease as representative of fair entertainment.57

In addition to the fair circuit, striptease dancers booked shows at local night clubs. While the advertising for the shows increased in the mid-1950s, striptease was a part of Dallas’s nightclub scene in the prior decade. Club owners Abe and Barney Weinstein, along with Pappy

Dolsen, advertised often in the DMN and these records trace their businesses. Striptease acts in clubs were similar to those at the fair. They involved either the removal of clothes by a woman who danced as she performed, or a gimmick that enhanced the stripping. The clubs booked Tirza and her wine bath, as well as a dancer named Rosetta who used doves to assist her undress.

Striptease performances occurred in the most popular nightclubs and were considered popular

56 “Ray Marsh Brydon Hires Fair Freaks,” Dallas Morning News, September 10, 1951, accessed June 25, 2018; “Fair Out to Set Attendance Mark,” Dallas Morning News, October 06, 1950, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. For more on Duval, see www.coneyislandhistory.org. Duval reportedly hired other dancers to perform in her name, in essence becoming a “chain.” In 2001 the New York Post reported Duval filed a cease and desist order against another act which used an apparatus similar to her wine bath.

57 “Entertainment for All Tastes to Be Offered by State Fair,” Dallas Morning News, September 15, 1951, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

50 entertainment for men and women. Abe Weinstein claimed to deliver striptease because it is what his customers asked for, despite his own objections to it. He contended the women often called to inquire about the entertainment offered and brought in the men to see the acts. As a club operator, Weinstein stated he was merely giving people what they wanted. The attendance indicated a tacit approval of striptease in a white, dual gendered, space.58

As night clubs in Dallas became more abundant, they entertained white patrons in the burlesque style with a line-up of musicians, comedians, and striptease dancers. “Dining and

Dancing,” the entertainment feature in the DMN each week, profiled the line-ups at various clubs. Prior to Gypsy Rose Lee’s performance at the 1946 state fair, other striptease acts performed at downtown Dallas night spots such as The Mural Room at the Baker Hotel. The popular destination featured an extensive stage and dance floor, and an open air terrace for customers to enjoy the shows. Abe Weinstein’s Colony Club, a staple in the night club industry, also boasted renovations in 1946 with new lighting and flooring to modernize their space. This club was the most advertised, and perhaps the most well-known striptease club the 1950s. The investments the owners made in renovations not only show the type of space in which striptease dancers performed, but the success and upscale nature of the clubs. Their downtown locations also indicate an acceptance with their entertainment schedule as this corridor was the business center of a city built by big business and their elite executives.59

58 Warren Leslie, “Show Folk Bare Views on Tease,” Dallas Morning News, June 3, 1951, accessed December 18, 2018; “Teen-agers Have Their Day at Fair,” Dallas Morning News, October 23, 1948, accessed January 4, 2019, Infoweb.newsbank.com. This article indicated women wanted to see the strip shows at the fair.

59 Fairfax Nesbitt, “Song, Dance And Birds on Late Bills,” Dallas Morning News, September 19, 1947, accessed July 18, 2018; Fairfax Nesbitt, “Two Smart Acts Added to Bill At Colony Club,” Dallas Morning News, March 1, 1946, accessed July 20, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. Nightclubs were racially segregated. While striptease, or shake, may have been performed in clubs for African American audiences, this thesis covers only those for white audiences because of the availability of sources. The Colony Club operated for thirty years; Jack Ruby opened his club, the Carousel Club, next to the Colony Club.

At the start of the 1950s, as the State Fair of Texas removed striptease acts from the forefront of their marketing campaigns, the advertising of white striptease by the clubs began in earnest. Theater Lounge’s announcement of their new burlesque-type entertainment described four striptease dancers, with columnist Wyll noting “our preference, if we must have one, is

Jennie Lee, blond and buxom.” Given the reporting of the club activity, it is clear the owners and the newspaper participated in the direction of the narrative of striptease’s acceptability as a form of entertainment.60

While the newspaper frequently featured striptease in their entertainment guides and in advertisements, they also printed the occasional letter from readers who would complain about the “immoral” shows. However, it did not seem to escalate to a point where the police would make a concerted effort to enforce the laws within the city code. In the 1940s and 1950s, clubs like the Colony Club in which women would strip were considered “dance halls” (fig 1.1) per the regulations and the articles therein listed the rules which governed them. The code described the various types of dance halls, acceptable hours of operation, who was allowed in the clubs, and how owners may apply for a license. The code also limited persons under seventeen from entering after 9 pm and barred prostitutes. This legal verbiage demonstrated a concern that the clubs operate as respectable businesses, preventing illicit activity and limiting exposure to children.61

60 Nathan Wyll, “Dining and Dancing,” Dallas Morning News, February, 5, 1950, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

61 “Letters From Readers,” Dallas Morning News, May 15, 1951, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Dallas City Code, in box 7, 1941 with 1950’s Changes, Office of the City Secretary, Dallas Municipal Archives and Records Center [hereafter cited as Dallas City Code], 524.

Figure 1.1. Postcard from Abe Weinstein’s Colony Club. Creator unknown, Nationwide Postcard Company, ca 1939- 1945. DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, George W. Cook Dallas/Texas Digital Collection, Dallas, TX. A2014.0020.

In addition, the code required an owner to file for a license as a “law-abiding and tax- paying citizen” and hire a special law enforcement officer to maintain order during operating hours. The club owner was required to seek approval for said officer “by the director of public welfare of the City of Dallas.” The code described the process in which a club owner could enlist the help of the police department to commission an officer, who would be subject to the

53 governance of the civil service board. The officer on duty during business hours at a dance club was directly accountable to the police department, could be re-assigned as the chief deemed necessary, and had oversight by a city committee. This review by the city indicates a closely monitored regulatory environment, meant to control bad behavior and protect the citizenry if needed.62

These rules applied to all types of dance halls, not just those that offered sexually charged entertainment, but the mechanism existed to police clubs like the Colony Club and Theater

Lounge. The part of the code that governed striptease specifically states “no person or persons shall dance, nor shall any licensee or operator permit or suffer any person or persons, to dance in any public hall any indecent, freak, or immodest dance.” This section explicitly states that it is against the city code for a person to engage in or for a club owner, or fair vendor, to permit anyone to engage in immodest dancing. The Cambridge Dictionary defines “immodest” as

“showing too much of the body” although it is unclear if this is the definition city leaders used when composing this section. However, the city leaders found it necessary to include this in the

1941 city code and made no changes, including the same sentence in the 1961 reprint, indicating a concern with modesty and entertainment. While this section of the code centered on clubs, the code would have also applied to the city’s largest public event, the state fair. The clubs and the fair regularly employed entertainment that was expressly forbidden by the city’s rules. However, fair leaders, who were also the city’s business leaders, used striptease at the fair to enhance their profits, and nightclubs offered striptease in the downtown area where businesses operated.63

62 Dallas City Code, 524-525.

63 Dallas City Code, 524; Cambridge Dictionary, x ed., s.v. “immodest,” accessed September 15, 2018, https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/immodest.

In the late 1940s, striptease, and the celebration of a woman’s sexuality, occupied an open space in many cities with their performances at state fairs. Anyone (white) could attend the post-war fairs. Men, women, and children attended the events, sometimes more than once in a season. Modern day striptease is often relegated to a certain section of town, hidden from the family restaurants, schools, and other places where people congregate. The buildings lack windows and some cities require the business signage to be discreet. But striptease dancers in the

1940s and early 1950s performed in more visible spaces. The headliner status of the dancers indicated an open invitation for fairgoers. This form of commercial sexuality, born of theatrical performances, was not only common in fairs, but considered the primary draw. As Sally Rand and Gypsy Rose Lee were hired to perform alongside Frank Sinatra and Tommy Dorsey in the late 1940s Dallas, their sexuality was celebrated and used for maximum profitability.64

Those who chronical the history of striptease describe the early mid-century as the

“Golden Era” of striptease, citing performance space as an indicator of acceptability. As the women left the confines of the burlesque theaters in New York City, they found work on the fair circuit which allowed more visibility to American audiences. State and county fairs marketed to both urban and rural dwellers, and invited them to view the new ideas in commerce and entertainment, including sexuality. Although Lee’s 1946 performance space in an auditorium gave way to Rand’s 1949 eight hundred seat tent, they continued to operate in a very public and visible space. The fair, run by the business leaders of the city who governed and developed the rules by which the city operated, used striptease to enhance their enterprises. In addition, the fair was a symbol of Dallas’s economic might and the newspaper, the voice of the business elite, repeatedly claimed striptease to be popular at the successful event. Not only were their acts

64 For more on sexually oriented business designation and zones, see Edwards, “Gender, Social Disorganization Theory, and the Location of Sexually Oriented Businesses and ‘Secondary Effects.’”

55 accessible to the hundreds of thousands of fairgoers, their treatment by the media indicates a level of acceptance. The space dedicated to the narrative of professional dancers in the post-war years is important to note as 1951 drew to a close. Striptease was not only tolerated, it was important to the success of the fair and a part of social culture.

