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The Beginning of Harlem's Savoy Ballroom and the 400 Club

The Beginning of Harlem's Savoy Ballroom and the 400 Club

Harri Heinilä, Doctor of Social Sciences, Political history, dance historian

The Beginning of ’s and the 400 Club

Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom at opened its doors 95 years ago on Friday, March 12, 1926. The late Savoy Ballroom historian Terry Monaghan argued that the “[e]arly press reports describe[d], or impl[ied],” that white businessmen Moe Gale and I. Jay Faggen “launch[ed]” the Savoy. African American Charles Buchanan was mentioned as its manager. Also Charles Galewski, Moe Gale’s cousin, and Larry Spier, a songwriter, were involved in the Savoy. The story of who created and owned the Savoy was rewritten through the years. At the very beginning, Faggen’s role in creating the Savoy Ballroom was emphasized in the press, but later his role in that regard was downplayed.1 The reason for that could have been his resignation: Moe Gale and his family obviously bought Faggen out at some point because it was reported in 1939 that Faggen was coming back to Harlem with his project, and already in August 1927 Variety reported that Faggen and Spier were “out of the Savoy”. In 1929, Faggen was mentioned in the past tense as a “former managing director” of Harlem’s Savoy.2

Charles Buchanan was referred to both as a co-owner and as an owner of the Savoy Ballroom starting at the latest from 1940. Much later, likely, at the end of the 1970s, Buchanan told that he owned 35 % of the corporation that owned the Savoy. Moe Gale and his father owned the rest of the corporation.3 Historian Russell Gold suggests that Buchanan got the 35 % share prior to the year 1943,4 which could mean the year 1940 as the starting point of Buchanan’s co-ownership. A co- ownership sounds more plausible than a full ownership considering the fact that both Moe Gale and Charles Buchanan were depicted in 1951 as the “founders” of the Savoy Ballroom, and when Gale died in 1964, he and Faggen were described as the “founders” of the ballroom. According to The Times, Gale “sold his interest” in the Savoy “to make a way for a housing project”, which could have taken place in 1953 when the Savoy Ballroom was sold to the City of New York. Probably, because of problems in financing the new housing project and problems in the relocation of the tenants who lived in the old buildings, the ballroom was kept open until 1958.5 Most likely the changes in the ownership and ultimately Moe Gale’s death led into the changes in the “official” Savoy story.

The Savoy Ballroom announced in The New York Age in March 1926 that the ballroom was “dedicated exclusively to” African Americans.6 When Moe Gale passed away in 1964, Newsday reported that it was Jay Faggen who “wanted “a ballroom in Harlem for” ” African Americans.7 The Savoy Story booklet, which the Savoy management released in 1951 for the Savoy’s 25th birthday, stated that both Moe Gale and Charles Buchanan simultaneously had an idea of a luxury ballroom in Harlem, but it was Buchanan who “was going to give” it to Harlem. Both of them had “plans and ideas that were to cause a revolutionary trend in public ballrooms and in dance styles” also outside Harlem, and practically everywhere where there was dancing.8 The latter suggests that the ballroom was not originally only for Harlemites. The mention of Buchanan’s role in giving a ballroom to Harlem might have been

1 included in the Savoy Story for assuring Harlemites that the ballroom still was theirs. That is especially when considering the ratio of African American and white patrons at the Savoy in the 1940s, which was 85 % African Americans and 15 % whites by 19469.

Because the booklet and the article about Jay Faggen were published decades after the opening of the Savoy, they possibly do not resemble the original ideas. The previously mentioned New York Age announcement from March 1926 suggests that there existed at the very least an idea of relying on an African American customer base. Terry Monaghan proposed in his Savoy Ballroom thesis that it should be asked: “Did two white downtown [businessmen] [obviously Moe Gale and I. Jay Faggen] really decide to open the Savoy just out of the goodness of their hearts?”10 Therefore, it could be asked how much the ballroom actually was for Harlemites and how much it was about making a profit by exploiting Harlemites financially? There have not been definite answers to those questions. However, it is likely that making a profit played an important role in the Savoy management’s actions because the ballroom was related to successful financial figures in 1928.11 Whatever were the original intentions, ultimately, the ballroom was not only for Harlemites because millions of customers from outside Harlem, both black and white, also visited the Savoy.12

Terry Monaghan has suggested that the Savoy management was initially reluctant to advertise the Savoy’s dance forms because it was more interested to create a picture of a “high class” ballroom which was distinguished to some extent from ordinary Harlemites’ activities, and which could provide the kind of “social uplift” for African Americans. The idea of the management’s distaste for “popular” dancing is reinforced by its attempt to restrict the Charleston and other “wild" dancing among the Savoy regulars at the time of the ballroom’s opening.13 However, from the get-go, dancing became connected with the Savoy in the press reports. The New York Age in March 1926 reported that there were the Charleston contests at the Savoy during the opening week14. In June 1926, The Savoy advertised in The New York Amsterdam News that it had planned to organize the Charleston contests every Tuesday in July- August 1926, which simultaneously were going to be combined with the Bathing Beauty contests. There was also a Charleston performance at the Savoy in December 1926.15 Perhaps, the Charleston contests were intended to control the Charleston dancers at the Savoy? Combining the Charleston contests with the Bathing Beauty Contests could have been for reducing the interest in the Charleston. Anyway, the Charleston was surely allowed to some degree at the ballroom.

In March 1926, also Variety described the Savoy’s dancing by stating contradictorily that although African Americans took their dancing seriously, however, they were not “good dancers”. The magazine found an exception in an ambiguous “wicked stepper” who danced like “a hound”. Despite the criticism, the article stated positively that the ballroom is going to success in the future. This was not the first time when the US press criticized African American jazz dancing. The African American Broadway plays since the beginning of the 1920 had received quite mixed reviews. In those reviews, African American dancers were not unequivocally considered to possess “natural” dancing skills because they were referred to both as “trained” dancers and “untrained” dancers.16

2 Thus, at the very beginning, the Savoy’s dancing activities were not always respected by outsiders and the ballroom’s management. According to Monaghan, by fall 1929, the Savoy management had begun to see potential benefits which could be accrued from working with Savoy dancers. That was possibly first connected with the Corner for “skilled dancers” in 1927, and after that particularly with Harlem’s dancing, which had become popular since the Harlem Lindy Hop’s inception in 1928. Monaghan claimed that the Lindy Hop became part of the Savoy’s 400 Club promotion in fall 1929.17

The Savoy Story mentions that the 400 Club was established in 1927, but in reality it could have been established in 1928 because newspapers probably started to report on the club in fall 1928 when the “rules” of the 400 Club were published in the Inter- State Tattler in September-October 1928. According to them, the club could have only 400 members from “both sexes between the ages of 16 and 116” who met once a week on Tuesday nights. The applicant filled a “standard club application” for the membership. After the applicant was accepted, an initiation followed, although it was explained that no examinations were needed. It seems that it was not so important to be serious because the club was for “fun and fraternalism” and happiness, as the first 400 Club articles emphasized. By October 1928, the club had already 350 members. The rule was broken or amended later because in 1951 the club had at least 17,234 members in total. The “initiation ceremony”, which was described in general to be “just too bad”, was taken care by a crew that consisted of otherwise unknown names, “Johnny Wright, “Sparky”, “Brown Suit” and Lewis”. However, one of the club members, George Ganaway, who became to be known as ‘Twistmouth George’, was praised in October 1928 as a prime example of dancing that could be seen in the club events and at the Savoy.18 Ganaway worked with George ‘Shorty’ Snowden on Broadway plays and elsewhere between the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, and nowadays he is known as the dancer who introduced a Savoy Lindy Hopper and Jazz Dancer to the Savoy Ballroom in 1932.19

A few outsiders, who visited the Savoy at the beginning of the 1930s, have described briefly the 400 Club and its dancing. At the time, the club consisted of the best Lindy Hoppers who tried to outdance each other. The Lindy Hop was described as violent, but beautiful as British Nancy Cunard put it. The dancers swung “in and out dervish fashion with never a collision”, although, at the same time, dancers fought with each other when one of the dancers accidentally collided with another dancer. The observers paid attention to the basic principle of the Lindy Hop: the breakaway in which the partners of the couple separated for performing their individual steps and then came back together. They also noted that some of the couples were “dancing in unison, as if controlled by invisible wires”, and in spite of the amount of dancers, approximately five hundred, there “was no impression of separate couples”. All that was strongly connected with the orchestra that was playing for them because it looked “like one big heart beating for them”.20