And yet as popular as striptease was, as the 1950s began, the DMN’s coverage began to wane. Striptease operated as an important part of public events, and became more popular in night clubs. As historian Ben Urish so deftly defined, the 1950s ushered in the era of the striptease performance in nightclub space. However, this space signals important changes to the respectability of the industry. As described earlier, the fair’s profits depended on the popular striptease acts leading into the 1950s. However, as the 1950s began, the fair’s leaders began to remove striptease from the most public view, the headlining event. Although striptease remained on the midway, the modification foreshadowed the space changes of later years.

In addition, a reliance on zoning ordinances to sub-divide space in Dallas, along with a belief in segregated areas, brewed in the political atmosphere. These ideas helped set the stage for a geographic change that would alter the reputation of an industry. As the population boomed, the mechanisms for regulating and segregating space further infiltrated the political fabric, and seeds of estrangement were sowed. This study presents an example of the fight between those who practiced commercial sexuality and those in power who, claiming a moral high ground, fought it.65

65 For more on La Guardia’s regulatory actions, see Corio with Dimona, This Was Burlesque, 178-181, and Shteir, Striptease, 156-176. For more on the history of commercially marketed sexually explicit material, see Judith Giesberg, Sex and the Civil War; Soldiers, Pornography, and the Making of American Morality (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017); Leigh Ann Wheeler How Sex Became a Civil Liberty (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2013); and Sarracino and Scott, The Porning of America. .

Chapter Three

“SOILED MERCHANDISE:” THE CHANGING STORY OF STRIPTEASE, 1952-1960

Historian Kevin Kruse cites the early 1950s as the time in which religious institutions became synonymous with political power. As Evangelist Billy Graham built his religious empire, he reached audiences through movie theaters and international bookings, even meeting with the

Queen of England in 1955. Despite Graham’s home in Tennessee, his spiritual residence was

Dallas. As he grew in popularity, Graham joined the First Baptist Church in Dallas, run by W.A.

Criswell. The Christian political movement, most notably the conservative Southern Baptist

Convention, rose in popularity in Dallas with Criswell at its helm. Graham’s attendance at First

Baptist Dallas demonstrates the popularity and/or the power Criswell held. As the city grew,

Criswell likely increased the numbers of congregants in his fold, setting First Baptist Dallas on its path to becoming the largest church in the denomination.66

Historian Darren Dochuk documents Graham’s foray into the political realm in his book

From Bible Belt to Sun Belt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of

Evangelical Conservatism. As Graham described the place of religion in politics, he remarked on the sluggish nature of bureaucracy and encouraged followers to find resolve and change in religion. Graham positioned the church as a body which could affect change, wielding power and influence in political matters. Further, historian Grant Wacker argues religion, and Graham, exerted great influence on popular culture as well. Graham’s definition of masculinity meant

66 Kevin M. Kruse, One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2015), xiv; “Queen Hears Billy Graham at Windsor,” Dallas Morning News, May 23, 1955, accessed November 29, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Darren Dochuck, From Bible Belt to the Sun Belt: Plain-Folk Religion, Grassroots Politics, and the Rise of Evangelical Conservatism (New York, NY: W.W. Norton and Company, 2011), 363; First Baptist Dallas, Handbook of Texas History, Texas State Historical Association, accessed December 1, 2018, https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ivf01.

57 avoiding vice, especially sexual relations outside of marriage. A man’s role was to save his sexual appetite for his wife and to enjoy sex in the confines of a marriage sanctioned by God.67

As he charts Graham’s course, Dochuk describes Criswell’s meetings with Graham, placing the Dallas pastor in proximity to immense national political power. Criswell’s influence as president of the Southern Baptist Convention, and leader of the denomination’s largest church, is important to understanding local Dallas politics. In the 1950s, Criswell fought fervently for segregation not only in Dallas, but in the United States. Although he later regretted his stance,

Criswell became a zealous voice for segregated spaces in the 1950s. It is uncertain what influence the pastor may have had on city political decisions, but given his prominence and his national appeal, he was a political powerbroker.68

At the same time, anti-communism became a more visible force in the political arena.

Writing on the development of the Communist party in another Texas city, Houston, historian

Don Carleton’s Red Scare: Right-Wing Hysteria, Fifties Fanaticism, and Their Legacy in Texas describes the growth of communist ideology in labor circles. As business elites grew to fear the strength of the movement, linking it to labor priorities, a class warfare emerged. The United

States Chamber of Commerce produced an anti-communism propaganda campaign, aimed at squashing labor sentiment, and from their view, business limiting practices. This propaganda grew to include a “how to” on identifying communist sympathizers, a precursor to the McCarthy trials of the following decade. Carleton identifies the Houstonian leaders who claimed communist sympathizers were “taking the world away from them.” Although several high profile

67 Dochuck, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt, xii; Grant Wacker, America’s Pastor: Billy Graham and the Shaping of a Nation (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2014), 86-89.

68 Dochuck, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt, 270, 278.

58 leaders did not make these claims, Carleton notes their silence signified acceptance. Carleton describes anti-communism’s influence as it infiltrated the business community in Texas.

Although his focus is Houston, a similar dynamic in Dallas can be seen in that Dallas was also run by business elite during this time period. In addition, the Dallas Morning News editor during the 1950s was Edward (Ted) Dealey (son of founder George Bannerman Dealey) whose voice influenced content in a more heavy handed way than his father’s. As a supporter of Senator

Joseph McCarthy, Ted Dealey’s DMN reflected his world view. Given Dallas’s reliance on business leaders in local politics, the power wielded by the business groups such as the DCC, along with the DMN’s links to the group, it is possible that McCarthyism ideology was embraced by the Chamber of Commerce, affecting local decisions.69

In her book Communists and Perverts Under the Palms: The Johns Committee in

Florida, 1956-1965, historian Stacy Braukman identifies a central ideology of McCarthyism and links the “Red Scare” first to integration and then to sexuality. Braukman recounts the Florida commission’s evolution from its focus on NAACP activities, to the other forms of “subversion” it sought to eradicate. The Johns Commission’s focus became sexuality, specifically those that fell outside the heteronormative social structure. Braukman identifies the convergence of race and sexuality, arguing the fight for segregated schools “shaped a wider war against sexualized subversive forces that were considered threatening to children.”70

69 Don Carleton, Red Scare: Right-Wing Hysteria, Fifties Fanaticism, and Their Legacy in Texas (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 2014), 74; Peter Elkind, “The Legacy of Citizen Robert.” The acceptance of female sexuality is a complicated subject. This thesis posits there were public claims made which positioned women who flaunt their sexual nature as deviant. However, this is not to mean that Dealey or any other man in a position of power was frigid or a prude. In 1959, the DMN reported on a roast in which Dealey presented Dallas Zoo curator with a “beautiful, scantily-clad blonde” on a leash. In this case, the lack of clothing was publicly accepted as a joke in which the sexual allure was used to denote subservience. “Civic Dignitaries Roasted in Annual Gridiron Show,” Dallas Morning News, May 31, 1959, accessed December 12, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

70 Braukman, Communists and Perverts under the Palms, 6. NAACP is the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Heteronormative as defined by Cambridge Dictionary means

As McCarthyism aimed to present the perfect patriot, or to guard Americans from the evils of communism, the message was co-opted by opponents to non-white, non-heteronormative people. In this America, black skin and sexual deviance were linked as others. John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman likewise connect moral purity to McCarthyism in their book Intimate

Matters: A History of Sexuality in America. They argue the “purity crusaders” took a break during World War II, but propelled their agenda in the face of growing availability of pornography. D’Emilio and Freedman link the focus on the family structure as an American ideal in conflict with communism, as anticommunists “searched for signs of decaying values, or the corruption of youth.” They further describe efforts made by the United State House of

Representatives and United State Senate in 1952 to address offensive and corrupting influences, identifying local law enforcement practices that augmented national ones.71

And so all of these ideas converge in 1950s Dallas. As religious segregationists became politically powerful, the business elites sought out their support. Influenced by anti-communist sentiment, which evolved to include anti-integration and anti-deviant thought, the business elite who led city politics worked in an atmosphere which favored the McCarthy viewpoint. Just as

Henry Wade aimed to rid Dallas, and the fair, of its vice problem in the early 1950s, the common assessment of what was considered “immoral” began to include striptease. Anti-labor, anti- integration, and anti-sexual deviance messages tingled in the atmosphere, propped up by a growing religious politic which used these messages to provide a path to righteousness through

“suggesting or believing that only heterosexual relationships are normal or right and that men and women have naturally different roles.”

71 John D’Emilio and Estelle B. Freedman, Intimate Matters: A History of Sexuality in America, 2nd ed. (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1997), 282-283.

60 the polls. Political theater then, seizing on these themes and using the newspaper as its voice, helped craft a narrative of deviance in striptease.

Given the mounting political influence of religion, and ties to the business community’s power structure, the DMN’s coverage of striptease is worthy of scrutiny. This chapter explores the changes in fair coverage, as the content began to describe dancers less as professionals and more as law breakers. Echoing the prevailing historiographical sentiment of a demise of the

“Golden Era” of striptease, this chapter identifies a shift in performance space and description of the industry. With striptease “removed” from the fair, reporting focused on the nightclubs, but also became more fixated on the criminality of one dancer. The story of striptease in the 1950s includes a change in how striptease was described by those in power. Women who were once celebrated as featured entertainers became hidden from public view and cast in a new role- naughty guilty pleasures and scandal makers. With an understanding of McCarthyism and the heightened intensity of segregation, this chapter connects the illegitimacy of burlesque with political fervor.