Frankie Manning claimed that he invented the ensemble dancing in unison in the Lindy Hop sometime in 1936 when he was part of the Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, a Savoy Ballroom-based dance company.21 Possibly, Manning’s statement is true in its individual context as to his choreographies for the Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, but the ensemble dancing in the Lindy Hop at the Savoy and elsewhere was introduced before his “invention” as the aforementioned quotations and other evidence suggest:

3 in the movie, Rufus Jones for President, from 1933, it can be seen two Lindy Hop couples swinging out simultaneously,22 which clearly resembles dancing in unison.

The 400 Club initiation for new members comprised three parts at the beginning of the 1930s. First, the gorgeously dressed members of the club paraded on the dance floor while the audience around them watched. This was followed by the actual initiation process. In this process, “a small stick” was given to a female candidate who was “spun around” the stick by “three strong men”. She had to do approximately fifteen turns while the audience counted the turns. After completing the task she either crashed to the floor or staggered “across the floor to hand her stick to the M.C.” The male candidates had to “run” through the legs of “a long line” of the male members of the club who hit the candidates when they passed the members.23 Perhaps, the observer mistook the idea of the line of the members to some degree because the line was likely for a punishment of those who failed the initiation. Thus, it was not meant to all male candidates.24 The last part of the evening rituals was “the “floor show” “, in which, possibly, only the candidates performed, and which was judged by the audience who either approved or criticized it.25

Celebrities like Libby Holman, Clifton Webb, Johnny Weissmuller, and Carl Van Vechten, with musicians like Ted Lewis and Paul Whiteman, were watching the 400 Club events, and also offered “cash prizes for a Lindy Hop contest”.26 Also African American entertainers like Bill Robinson and were in the audience. Eddie ‘Rochester’ Anderson “was even made an honorary [member] of” the club in 1940.27 Marshall and Jean Stearns depicted the club in their study by explaining that there were no “crowds” and there was “plenty of floor space” in the Tuesday events. Their description probably did not exclude those who observed the dancers on the dance floor as the Stearnses also stated that there were “all the fine dancers to watch”.28 Musically, the members of the 400 Club inclined to Erskine Hawkins in 1947 as they chose Hawkins’ band as the “best band to dance to”.29 Terry Monaghan claimed ambiguously that despite Harlemites’ love for Erskine Hawkins’ band, it “was not generally regarded as a “leading” band in the Swing canon.”30 Did Monaghan refer to Harlemites with “the Swing canon” is unclear. Anyway, at that point, Hawkins’ orchestra was the “leading” band among the club members.

Norma Miller and mentioned the 400 Club in their memoirs. Miller started to frequent the Savoy after Herbert ‘Whitey’ White, the future manager of the Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers, asked her to join his Savoy Ballroom-based dance group probably at the beginning of October 1934 when Miller with her partner Sonny Ashby won the Apollo Theatre Lindy Hop contest. Quite soon after Miller also Manning joined the group.31 The 400 Club did not seem to be a big deal to Miller and Manning because they mentioned the club only briefly in the memoirs. Manning basically downplayed the importance of the 400 club by stating that the club was not “open only to the best dancers” because anybody could join the club by filling the application.32 He was supported later by Leroy Griffin, a Savoy dancer, who recalled to have joined the 400 Club in a similar manner to Manning joined.33 When it comes to Manning and Miller, the biggest thing in joining the club, in addition to the “reduced admission”, seemed to be the yellow and green 400 Club corduroy jacket, which the members could buy.34