As the new decade began, striptease as a fair staple eroded. Not only had fair organizers replaced Gypsy Rose Lee and Sally Rand with dance numbers that were less sexually explicit, the city’s newspaper shifted their coverage to erase the performances from the public view. Ice

Capades became the headlining event, replacing the burlesque performances of prior years. And while women still performed striptease on the midway, the focus of fair advertising changed, making it seem that the style of dance was not available at the event. Wade’s raid and closure of midway games assigned an air of sleaziness to the event, which the fair executives aimed to

61 change. Although Wade’s concentration was gaming, striptease became the representative vice that warranted eradication.72

In 1952, State Fair of Texas president R. L. Thornton’s changes became front and center in the public relations machine. The DMN covered these variations in midway bookings as the leader’s idea. Thornton aimed to trade “corn for class,” changing the types of shows that were offered. He declared a clean-up for the fair, eliminating the girlie shows, which he noted was a reaction to the educated populace’s tastes. Thornton stated that commercialized sexuality belonged to a less educated, old fashioned type of event. The fair’s “new” acts included Jerry

Lewis and Dean Martin, a comedian and crooner similar to the style of 1946 burlesque performances, although without the signature striptease. A livestock show continued as a part of the state fair entertainment, as did the thirty-sixth annual automobile show. These shows were hold overs from prior years, so the innovation Thornton touted appeared in signage and presentation. Thornton’s “modern” approach involved the way in which the shows were advertised on site, including theater style marquee, but did not actually change many of the attractions. Thornton also promoted the new professional football team (the Dallas Texans) and a new three-ring circus. He identified the sexy shows as out of date for an educated audience, calling his changes “the new American Midway,” and ending the fair with a large religious festival. DMN headlines read “State Fair to Have No Dirty Shows” as they continued to remind readers of the absence of striptease. This article included Thornton’s promise of a cleaner fair, as he announced the largest religious festival in the United States to close the event, featuring internationally known clergyman Dr. Daniel Poling. Thornton’s association of commercial

72 Several articles reflect the change. In addition, advertising of the girl shows diminished after 1952.

62 sexuality with low class and dated entertainment began to place this typically female, and lucrative, profession in the category of seedy vice.73

Prior year’s reporting on the fair indicated a strong and stable business model for the event, one that used sexuality for revenue. In just two years though, according to Thornton, the booming business of the midway had become stale and required updating. However, the fair’s midway booking agents only targeted the headliner shows which the DMN heavily marketed. In

1949, DMN declared Rand’s large midway show a record breaker. Because of the profit associated with striptease, it remained on the midway for years. Nevertheless, Thornton and the

DMN declared an eradication of strip from the now family friendly event, citing striptease as a corruption, a position in strict opposition from prior year’s claims.74

Thornton’s decision and the State Fair of Texas’s choices are important. As the largest fair in the country, other fair operators followed their lead. Upon Thornton’s proclaimed success, other fairs planned to remove the girlie shows from their lineup. Approximately two hundred fair operators listened intently to the results of the fair’s removal of the nudity at their annual conference. Pronouncing “The girly show will always have a place on the midway, but it won’t be the girlie show of a few years ago. It’ll be much cleaner,” president of the Texas Association of Fairs and Expositions, Maurice Turner lauded Thornton and his team’s decision to ban the shows. Thornton’s decision sparked similar changes at fairs around the country, at least on the

73 “New ‘Class’ Midway Set for October State Fair,” Dallas Morning News, July 12, 1952, accessed July 18, 2018; “Midway at Fair Park Opens With New Face,” Dallas Morning News, October 5, 1952, accessed July 18, 2018; “Program for Best-Balanced State Fair About Completed,” Dallas Morning News, August 3, 1952, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; “Dallas Texans,” Handbook of Texas, Texas State Historical Association, accessed December 2, 2018, https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/xod06.

74 “State Fair Gets a Rest after Two Record Days,” Dallas Morning News, October 19, 1949, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; “A Fair to Remember,” Media Projects, Inc., accessed December 1, 2018, http://www.mediaprojects.org/films/american-history/a-fair-to-remember.

63 surface. Fairs continued to offer nudity and “girlie shows” on the midway, but collectively condemned the shows as old fashioned and lewd. The tug of war that existed in earlier years, the claims of lewdness in some municipalities but allowed in others, fell to the more conservative side as the State Fair of Texas continued to bask in the high revenues without the visibility of headlining striptease shows.75

Thornton implemented his supposed changes with a robust public relations tour. At a luncheon just a block from the Colony Club, in his capacity as head of the fair, Thornton met with Dallas religious leaders to describe his supposed family friendly changes to the fair. The

DMN’s reporting linked the “clean up” to the presence of gambling at past fairs, citing criticism hurled by Senator Doyle Willis who claimed the fair was a sordid enterprise, promoting gambling and sexually explicit entertainment. Thornton catered to the meeting’s religious audience, not only broadcasting his removal of offensive material from the fair, but also offering three religious based activities that would be associated and paid for by the State Fair of Texas.

In addition to the closing night religious festival, Thornton announced a new nativity scene displayed at the park for the Christmas season and a sunrise Easter service at the Cotton Bowl

Stadium located in Fair Park.76

While Thornton also removed bingo and gambling machines on the midway, those attractions were not the focus of the DMN articles. The public face of the dirty dealings were the shows which focused on female sexuality. As Thornton aimed to rid the fairs of the filth, he agreed to keep the girl shows as long as they were not vulgar. Thornton’s hedging indicates a

75 “Girl Shows at Fairs to Be Cleaner,” Dallas Morning News, October 1, 1953, accessed July 18, 2018; “Fort Worth Day Draws Thousands,” Dallas Morning News, October 25, 1953, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. The newspaper used the terms “girl,” “girlie,” and “girly” to describe striptease shows.

76 “State Fair to Have No Dirty Shows,” Dallas Morning News, September 20, 1952, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

64 desire to placate a growing religious power base in Dallas, using the striptease shows as a symbol of moral failings. But in his role as President of the State Fair of Texas, he undoubtedly understood their draw. He couched his decision in the general populace’s changing appetite for entertainment. However, reporting on the fair’s successes, the DMN described Rand’s act as the fourth most popular at the 1952 State Fair. As the changes fell over the fair, the advertised striptease shows of Lee, Rand, and Tirza were replaced by belly dancing and ballet. The striptease shows continued at the fair, but were removed from the top billing spots. Thornton committed to shows which were risqué in nature, but claimed he would not stand for the vulgarity of the past. His espousal of family friendly fare, further placed the women who performed these shows as outside the traditional family structure. In contrast to DMN’s description of Rand in a domestic role just a few years earlier, Thornton cast the dancers as moral failings.77

As the fair opened in 1952, the DMN heralded the changes as rejuvenation of a tired carnival scene, claiming the new fair exuded class in lieu of “crass.” Big Tex, the fifty-foot statue (and twentieth century marketing icon) meant to resemble the gentleman Texan, greeted midway patrons as they partook in the freak shows and watched a follies style dance performance. While the DMN article did not include a picture of the new headline show, The

Parisian Follies, many references exist which indicated a more costumed dancer. However, one ad depicted a sexually alluring cartoon woman in a bikini to alert fairgoers to the nature of the

Sally Rand production on the midway. The show featured Rand and thirty-two people, mostly

“girls”, in a musical review. With Rand’s work as a striptease dancer on the burlesque circuit,

77 “Texan Trips Her Way to Fame,” Dallas Morning News, February 22, 1952, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

65 her production may have included the sexuality that Thornton aimed to remove. Advertised as a dance revue, Rand’s group utilized her name as the draw. Rand’s time at the fair changed from profitable headliner, with external civic engagements and record attendance, to midway side show. However, Rand’s brand oozed sexuality and her name attached to a revue indicated an adult performance. Had advertisers wanted to depict a dancing number, they would not have needed to include Rand’s name in bold or depict the women as scantily clad. Whether the women were in a state of undress or not, the purpose of the advertisement was to paint that picture.78

As the fair season ended in 1952, the DMN continued its pronouncements that the sexuality of the past fairs was no longer. In an article describing a fair visit by Senator Willis, the newspaper declared the “girl shimmy artists wear more clothes than an average Eskimo.”

Willis’s interview with the paper coincided with a luncheon for 125 legislators, hosted by the

Dallas Chamber of Commerce. Given Dallas’s business ties to politics, Willis’s discussion of striptease at the fair offers a hint of the sphere of influence governing Thornton’s decisions. Later in the year, after the close of the State Fair of Texas’ annual stockholder meeting, Thornton further reiterated his strong stance that the change in the fair bookings had made the business more profitable, acknowledging the eradication of “soiled” merchandise helped the bottom line.

Further, Thornton touted the fair’s philanthropic side as they hosted three religious events throughout the year for free. While the change in entertainment may not have been as drastic as

78 “Midway at Fair Park Opens with New Face,” Dallas Morning News, October 5, 1952, accessed July 18, 2018; Advertisement, Dallas Morning News, October 6, 1952, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. Historian Michael Phillips in White Metropolis notes Big Tex “represented not only white male supremacy but the attempts of the Texas elites to carve out a Western identity for the state as separate from the rest of the Old South.”