4 Because Miller and Manning were the members of the famous Whitey’s Lindy Hoppers from the Savoy Ballroom, maybe that was a reason why they did not consider the 400 Club so important in the Savoy activities. Indeed, Norma Miller mentions that the club events on Tuesdays “became so popular” that the ballroom had a radio show “called The 400 Club” which a famous Savoy Ballroom MC and an orchestra leader Willie Bryant conducted.35 So far, there is no evidence of the program, but there were radio programs that were broadcast from the Savoy. In one of them the radio presenter praised Whitey’s dancers who were rehearsing “steps you never did see before”, and suggested listeners to come to the ballroom to see the group in action.36 Terry Monaghan has stated that the 400 Club provided the Lindy Hoppers “opportunities to rehearse and practice” with its Tuesday night events.37 As it has come out in this article, in those events, there were an audience that watched dancers and even gave prizes for contests. Therefore, it would be more accurate to say that the dancers were performing to the audience. Rehearsing and practicing were more like by-products from their performances.

Also magazines in the US noted the 400 Club. The “PIC” magazine had a several pages long report on the Savoy Ballroom in April 1938. Overall, the “PIC” article utilizes humorous and even disparaging expressions in its textual descriptions. A few pictures in the article depict one of the 400 Club meetings. The pictures first show the members of the club who prepared for the “grand parade” led by a Savoy doorman ‘Big George’ Cailloux, then it is shown a membership test for male candidates, and at the last it is shown the punishment for rejected candidates. In the test, the male candidate stood on one foot. A female member of the club held his hand and tried to get him out of balance by whirling his hand. If the candidate failed, he was not considered a proper Lindy Hopper and he was punished by forcing him to crawl between the legs of the male members of the club who stood in a line.38

Jazz Dance historian and a Savoy Ballroom regular Mura Dehn described the 400 Club otherwise in a similar fashion to the “PIC” magazine article, but she did not utilize disparaging remarks, and she claimed that the parade consisted also of “ the “would-be-members” “. Her description supports the idea of the “hilarious” initiation rites. According to Dehn, the candidates had to exhibit “the current [dance] steps” which the “whole audience” judged. Those candidates who did not succeed were punished. While the male candidates crawled between the legs of “freshmen” who slapped the failed candidates on back or behind, the blindfolded female candidates spun as fast as they could and then they must walk steadily. She noted that the “examination” produced “very interesting” and fantastic variations of the dance steps.39

In December 1940, The Music Makers of Stage – Screen – Radio magazine published an article about the Savoy’s dancing activities. While the article discussed dancing at the Savoy in general, the pictures and the label texts of them depicted the 400 Club. Racist epithets were utilized in the article: it mentioned “darkies” who were supposedly born for the Savoy because of their dancing and music skills, and it claimed misleadingly that the Charleston was born at the Savoy. Surprisingly, the pictures and their label texts depicted the Savoy dancing much more accurately. The label texts emphasized the dancers’ skills and expertise in dancing without a racial slur. The dancers did the Lindy Hop with air steps, an “interpretation of the “Big

5 Apple” “, and other dances.40 The had earlier become part of the Savoy’s performance and social dance activities.41

In the pictures of both “The Music Makers” and the “PIC” articles, there can be seen also white people watching the dancers. According to Terry Monaghan, there were few white members in the 400 Club. The most known are Eva Zirker, Rudy Winter Sr., and ‘Killer Joe’ Piro. Monaghan considered them “a new type of white visitors” who went respectfully to Harlem to learn dancing instead of indulging in the Harlem entertainment in an arrogant way as “upper class socialites” did in the 1920s.42 Whether the white watchers who can be seen in the pictures were the members of the club cannot be concluded from the articles.

The 400 Club and its members drew accolades from ’ dance critic John Martin who in his articles reviewed analytically the Savoy Ballroom’s dancing. In his praise for the dancers (from January 1943), he refers particularly to the 400 Club dancers whose movements were controlled and dignified even in the “most violent figures”. Their dancing brought out improvisation and a “personal specialty mixed in with” more familiar Lindy Hop dancing. It was “full of temperament and quality” and parts of it were “superficially erotic”. To Martin, “[o]f all the ballroom dancing…this [was] unquestionably the finest”.43

The Savoy Ballroom dancing including the 400 Club was recognized in the mainstream press as a culturally remarkable activity by 1943. Overall, the positive acknowledgement of the Savoy Ballroom dancing increased through the years since the ballroom opened.44 The 400 Club continued probably until the Savoy closed in July 1958.45 As John Martin’s 1943 article suggests, the members of the Savoy 400 Club took their dancing seriously. This is reinforced by a comment from George Sullivan, one of the leading Savoy Lindy Hoppers in the 1950s, who has emphasized that the 400 Club jacket was only for those who really were able to dance.46 Overall, the 400 Club dancers seemed to take their dancing much more seriously than the articles about the 400 Club with humorous and even disparaging tones in the 1920s and later envisaged.

1 Harri Heinilä. An Endeavor by Harlem Dancers to Achieve Equality – The Recognition of the Harlem- Based African-American Jazz Dance Between 1921 and 1943. Helsinki, Finland: Unigrafia, 2015, pp. 115, 118, 124-125. Terry Monaghan, ” ”Stompin At the Savoy”: Remembering, Researching and Re- enacting the Lindy Hop’s relationship to Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom” in Terry Monaghan and Eileen Feeney. Dancing at the Crossroads: African Diasporic Dances in Britain: Conference Proceedings. London: London Metropolitan University, Sir John Cass Dept. of Art, Media, and Design, 2002, pp. 38, 65. Monaghan’s thesis was updated in 2005. That is why I will use for his thesis the year 2005 instead of the year 2002. Karen Hubbard and Terry Monaghan. ”Negotiating Compromise on a Burnished Wood Floor,” in edited by Julie Malnig, Ballroom Boogie, Shimmy, Sham, Shake – A Social and Popular Dance Reader. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2009, p. 142. ”Charles Galewski, Realty Operator, 64.” The New York Times, August 12, 1942. ”Honors for Unusual Colored Band.” Variety, September 1, 1926. 2 ”Classiest Ballroom Due Soon.” The New York Amsterdam News. October 21, 1939. Leonard Lyons. ”The New Yorker.” . September 12, 1939. ” ”St. Louis Blues” Radio Pictures.” Variety. September 4, 1929. ”Here and There.” Variety, August 31, 1927. ”Honors for Unusual Colored Band.” Variety, September 1, 1926.