Thornton proclaimed, the public face of the fair indicated the fair met its goal of erasing sexuality from the event, as they ushered in religion.79

In 1953, Thornton became Mayor of Dallas as the DCC candidate. He continued his term as President of the State Fair, operating the company while serving as the city’s mayor. His aim to keep the fair “clean” and void of commercial sexuality seemed to succeed. In an effort to court the growing religious political lobby, Thornton and the elite businessmen of Dallas presented the event as radically changed from the prior years. However, the DMN reported the best business of the midway was the girlie show in 1953. Thornton’s ads for the fair continued to pronounce the headliners as modest ballet and ice skating shows in lieu of striptease, but a hint that the midway girlie shows continued in their former makeup appeared in an editorial by Methodist minister

Bill Draper from Alba, Texas. His fiery letter identified announcers who invited those who walked by to come inside to see the women “take it all off.” In addition to the girlie shows, the fair featured a midway attraction called the “Strip-O-Rama,” which The Billboard magazine described as having the second highest attendance of the Dallas midway attractions in 1955.

However, the appearance of the shows’ departure was important and reiterated time and again by the DMN writers and the ads placed by the State Fair of Texas.80

79 “Standard Oil Head Given Texas Award,” Dallas Morning News, October 8, 1952, accessed July 18, 2018; “Outsize Crowds Jam State Fair,” Dallas Morning News, October 12, 1952, accessed September 3, 2018; “State Fair Reports Profit of $397,678 for Past Year,” Dallas Morning News, December 10, 1952, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

80 Black, “Empire of Consensus,” 11; Advertisement, Dallas Morning News, March 28, 1953, accessed June 5, 2018; “Fort Worth Day Draws Thousands,” Dallas Morning News, October 25, 1953, accessed July 18, 2018; “Letters From Readers,” Dallas Morning News, November 9, 1953, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; “Big Crowds Increase Dallas Midway $$” The Billboard, October 20, 1956, accessed December 2, 2018, https://www.americanradiohistory.com/Archive-Billboard/50s/1956/Billboard%201956-10- 20.pdf. For more information on the Citizens Charter Association, see Darwin Payne, Big D: Triumphs and Troubles of an American Supercity in the 20th Century (Dallas, TX: Three Forks Press, 1994), 173. The Citizens Charter Association included members of the DCC and served as its political arm.

By 1954, fair executives had replaced their advertisements for the striptease acts with those for the religious festival. As the paper used their reporting to describe fair activities, they clearly link Thornton’s changes to a moral cleansing. The DMN continued to propagate a sense of moral authority offered by the fair as it invited readers to “rededicate themselves to our

Christian way of life.” The newspaper, complicit in the changing narrative of the fair’s activities, noted festival speaker Congressman and evangelist Walter H. Judd’s warnings of the day’s perils caused by moral confusion and weakness. But despite their pronouncements, the girlie shows on the midway continued. However, the narrative created by the DMN indicated that

Thornton had successfully saved the city from cheap thrills.81

It is unclear where the complaints around striptease came from as fairgoers enjoyed the shows. Henry Wade’s efforts to curb the midway activity did not center on striptease, as the public outrage centered on gambling. And in a 1956 editorial advertisement called the “Neiman-

Marcus Point of View,” the writer lamented the removal of Sally Rand’s performances on the midway. The writer claimed the midway was almost boring with their games offering useless trinkets, unlike Rand’s act which offered something exciting for fairgoers. This advertisement indicated striptease was accepted by fairgoers. Contrary to Thornton’s claims of a lower class stigma associated with striptease, the association of an upscale clothing store with striptease entertainment reveals otherwise.82

81 Advertisement, Dallas Morning News, October 24, 1954, accessed July 18, 2018; “Solemn Prayer Echoes Amid Fair’s Gaiety,” Dallas Morning News, October 25, 1954, accessed September 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Dochuck, From Bible Belt to Sun Belt, 71. Billy Graham wrote to Richard Nixon in 1960, suggesting Judd as a vice presidential candidate.

82 “Neiman Marcus Point of View: State Fair- a Final Word,” Dallas Morning News, October 26, 1956, accessed July 18, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

Thornton’s changes and his subsequent advertising of the removal of striptease from the fair had lasting effects. The state fair was an event representative of the city and its business prowess, run by the most politically connected men. As such, its entertainment options reflected what Thornton considered the city’s values. As the fair executives sought to define their city, and themselves, they aligned with a McCarthy-era understanding of life. This decision both offered access to the growing political capital of religious leaders, and refused those who sought to enter the circle of influence. The newspaper coverage not only erased the public image of striptease at the fair, but declared it unworthy of the event.

Over the course of the decade, the performance space for striptease shifted from the open air of the state fair to the enclosed tents on the midway and nightclubs. During the 1950s, the popular view of striptease dancers changed from celebrity to infamy. The DMN’s reporting of striptease in clubs did not cease, like it did at the fair, but changed. The focus and tone of the stories indicate a profound shift in the understanding of the dancers as professional entertainers.

Although striptease continued to operate in upscale nightclubs, the newspaper’s focus shifted to the criminal activity of one Dallasite and the male club owners. Further, the space allocated to striptease in nightclubs was subject to growing local, state, and federal regulations. During the

1950s, the public perception of the industry changed due to conventions determined by a growing religious political ideology, the space city leaders allowed them to occupy, and the reporting associated with their business.

In 1951, Dallas’s police department restructured to address the needs of the changing area. As the city addressed their growing pains, the police department instituted internal changes, including some which affected the nightclubs that offered striptease. The newly established

Special Service Bureau (SSB) of the Dallas Police Department (DPD) consolidated the racket

69 and vice squads, streamlining chain of command and placing the group under the Chief of

Police’s direct supervision. Over the course of the decade, the SSB’s oversight grew to include

“licensing of Dance Halls and Dance Hall Officers, and Fund Solicitations.” In addition to regulating licensing approvals for the clubs in which striptease operated, the SSB, the arm of the law meant to oversee vice, became responsible for policing the special officers hired by the almost one hundred dance halls in the city. To pay these officers, the clubs were required to pay the tax assessor the officer’s fee, and the assessor paid the officer. This entanglement of city resources indicates the complexity of Dallas’s view toward commercial sexuality. Immodest dance was against city code, but the mechanism for enforcement became increasingly bureaucratic.83

Codes updated in 1956 included a required hearing when licenses for a dance hall were requested within 150 feet of residences. Current locations were grandfathered, meaning they were not required to comply with new regulations, unless an investigation by the Chief of Police proved they were “detrimental to the general welfare.” As the city zoning laws changed, the spaces in which new clubs could open changed. These zoning restrictions echo those enacted in the prior decade to protect white Dallas from people of color. As the city aimed to segregate the city racially, as in the case of the late 1940s, the segregation extended to the space in which dance halls could operate. Although not all dance clubs offered striptease, the city went to great lengths to put into place mechanisms for monitoring their activity, yet did not make any changes to restrict the activity within the clubs, including the striptease.84

83 DPD Annual Reports 1951-1956; Phillips, White Metropolis, 120. For more on municipal governance of vice, see Glasscock’s Striptease: From Gaslight to Spotlight, 129. Not all dance halls in Dallas offered striptease.

84 City of Dallas Police Department, Annual Report 1956 supplement, in box 1, folder 6, Annual Reports 1951-1956, Office of the City Secretary, Dallas Municipal Archives and Records Center. See Chapter One of this analysis for information on city code restricting “immodest dance.”

In the 1950s, the state agency responsible for monitoring the legal sale of alcoholic beverages in clubs was the State Liquor Control Board (SLCB). As the SLCB issued citations in

Houston in 1951, Dallasites speculated on the action the regulatory board might take in their city.

In statements regarding the possibility of interference by the board, club owners and dancers defended Dallas as a “clean city,” unlike Houston. Further the DMN article states the SLCB announced all Houston dancers must be clothed decently or clubs would lose their beer and wine licenses. The inference is that the SLCB was holding the club’s liquor license hostage in order to remove nudity from the clubs. The license, which permits the sale of alcohol, represented a valuable revenue stream. But club owner Pappy Dolsen contended the dancing in Dallas was clean and that he was in agreement that “filthy” business should not continue. Dancer Charmaine welcomed the control board, but for crowd control as she lamented the “bums” who disrupted the shows. The article, written in the early part of the decade, made a point to describe Dallas’s striptease as more respectable than those in other cities. In this 1951 report, the DMN presented the dancers as victims of alcoholic voyeurs who could not behave in a club. As the decade progressed, though, the links to regulation further ensnared striptease into the law enforcement agency’s vice operations.85

With all of the legal machinery aimed at eradicating bad behavior, and pointed at clubs that offered striptease, Dallas crime statistics for the decade reveal fewer arrests associated with sexual offenses. In annual reports, the DPD listed arrests by type of offense- traffic, theft, assaults, sexual offenses including prostitution, substance abuses, vagrancy, etc. In 1951, when

85 Regehr and Temperley, The League of Exotic Dancers, 87; “Show Folk Bare Views on Tease” Dallas Morning News, June 3, 1951, accessed December 2, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. For more on the intersection of the regulation of sexuality and alcohol, see Hobson’s Uneasy Virtue. Dallas club Pappy’s Showland shuttered due to changing liquor laws in the Oak Cliff neighborhood.