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3 Harri Heinilä. ”The End of Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom – Observations and Explanations for Reasons.” Open Science Framework Preprints, 2018, https://osf.io/7w945/ , p. 3. See also: ”Gale-Buchanan Buy Golden Gate Opposish To Savoy Ballroom.” Variety. April 3, 1940. ”Group to Start Harlem Drive On Delinquents.” New York Herald Tribune. Oct 26, 1943. ”21st Anniversary For Harlem Savoy.” The Chicago Defender. March 22, 1947. ”O’Dwyer Mixes Campaign Staff.” The Afro-American. October 1, 1949. James Hicks. ”Big Town.” The Afro-American. February 1953. ”Wagner and Ten Get Civic Scrolls.” New York Herald Tribune. May 18, 1954. ”Roaming the Nation.” The Chicago Defender. March 8, 1958. 4 Russell Gold. ”Guilty of Syncopation, Joy, and Animation: The Closing of Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom.” in Studies in Dance History v.5, no.1, Spring 1994., p. 59. 5 Monaghan 2005, s. 65. ”Moe Gale Dies; Impresario, 65.” The New York Times. September 3, 1964. ”Moe Gale, Musicians’ ’Angel’.” Newsday. September 3, 1964. ”Moe Gale, Was Versatile Mgr.” Variety. September 9, 1964. Heinilä 2018, pp. 8-12. 6 Heinilä 2015, pp. 115-116. ”Carry This Message To Your Friends.” The New York Age. March 27, 1926. 7 ”Moe Gale, Musicians’ ’Angel’.” Newsday. September 3, 1964. 8 ”This is Savoy! This is Harlem!” in The Savoy Story. Unknown publisher, 1951. There are no page numbers in the booklet. 9 Heinilä 2015, p. 116. 10 Monaghan 2005, p. 53. 11 Heinilä 2015, p. 119. 12 Ibid., pp. 130-131. 13 Monaghan 2005, pp. 38-39. Hubbard and Monaghan 2009, pp. 130-131. Terry Monaghan. ”The Chicago and Harlem Savoy Ballrooms – Different Cultures – Different fortunes.” in Society of Dance History Scholars Proceedings (Twenty-Eight Annual Conference Northwestern University – Evanston, Illinois 9-12 June 2005). Society of Dance History Scholars, 2005 (2005b), p. 155. Heinilä 2015, p. 117. 14 ”Savoy Turns 2,000 Away On Opening Night-Crowds Pack Ball Room All Week.” The New York Age. March 20, 1926. 15 Heinilä 2015, pp. 102-103, 105. ”Unusual Holiday Program Planned for Local Popular Savoy Ballroom.” The New York Amsterdam News. June 30, 1926. 16 Heinilä 2015, pp. 124-125, 258-268, 17 Hubbard and Monaghan 2009, pp. 132-134. Heinilä 2015, pp. 121-122. Monaghan 2005b, p. 157. 18 ”Savoy-Topics.” Inter-State Tattler. September 21, 1928. ”Savoy-Topics.” Inter-State Tattler. October 19, 1928. ’This is Savoy! This is Harlem!’ in The Savoy Story, unknown publisher, 1951. 19 Terry Monaghan. ”Remembering ”Shorty”.” The Dancing Times. July 2004. Norma Miller and Evette Jensen, Swingin at The Savoy – The Memoir of A Jazz Dancer. , PA: Temple University Press, 1996, pp. 37-40. 20 Nancy Cunard. ”Harlem Reviewed, ” and ”An Example of Success in Harlem.” in Collected and edited by Nancy Cunard – Edited and abridged, with an introduction by Hugh Ford. Negro – An Anthology. New York, NY: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1984, pp. 49 and 205. Arnold L. Haskell. Balletomania – The Story of an Obsession. London, Great Britain: Victor Gollancz LTD, 1947, pp. 283- 286. The observers did not mention the phrases ”the basic principle of the Lindy Hop” and ”the breakaway”. I have concluded those phrases. See also: Heinilä 2015, pp. 135 and 143. 21 Frankie Manning and Cynthia R. Millman, Frankie Manning – Ambassador of Lindy Hop. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2007,, pp. 103-104, 116. Miller and Jensen 1996, p. 97. 22 Rufus Jones For President, The Vitaphone Corporation/Warner Bros. Pictures, 1933. One of the male partners of the two Lindy Hop couples was possibly ’Twistmouth’ George Ganaway. 23 Haskell 1947, p. 285. 24 This comes out later in this article. 25 Haskell 1947, p. 285. 26 ”An Example of Success in Harlem.” in Collected and edited by Nancy Cunard – Edited and abridged, with an introduction by Hugh Ford. Negro – An Anthology. New York, NY: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1984, p. 205. 27 Isadora Smith. ”Crowds So Heavy That ’Rochester’ Comes Near Missing Own Premiere.” The Pittsburgh Courier. May 4, 1940. 28 Marshall and Jean Stearns. Jazz Dance – The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York, NY: Da Capo Press, 1994, s. 322. 29 ”It’s Official Now – Pick Erskine Hawkins.” The Chicago Defender. August 16, 1947. ”Dancing Champions Pick Hawk’s Band.” The Afro-7American . August 16, 1947.