71 the arrests for sexual offenses were the highest, they were only a small percentage of the total.

While the arrest records do not indicate arrests for individual offenses other than prostitution, the data presents a priority for the department. As the years wore on the number of arrests for sexual offenses dropped from 2,297 in 1951 to 689 in 1959. As the city population and footprint grew, the arrests for prostitution (and sexual offenses) declined. In reviewing the changes in arrests for sex offenses at this time, the most dramatic differences were in the number of arrests attributed to white versus black and female versus male. In 1951, black people made up 10% of the sexual offenses arrests but in 1959 it climbed to 37.3%. Likewise in 1951, women were 84% of the sexual offenses arrests but only 19% in 1959. These figures indicate a change in who was arrested, demonstrating striptease and dancers may not have been central to the vice department’s agenda.86

As the decade progressed and space in which women could dance changed, the businesses had to maneuver tax laws, sometimes using taxation nuance to their benefit. Federal laws required cabarets (nightclubs) to pay tax, but burlesque theaters were excluded from the levy. In 1956, Theater Lounge owners sued the United States Government to recover over

$15,000 in taxes they had paid. The businessmen contended the location was a burlesque theater, booking musicians and comedians along with the dancers. They argued their revenue came from ticket sales, not from taxable sales of food and beverages typically associated with nightclubs and restaurants. These spots of conflict illustrate the lengths the nightclub owners went to in

86 DPD Annual Reports, 1951-1959; Jim Atkinson, “The Law and Henry Wade,” D Magazine, June, 1977, accessed November 30, 2018, https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1977/june/the-law-and-henry- wade. The majority of DPD arrests during the 1950s were for traffic violations. The D Magazine article described Wade’s prosecutorial focus as drunk driving.

72 order to maintain their profits as new rules surrounding their business operations were enforced.87

In the late 1950s, club owner Jack Ruby changed the format of one of his clubs to a striptease club, which could not sell liquor, in order to draw a larger audience and avoid paying tax on liquor sales. Ruby’s choice to capitalize on the genre’s profitability demonstrates the popularity of striptease at the time, and his business savvy in understanding tax loopholes.

Warren Commission investigations into Ruby’s past, heavily scrutinized after his murder of Lee

Harvey Oswald, found Ruby ran afoul of the SLCB on multiple occasions, either for obscene content, bad checks, or liquor violations.88

Had Ruby chosen a different path, would his clubs have avoided permanent closure? In the face of the laws in Dallas which forbade “immodest dance,” many of the clubs operated successfully for years. They tinkered with space and entertainment format to find the most tax generous options, as the Colony Club operated until 1973, indicating the city’s acceptance (or apathy) of their business pursuits. Was alcohol the target or the mechanism by which clubs were judged? As regulations and space squeezed the industry, the arrests did not reflect striptease itself as an issue, further complicating the law’s relationship with commercial nudity. In short,

87 “Lounge Owners Sue for Taxes” Dallas Morning News, January 30, 1956, accessed December 2, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

88 Report of the President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Warren Commission, National Archives, accessed December 2, 2018, https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren- commission-report/appendix-16.html#dallas. Jack Ruby murdered President Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald. Ruby operated several nightclubs in Dallas, including the Carousel Club, which featured striptease. The Warren Commission notes Ruby’s license was suspended for “Agents- Moral Turpitude” in 1949 at the Silver Spur, in 1953 for an “obscene show,” and again in 1954 for “obscene striptease act.”

73 regulations that dictated respectability surrounded the industry, but those in a position to enforce the city codes against immodest dance did not work to eliminate it.89

Although not completely imposed, these rules are telling. Burlesque indicated a different kind of space- a theater in which dancers perform on a stage, separate from the audience. A nightclub represented a more intimate affair. Nightclubs in Dallas had low stages or platforms

(as seen in the Colony Club postcard in chapter two), but the performer could easily leave it to mingle with the crowd. This intimacy became the linchpin of agitation among lawmakers and dancers. Commercial sexuality, acts that years earlier the city celebrated at the fair, could not be eradicated, but were constrained. This inner turmoil between what the public wanted (to see women in a state of undress) and what they should want (not to see women this way) manifested itself in limitations in space. The irony, of course, is that in squeezing the space, from open to closed, the regulators forced the intimacy they feared. Sexuality in 1950s Dallas illustrated the complexity of the issue. Space was constricted. Regulations abounded. Every mechanism was used to restrict its reach, but it remained a viable entertainment option.90

The most well-known club owners of the 1950s were Abe and Harvey Weinstein and

Pappy Dolsen. The three men owned the most advertised striptease clubs, and became Dallas legends for their decades in the club business. The Weinsteins’ aim to draw crowds often intertwined with their desire to for shock driven publicity. Abe Weinstein advertised often with

89 Ryan Vogt, “Texas History 101,” Texas Monthly, September 20016, accessed February 22, 2018, https://www.texasmonthly.com/articlces/texas-history-101.

90 Regehr and Temperley, The League of Exotic Dancers, 87; Jo Weldon, Burlesque Handbook (New York, NY: Harper Collins Publishers, 2010), 3; Lisa Duggan, “From Instincts to Politics: Writing the History of Sexuality in the U.S.,” The Journal of Sex Research, Vol. 27, no. 1, Feminist Perspectives on Sexuality, February 1990, 95- 109. For more on definition of sexually oriented businesses and regulation see Melissa Deann Lidelow, “The Regulation of Sexually Oriented Business” (Master’s Thesis, University of Texas at Arlington, 1999), accessed March 6, 2017, ProQuest Dissertation and Theses. In her review of perspectives in the history of sexuality, Duggan cites several examples of studies which identify variations in beliefs and experiences- or hypocrisy.

74 the DMN and his Colony Club appeared to be the one of the most popular clubs in Dallas during the 1950s. His bookings made headlines, as in 1954 he hired transgender performer Christine

Jorgenson to perform at his club. Jorgenson, the first American to become known for having gender reassignment surgery, arrived in Dallas with her partner to news coverage and a

Weinstein escort. The Colony Club, and other clubs, did not operate under the radar.91

By 1954 the Weinsteins had established themselves as major booking agents in the entertainment industry. They travelled to Los Angeles to scout for acts in their many clubs in

Dallas, which grew with the city’s population. Barney Weinstein and Dolsen became known for training striptease talent. Famous star Carol Channing, who the DMN described as one of Barney

Weinstein’s “protégés,” learned striptease technique at his school in preparation for a movie role.

Because of his relationship with Hollywood, Modern Man Magazine, a periodical akin to

Playboy Magazine, featured Barney Weinstein in one of their issues. The article described

Weinstein’s striptease school, which he launched upon his success with one of Dallas’s most famous dancers, Candy Barr.92

Texas born Candy Barr (nee Juanita Dale Slusher) shot to fame in Dallas for her bad girl persona. Arrested for theft at seventeen, Barr began her life of crime and illicit activity after running away from home and appearing in a pornographic film. Barr debuted as a striptease dancer at the Colony Club in 1954. Later that year, the DMN reported the nineteen year old, still a relative newcomer, was the highest paid exotic dancer in Dallas. Weinstein described his

91 “Jorgenson Dated for Colony Club,” Dallas Morning News, July 10, 1954, accessed December 2, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

92 “Barney’s Latest Stripper a Hit,” Dallas Morning News, January 14, 1959, accessed February 16, 2017; “Pilot Ribs Wally About Lost Time,” Dallas Morning News, September 22, 1954, accessed July 18, 2018; Frank X. Tolbert, “Tolbert’s Texas” Dallas Morning News, May 31, 1951, accessed December 2, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

75 discovery of Barr, plucking her from obscurity, capitalizing on her raw talent, and gifting her with the famous moniker. In 1955, Weinstein signed Barr to a six month engagement, which

DMN columnist Tony Zoppi noted was the longest in the club’s history. Barr’s sexuality was a hit with Dallas audiences. DMN did not shy away from featuring these stories, even after their pronouncements about the dancing at the state fair. Barr also worked at various other upscale nightclubs and her influence was abundant, as her act was often the benchmark for comparison according to the paper. In the 1950s, Candy Barr became the face of striptease in Dallas.93

As Barr’s celebrity intensified, the coverage of striptease in the DMN and in television news shifted to center around her indiscretions. Barr became known for her bad behavior outside of the clubs, as news outlets covered her brushes with the law extensively. As the example of striptease success, Barr’s raucous behavior came to symbolize what could happen to good girls who became involved in the sex industry. Stories, like those recounting her arrest for shooting her husband, often included her attire. The DMN described her dress more demurely, but the

Dallas Times Herald reporting on her arrest noted she was wearing “only a man’s shirt and brief feminine underthings.” Although she was not vilified, the articles centered on her legal troubles.

93 Dallas Police Department arrest report for Candy Barr, date unknown, The Portal to Texas History, texashistory.unt.edu, crediting Dallas Municipal Archives, accessed December 1, 2018, texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth207141/; “Triple-Fast Wilder Bros. Open in Baker Mural Room,” Dallas Morning News, April 15, 1954, accessed December 2, 2018; “Phil, Alice Join Fight on Polio,” Dallas Morning News, August 29, 1954, accessed December 2, 2018; Tony Zoppi, “Dallas After Dark,” Dallas Morning News, March 6, 1955, accessed December 2, 2018; Tony Zoppi, “After Dark: One-Night Stands Over for Crosby,” Dallas Morning News, January 5, 1955, accessed July 18, 2018; “Fields and Heath on Lend-Lease,” Dallas Morning News, March 26, 1956; Tony Zoppi, “After Dark: Packed Room Sees Sophie Tucker Show,” Dallas Morning News, March 30, 1956, accessed December 1, 2018; “Marlowe Makes New Friends,” Dallas Morning News, April 29, 1956, accessed December 1, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Skip Hollandsworth, “Candy Barr,” Texas Monthly, September 2001, accessed December 2, 2018, https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/candy-barr. Reports of Barr’s age vary but she was born in 1935 per her 2001 interview with Texas Monthly’s Skip Hollandsworth.

Barr’s brand was that of a bad girl, a stark contrast to the reporting on Lee and Rand just a few years earlier.94

The newspaper covered Barr’s attempted murder of her husband in January 1956, while the television news reported on her jealous squabbles with another dancer the following day.

Barr’s victim, her estranged husband and alleged abuser, dropped the charges. However, Barr’s legal troubles continued. In October, 1957, detectives arrested Barr for possession of three hundred grams of marijuana (police cite this amount could produce over one hundred cigarettes).

Reports focused on her sexuality, including how she hid a vial of drugs in “her bosom.” The case presented additional scandal due the manner in which it was pursued. Barr claimed the arrest was a setup, arguing the drugs belonged to her roommate and that a detective wire tapped her apartment. She claimed this was a ruse to end her striptease career in Dallas. And so, the dancer who was representative of the striptease industry, became associated with drugs. While out on bail, Barr’s relationship with alleged mobster Mickey Cohen raised concerns about the striptease dancers connections with organized crime, but no such questions were with the club owners themselves. Barr’s celebrity became tabloid gossip in the DMN, raising her profile as it shifted reporting from her popularity in clubs to her criminal behavior.95

Barr’s conviction in 1957 and subsequent fifteen year sentence demonstrate this decade’s fervor of the political arm of law enforcement. The Assistant District Attorney, Bill Alexander,

94 Clipping, Dallas Times Herald, January 27, 1956, accessed December 1, 2018, texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth207151/. Television station WBAP in Fort Worth opened in 1948.

95 “It’s Unfair, Candy Says of Verdict,” Dallas Morning News, February 14, 1958, accessed December 1, 2018; “Candy Barr Freed on Bond Under Marijuana Charges,” Dallas Morning News, October 29, 1957, accessed December 1, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Skip Hollandsworth, “Candy Barr,” Texas Monthly, September 2001, accessed December 2, 2018, https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/candy-barr. Mickey Cohen was a member of an organized crime family and lived in Las Vegas. Benny Binion, another member of an organized crime family, who owned casinos in Las Vegas, owned clubs in the 1940s with Pappy Dolsen.

77 reportedly favored trial because of her reputation and later called her “soiled and dirty.” The

DMN reported on the defense strategy to keep women off the jury, insinuating men could find

Barr alluring and thus not guilty. While her arrest may have been a win against vice that the legal community wanted, both men and women wrote letters to DMN editors decrying her heavy penalty. These images defined Barr as someone titillating and outside the norm to follow. She was a media magnet, but one that told the cautionary tale of a runaway who landed on the wrong side of the sexuality.96

The city that once welcomed stars Gypsy Rose Lee and Sally Rand as professional talent, considered Barr a fun but guilty pleasure. The equation of Barr with other types of criminal activity is important. Barr, the face of Dallas striptease, became associated with illicit sexual behavior, murder, and drugs. Although police reports from the decade indicate a shift away from criminal sexually explicit arrests, Barr was the face (and body) of vice in Dallas. She represented what could happen when sexuality was not contained. The business elite who governed the city and eschewed striptease as “soiled,” and those who ran the newspaper were not responsible for

Barr’s crimes. However, the removal of striptease from the fair and the designation of Barr as the face of striptease, was the purview of these powerful men. Perhaps influenced by the growing religious powers of Criswell, and his segregationist beliefs, Thornton and Dealey imbedded the idea of sexual deviance into the striptease industry.

While striptease persisted in the city, the media description of the dancers and the types of features the paper ran changed. Gypsy Rose Lee posed as an entertainer and Sally Rand

96 Myrna Olive, “Candy Barr, 70; 1950s Stripper and Stag Film Star Personified the Joy and Danger of Sex,” Los Angeles Times, January 4, 2006, accessed February 15, 2019, http://www.plosin.com/beatbegins/archive/CandyBarrLATimes.htm; “Letters to the Editor,” Dallas Morning News, February 28,1958, April 2, 1958, October 19, 1959, and October 23, 1959, accessed May 16, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

78 smiled as an exuberant working mother, but Candy Barr was a reckless tease. Weinstein and

Dolsen, for their parts, became representative of the club scene, as managers of the chaos which ensued from the dancers’ antics. Women had become the face of burlesque and striptease in the

1940s, as the theaters closed and male comedic actors found fame on screen. Working in state fairs, the women became featured acts, opening the space between them and the general public, both geographically and perceptually. But as the 1950s ended, the focus of Dallas Morning News reporting on the male club owners, and the bad behavior by which the women were described, ended a time period in which the women who performed striptease held the public’s attention as legitimate entertainers.

One perception of the changing face of striptease within the industry, was the replacement of experienced dancers with inexperienced women. Just as the fair reporting had shifted their focus to a more amateur sexuality, Barr’s relative inexperience ushered in an expectation of amateurism in the striptease industry. As Regher and Temperley point out, age became a limiting factor for performers in this era. Rand, now well into her 40s, did not perform on the mainstage at the fair. Hints of this phenomenon appeared earlier in the decade as well.

Dancer Marcia Eddington placed the blame for the SLCB club enforcement on low talent dancers. Eddington declared her style of dance was “exotic” versus “strip”, in which she had dancing talent and did not leave the stage undressed. She cited those who had no talent “found they can pick up more dough by getting fellows who buy drinks for you than you can waiting on table or driving a cab.” Later in the decade, Ruby complained his competitors, the Weinsteins, hired amateurs to destroy his business.97

97 Regehr and Temperley, The League of Exotic Dancers, 258; “Show Folk Bare Views on Tease,” Dallas Morning News, June 3, 1951, accessed December 2, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com. For more on the purchase of liquor in clubs, see The League of Exotic Dancers, page 87, and Amanda Littauer, Bad Girls: Young Women, Sex,

Barr’s stardom, as a relative newcomer, exacerbated the idea the dancers were not professionals. Despite professional organizations, like the American Guild of Variety Actors and their involvement with striptease, the DMN’s focus, first on eradicating striptease from the fair and then on Barr, erased the view of striptease as an occupation. The carefully crafted account of

Barr as an unsavory character aided in staining the profession. At a time in which women with fewer professional qualifications may have entered the industry, the commentary on Barr associated striptease with distasteful behavior. While DMN covered striptease in the clubs extensively, and did not proclaim it to be dirty, the reporting centered on criminal behavior of dancers, a subtle shift in narrative.

As Dallas’s most notorious striptease dancer faced her trial and subsequent sentencing, the striptease bookings at the clubs which made her famous (and vice versa) continued. The

Colony Club hosted Dallas native Lee Sharon as she performed her “peel” to music and the

DMN heralded new start Evelyn West as Barr’s replacement, assuring readers that her figure warranted applause and that a doctor’s note to certify her hourglass shape accompanied her contract. In 1959 Barney Weinstein’s Theater Lounge moved to downtown Dallas, just behind the respectable Adolphus Hotel, and the geographic change was presented as a move to a larger location, an indicator of success. Ruby opened the Carousel Club, next to the Colony Club, and he and his dancers came under media scrutiny for his role in the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald.

But the intense coverage of Barr for several years, those years in which striptease had supposedly left the fair, shaped the view of striptease as something shameful.98

and Rebellion before the Sixties (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2015). The Warren Commission report indicates Ruby was upset with Weinstein’s use of amateur dancers at the nightclubs.

98 Tony Zoppi, “Dallas After Dark,” Dallas Morning News, May 20, 1957, accessed July 27, 2018; “Oriental Exotic in ‘New’ Theater,” Dallas Morning News, March 29, 1959, accessed July 27, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

Throughout the 1950s, the DMN featured the dancers and their acts in the section devoted to nightclub bookings. The burlesque format that had left the state fair continued to popular approval at area clubs. Over one thousand revelers packed Pappy’s Showland for the New Year’s

Eve performances and Abe Weinstein claimed to have turned away business because of capacity.

The articles advertising dancers and citing the popularity of the Colony Club continued throughout the decade. Whatever the feelings the editors of the DMN had towards striptease, the advertising money from clubs was not turned away. Like the state fair, striptease provided a revenue stream so it was not removed from the public view, but the stories printed systematically eroded the perception of striptease.99

As space allocated to striptease became restricted to nightclubs, the venues continued to entertain patrons. The regulatory environment did not remove striptease from the city, but eventually directed it to spaces the leaders determined were appropriate. Despite public acceptance, the media reporting (and most notably the DMN) cast striptease first as unacceptable for modern fair audiences, and then as representative of vice. This narrative, born of the political influence of McCarthy era ideals and growing religious influence in Dallas, reverberated across the striptease industry. The change in striptease from theatrical performances to nightclub space occurred for a number of reasons. The stark contrast between the reporting on striptease in 1940s and the 1950s, provide an understanding of how space and representation changed the industry.

Space constraints that led to enclosed clubs, and more intimate contact with patrons, along with a barrage of stories of criminal sexiness, cast the dancers as sexual piranhas. And thus what was considered the “Golden Era” of striptease came to an end.

99 “Turn-Away Businesses at Night Clubs,” Dallas Morning News, January 3, 1955, accessed July 27, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

Chapter Four

CONCLUSION

In 1960, the Colony Club continued to advertise the “exotic” dancers they hired, but the

DMN’s nightclub feature seldom mentioned the type of entertainment. Tony Zoppi’s “Dallas

After Dark” column noted the club’s master of ceremonies and announced comedic performers, but rarely described the striptease dancers one may find there. The daily continued to report on dancer Candy Barr as she entered prison in 1959, and served three years of her term. Aside from an occasional interview, she disappeared from public view in 1970. As for the dancers who were such a large part of the fair, Gypsy Rose Lee and Sally Rand continued to perform in cities around the United States until their deaths in 1970 and 1979, respectively. Rand, referred to as

“her sexcellency” in an ad, returned to Dallas in 1960 for a series of shows at the Theater

Lounge. The Colony Club operated until 1973.100

According to the prevailing historical material on striptease, the nostalgic pine for the

“Golden Era” reflected a time when striptease was somehow better than its current form. The amount of space in the Dallas Morning News dedicated to striptease in the 1960s, in comparison to the 1950s, directs this understanding. Although aging, popular striptease dancers continued their careers. In Jessica Glascock’s Striptease: from Gaslight to Spotlight, the author states,

100 Tony Zoppi, “After Dark: Delicious Folk Tunes,” Dallas Morning News, March 29, 1960, accessed March 16, 2019; Tony Zoppi, “Dallas After Dark,” Dallas Morning News, July 24, 1960, accessed March 16, 2019; Advertisement, Dallas Morning News, July 26 1960, accessed March 16, 2019; Advertisement, Dallas Morning News, September 9, 1960, accessed March 16, 2019; “Stripper Imprisoned,” Dallas Morning News, December 5, 1959, accessed March 16, 2019, Infoweb.newsbank.com; Alden Whitman, “Sophistication and Panache,” The New York Times, April 28, 1970, accessed March 16, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/1970/04/28/archives/gypsy-rose- lee-memorial-service-tomorrow-burlesque-queen-was-noted.html; Lee A. Daniels; “Sally Rand, Whose Fan Dancing Shocked Country, is Dead at 75,” The New York Times, September 1, 1979, accessed March 16, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/1979/09/01/archives/sally-rand-whose-fan-dancing-shocked-country-is-dead-at-75- became.html; Douglas Martin, “Obituary, Candy Barr, Exotic Dancer and Friend of Jack Ruby,” The New York Times, January 6, 2006, accessed March 16, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/06/world/americas/obituary- candy-barr-exotic-dancer-and-friend-of-jack-ruby.html; Ryan Vogt, “Texas History 101,” Texas Monthly, September 20016, accessed February 22, 2018, https://www.texasmonthly.com/articlces/texas-history-101.

“Looking at pictures of the striptease stars of half-century ago, one can only conclude that they don’t make them like that anymore.” She discusses the decline in popularity of 1950s striptease writing, “What went with it was the culmination and distillation of almost a century of provocative performance by women willing to show anything from a little leg to a spectacular pair of breasts.”101

Other works echo Glasscock’s assessment, insinuating scantily clad dancers and intimate space sullied the industry. Glasscock’s photographs present women who performed in the 1950s as wearing pasties (small coverings for nipples) and g-strings (a narrow piece of fabric covering the genitals). Based on the photographs from the early twentieth century, it appears the costumes revealed as much as twenty-first century dancers may (depending on jurisdiction). In addition, the use of gimmicks, like Tirza’s, continue in clubs in which dancers dress in costume and disrobe. Rand bemoaned the shifting landscape of striptease in 1954 when she observed that dancers needed to leave something to imagination in order to maintain burlesque as an art form.

But her 1936 performances indicate a younger Rand had no issue with leaving less to the imagination.102

From the Black Crook in 1866 to the pole dancers of twenty-first century striptease, the form of entertainment has changed based on cultural and commercial expectations. As the standard for “lewdness” shifts, acceptability in entertainment follows. Early days of burlesque included the shocking nude body stocking, while performers of later decades showed more skin.

Reviewing the striptease costumes from the 1950s reveals the dance of the early century is not

101 Glasscock, Striptease, 6-7.

102 “Russell May Return,” Dallas Morning News, March 2, 1954, accessed January 8, 2019, infoweb.newsbank.com. For more on late twentieth century striptease performances, see Katherine Liepe-Levinson, Strip Show: Performances of Gender and Desire (London: Routledge, 2002).

83 drastically different from those of modern day dancers. And gimmicked performances in striptease clubs are reminiscent of those performed at the fairs. To argue the dancers of the 1950s were more costumed than those of other periods in the twentieth century does not explain the extent to which the industry changed or provide answers to why early century striptease was considered the “Golden Era.”103

As costuming vacillates between levels of uncovered, the focus then shifts to the other concerns of those who study the genre, space. Burlesque, and striptease, moved from theater to fair stages and then from enclosed fair tents to nightclubs. Based on newspaper reports, striptease on a fair stage was just as titillating as the performance in closed spaces. While performances were similar, the difference then is the space occupied. The performances were not moved to enclosed spaces because they became more indecent, but because societal changes directed a narrative of indecency.

Ben Urish describes this changing space of the 1950s as “the nightclub era,” uncovering the move from the theaters to the enclosed nightclubs. The nightclubs offered more intimate space between performer and audience, allowing the dancer to potentially have contact with patrons. In their review of the Burlesque Hall of Fame reunions, Kaitlyn Regehr and Matilda

Temperley researched the variations that may have led to the assumptions that space was a driving force in changing the view of striptease. Their book begins to explore the erosion of respectability, which was the crux of the “Golden Era” argument. They investigate the idea that

“back in the day” burlesque was more respectable and find problems with heyday recollections, much like any nostalgic wonder. Their work focuses on space and proximity, as well, noting

103 D’Emilio and Freedman, Intimate Mattters, 284-285. D’Emilio and Freedman argued “white purity crusaders” had to change their focus during the 1950s, as cultural expectations for permissible behavior shifted.

84 when the performance became a more intimate affair and night club acts became more prevalent.

However, claims that an era of respectability ended because of a shift to the intimate space of nightclubs requires additional study. Glasscock’s book features a photograph from a nightclub in the 1920s which indicates the “intimate space” existed well before the nightclub era of the 1950s.

While the space in which striptease operated changed, there seemed to be something else afoot.104

Through the research in the Dallas Morning News articles it became clear that there was a transformation in how striptease was reported in the early 1950s. The fair was an enormous event, synonymous with Dallas’s economic vitality and thus a representation of the elite business community that ran the city. Striptease dancers performed as headliners and in side shows on the midway in the late 1940s. But when R. L. Thornton and the State Fair of Texas chose to remove striptease from the more visible stages of the fair, the public’s perception of striptease altered as the sexuality was pushed to more enclosed spaces. Never mind the hypocrisy associated with offering striptease on the sly while lambasting it as dirty, Thornton’s agenda seemed to run in step with the political ideology of other powerful forces in Dallas.105

As the years progressed, striptease in the public eye moved from the state fair to the downtown clubs. This move, from the very visible (fair) to more obscured (clubs) space, was more than geographical. It changed the way in which dancers interacted with audiences and the reputation of the industry. A result of political maneuvering and pressures of McCarthy era ideology, displacement echoed those of prior decades. The move in Dallas presented a more

104 The Burlesque Hall of Fame is an annual reunion show in Las Vegas, featuring performers from all generations. For more on the event, see Regehr and Temperley, The League of Exotic Dancers, and Glasscock, Striptease, 131.

105 “3 Million Texas Saw Fairs in ’49,” Dallas Morning News, January 7, 1950, accessed May 5, 2018, Infoweb.newsbank.com.

85 subtle alternative to La Guardia’s expulsion of burlesque from New York City theaters in 1937.

A political narrative enhanced by media storytelling affected not only the space in which the women danced, but the reputation of the industry.

As Billy Graham entered public life as a political powerhouse, his association with

Dallas’s First Baptist church placed Pastor W.A. Criswell in a position to influence local and national political thought. His interactions with Thornton are unclear, but the business elite in

Dallas represented international business interests. It is more likely they interacted than not, given Thornton’s overtures to local religious leaders and the bookings for the fair’s religious festival. This is all to say that Criswell’s agenda may have weighed heavily on decisions made by the city’s mayor and fair president, and vice versa. Criswell and Graham played active roles in national politics, advising presidents as they built their following. Thornton, as founder of the

DCC, and local hero for his role in securing the Texas Centennial Exposition in 1936, served on the Greater Dallas Council of Churches Executive Committee. Religion and politics intertwined during this time period to enact social agendas, most notably an anti-communist platform which shunned racial integration and what they described as sexual deviance.106

Thus, the changes in striptease need to be reviewed in the context of what was happening around them. Although striptease was not zoned commercially like it is today, zoning dominated political discussion in post-war Dallas. The ideas set forth, in conjunction with the racial segregation and the 1950s ideal of white purity, created a template for managing striptease space in the future. The removal of striptease from the mainstage at the fair, while keeping it on the midway, foreshadowed more stringent geographical moves in future decades. In the 1950s, space was segregated for non-white citizens while striptease operated in business districts. But these

106 Perez, “Robert Lee Thornton.”

86 ideas gave way to the sexually oriented business commercial zones that exist today. In 1950s

Dallas, the mechanisms for separation were fine-tuned, falling under the propaganda of keeping

America clean.

The convergence of political ideology and city planning set the stage for metamorphoses in the industry. While not covered in this analysis, regulators’ and citizens’ concern with printed materials like Playboy and comic books loom large in the understanding of sexuality during this time period. Many have written on the government’s heightened focus on written material, but striptease presents a different kind of commercial sexuality. This is to say that there are several ways to interpret the decline of the “Golden Era” of striptease. Future studies of striptease in the second half of the twentieth century may find other forces which influence changes on the industry. But like the expulsion of burlesque by La Guardia in prior decades, there was no doubt a narrative orchestrated by city leaders, in an effort to appease a powerful political lobby. While the prominent men may have focused their efforts on other causes, striptease became entangled in their snare. Reminiscent of early century reforms, striptease became a victim of political expediency.107

In researching the study, initially the performances at the fair indicated an exuberance for the style of dance. But with further research it became clear there was a fundamental alteration to news coverage beginning in 1952. The DMN’s reporting of striptease as unworthy presented a jarring contrast to prior years. While the change was clear, the reasons included a muddle of various political forces. Sexually alluring women presented the fair operators with revenue, but could not act as the public face of the event. As the 1950s began, fair executives not only removed the acts from the forefront, but declared them immoral.

107 In order to remain on point, and limit the scope of the thesis, I chose to exclude the study of sexuality and nudity in printed materials (such as Playboy Magazine).

The media aided the association of striptease with seediness in one of the largest urban markets. The DMN, as the public relations vehicle for the State Fair of Texas, continually spread the message of vice. The dancers continued to perform in the clubs, and the news featured them as professionals in their changing space for several years. But Candy Barr provided a foil, someone who would speak to their narrative of the seedy, naughty, dancer. While Sally Rand was welcomed as a mother, Candy Barr’s domestic status was hidden. She associated with the wrong crowd and the DMN focused their stories on her criminal activity. As the reporting changed from the 1946 coverage of keys handed from one artist to another, to the 1950s tales of stag party debauchery, the image seen of the striptease dancer morphed from glamorous performer to unvirtuous cautionary tale.

In contemplating Laura Marie Agustin’s article on the sex industry, the focus of striptease has also neglected the audience makeup. Evidence from the clubs of the midcentury indicate a dual gendered audience. As the narrative of acceptability dissipated, the audience changed from dual gendered to predominantly male. Perhaps as the dancers’ reputation became shady,

“respectable” women and men left the audience, creating a high testosterone environment in which toxic masculinity prevailed. Further research on striptease in the 1960s and 1970s may reveal a scenario in which men entered these clubs to witness women in a state of submission just as women became empowered politically and socially. Robert O. Self describes the culture wars of the second half of the twentieth century in in his book All in the Family: the Realignment of American Democracy Since the 1960s. Self writes about “manhood under duress” in which

“three core masculine norms- breadwinning, soldiering, and heterosexuality- came under challenge.” As this thesis concludes, it calls to question the effects of the changing narrative of the 1950s. As the decades progressed, what societal forces directed further alterations in

88 striptease? After all, what more appropriate way to express one’s manliness than to attend a strip show?108

Some consider the declining respectability of dancers a result of a change in format, from burlesque to striptease. However, burlesque indicates a performance with comedians and musicians, not a “back in the day” glamor. But the term burlesque has become synonymous with a “Golden Era” of striptease. Illuminating the ways in which the narrative legacy lives on,

“burlesque” implies more upscale entertainment, and not performances which includes several musical, comedic, and striptease acts reminiscent of the 1946 Lee/Dorsey/Gleason show at the fair. Viva Burlesque Club in the Dallas operates an homage to the “Golden Era,” in a performance venue located among manufacturing space that has been turned into a gentrified and

“hip” collection of apartments, restaurants, and commercial businesses. The interpretation of

1950s night club striptease exists in this modern iteration of burlesque, as the club’s website describes their shows as narrative burlesque. Ironically, prior to finding its current home in the

Design District, Viva performed their show “Cirque de Burlesque” in the Lakewood Theater, nestled in the heart of the upmarket neighborhood R. L. Thornton once called home. 109

While “burlesque” performances are welcomed in some twenty-first century theaters, neighbors decry striptease in their neighborhood. Across the city, in another industrial park,

108 Robert O. Self, All in the Family: the Realignment of American Democracy since the 1960s (New York, NY: Hill and Wang, 2013).

109 Viva Dallas Burlesque, accessed January 9, 2019, http://Vivadallasburlesque.wordpress.com; Robert Wilonsky, “Lakewood Theater owners insist the 76-year-old landmark won’t be razed to accommodate new tenants next year,” Dallas Morning News, November 11, 2014, accessed December 5, 2018, infoweb.newsbank.com. Recordings of Viva performances can be found on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7T_N6_BkCI. The club differentiates their acts from striptease in a few ways, most notably with their statement that the audience is majority female. This opens a new line of inquiry that should be left to another research project. Thornton’s former home, Chateaux de Grotteaux, located in the highly desirable Lakewood neighborhood, was recently listed for sale for more than $2.8M.

Dallasites recently fought a proposed strip club which sought licensing as a sexually oriented business. Neighboring businesses, citing their concern for their religious customers, vowed to move as opposed to being located next to a striptease club. The club owner declared his intentions for an upscale club, including security, but neighbors were not appeased. The news story mentioned the DPD oversight into the zoning application, as licenses for sexually oriented businesses must be approved by the police department, tying the vice department into the business dealings. The establishment of these rules in the early twentieth century, and the stigma of vice associated with striptease through regulation, continues to apply to modern day club operations.110

The lingering perception of the striptease dancer as “soiled” has its roots in various morality crusades, but also in Thornton’s fair. Figures such as La Guardia and Comstock loom large in the history of sexuality, however, R. L. Thornton joins them as a historical figure who declared female sexuality as immoral, closing businesses in which sexually explicit material was peddled. These legacies present themselves in other bans on commercial sexuality, as the city of

Dallas fights lawsuits for their prohibition of an Exxxotica meeting from the city owned convention center. Exxxotica describes itself as a three day event “created for like-minded who are looking to ‘celebrate sexy.’” In 2016, the Dallas City Council cancelled Exxxotica’s convention contract, and has been in a protracted legal case since then. Almost seventy years after Thornton concluded striptease too filthy for the fair, Dallas leaders used their power to remove publicly visible sexuality, catering to a conservative power base.111

110 Jeff Paul, “Dallas Business Owners Fear Impact of Proposed Strip Club,” CBS 11/21 DFW, accessed February 15, 2019, https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2017/08/07/dallas-business-owners-proposed-strip-club.

111 “About,” Exxxotica Expo, accessed January 8, 2019, https://exxxoticaexpo.com/about; Stephen Young, “Just in Time for Halloween, Exxxotica Lawsuit is Back from the Dead,” Dallas Observer, October 25, 2018, accessed January 5, 2018, https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/dallas-exxxotica-lawsuit-back-from-the-dead- 11289743. For more information on the government’s fight of pornography, see Giesberg, Sex and the Civil War;

The idea that striptease was more glamorous in the early decades of the twentieth century seems to be the result of narratives aided by regulation in space. Visibility indicated acceptance.

Space then became a limiting force, directing the perception of the striptease industry. This thesis aims to begin a conversation in understanding why this may have happened by questioning the prevailing narratives and presenting alternatives, as the effects of these changes linger today.

This thesis does not contend that aspects of the industry did not transform, rather historians should broaden their scope to better understand the underlying reasons for the variations. The importance of understanding any of kind of history of sexuality lies in the realization of multiple viewpoints to craft a more holistic narrative. In this case, the current understanding of the

“Golden Era” of striptease has been questioned and expanded, providing additional details to aid in the study of this type of commercial sexuality.

Wheeler, How Sex Became a Civil Liberty; and Sarracino and Scott, Porning of America. The Dallas Convention Center is named after Republican Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison. She attended the City Council meeting in which arguments for Exxxotica’s removal from the space were made.

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VITA

Kelly Clayton earned a Bachelor of Arts in Speech Communication from Louisiana State

University in 1997. After decades spent working in various industries, she enrolled in the graduate program at Texas A&M University-Commerce in 2015. With an eye on how people communicate, she studied women’s history with a focus on the twentieth-century United States.

During her tenure as a graduate student at A&M-Commerce, Kelly not only presented her research at the East Texas Historical Association conference, but also promoted women’s history as an assistant for the Texas State Historical Association’s Handbook of Texas Women. Kelly graduated with a Master of Arts in History in May 2019.

P.O. Box 3011, Commerce, TX 75429 [email protected]