30 Monaghan 2005, p. 49. 31 Miller and Jensen 1996, pp. 44-49. Manning and Millman 2007, p. 77. Heinilä 2015, p. 123. ”Oriental Fantasy Makes Hot Cha at Apollo Theatre.” The New York Age. October 6, 1934. 32 Miller and Jensen 1996, pp. 109-110. Manning and Millman 2007, p. 66. 33 Heinilä 2015, p. 123. 34 Miller and Jensen 1996, p. 110. 35 Ibid., p. 110. 36 Monaghan 2005, s. 41. 37 Monaghan 2005b, p. 157. 38 Dance-Drunk Harlem’, ”PIC”, Picpix, Inc., New York, New York, April 5, 1938. Heinilä 2015, p. 126. Although he was not mentioned by name, Cailloux can easily be recognized from the pictures of the magazine. His picture is in ”120 Employees Maintain Model Ballroom.” Ebony. October 1, 1946.”. Both the Ebony article and Frankie Manning confirm that he was a doorman at the Savoy. See: Millman and Manning 2007, p. 72. 39 ’Part III – Four Hundred Club – in Savoy’, folder 230, box 20, Papers on Afro-American social dance circa 1869-1987, Mura Dehn, 1902-1987, Dance Division. The New York Public Library. See also: Mura Dehn. ”Jazz Dance,” in Sounds and Fury Magazine, June 1966. Reprinted in Gus Giordano. Anthology of American Jazz Dance. Evanston, Illinois: Orion Publishing House, 1978. 40 mischalke04. ”Stompin’ at the Savoy.” Berlin Beatet Bestes. August 28, 2012. Retrieved March 8, 2021 from https://mischalke04.wordpress.com/tag/four-hundred-club/ . Although the cover of the magazine says only ”DEC[ember]” without a year, it is likely from 1940, as it is mentioned in the article that includes photocopies of pages from the magazine, because the magazine was published only between May and December in 1940. See: ”Part Seven Periodicals – A. North America and Britain.” in Roman Iwaschkin. Popular Music – A Reference Guide. Routledge Library Editions: Popular Music, 2016. 41 Hubbard and Monaghan 2009, p. 136. 42 Monaghan 2005, pp. 50 and 71. Heinilä 2015, s. 123. Stearns 1994, p. 322. 43 Heinilä 2015, pp. 129-130. 44 Ibid., s. 133. 45 Hubbard and Monaghan 2009, p. 139. Heinilä 2018, p. 12. The 400 Club still was in action every Tuesday in 1946. See: ”Lindy Hop Was Born at Savoy.” Ebony. October 1, 1946. 46 George Sullivan interview in Myron Steves. ”DVD – George Sullivan – Savoy 80th Anniversary.”, undated. The DVD is likely from 2006 when there was the Savoy 80th Anniversary in New York. See: Manny Fernandez. ”Where Feet Flew And the Lindy Hopped.” The New York Times. March 12, 2006.

Sources

Archive Sources

Papers on Afro-American social dance circa 1869–1987, Mura Dehn, 1902–1987, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, New York Public Library, New York, United States of America.

Newspapers & Magazines

Afro-American, The, , Maryland, 1947, 1949, 1953. Chicago Defender, The, Chicago, Illinois, 1947, 1958. Ebony, Chicago, Illinois, 1946. Inter-State Tattler, New York, New York, 1928. Newsday, Long Island, New York, 1964. New York Age, The, New York, New York, 1926, 1934. New York Amsterdam News, The, New York, New York, 1926, 1939. New York Herald Tribune, New York, New York, 1943, 1954. New York Times, The, New York, New York, 1942, 1964, 2006. Pittsburgh Courier, The, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1940. Variety, Los Angeles, California, 1926, 1927, 1929, 1940, 1964. Washington Post, The, Washington D. C., 1939.

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Audio & Video

Rufus Jones For President, The Vitaphone Corporation/Warner Bros. Pictures, 1933.

Literature

Cunard, Nancy, Collected and Edited by, – Edited and abridged, with an introduction by Hugh Ford. Negro – An Anthology. New York, NY: Fredrick Ungar Publishing Co., 1984. ”Dance-Drunk Harlem.” ”PIC”, Picpix, Inc., New York, New York, April 5, 1938. Giordano, Gus. Anthology of American Jazz Dance. Evanston, Illinois: Orion Publishing House, 1978. Gold, Russell. ”Guilty of Syncopation, Joy, and Animation: The Closing of Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom.” in Studies in Dance History v.5, no.1, Spring 1994. Haskell, Arnold L.. Balletomania – The Story of an Obsession. London, Great Britain: Victor Gollancz LTD, 1947. Heinilä, Harri. An Endeavor by Harlem Dancers to Achieve Equality – The Recognition of the Harlem- Based African-American Jazz Dance Between 1921 and 1943. Helsinki, Finland: Unigrafia, 2015. Heinilä, Harri. ”The End of Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom – Observations and Explanations for Reasons.” Open Science Framework Preprints, 2018, https://osf.io/7w945/ . Hubbard, Karen and Terry Monaghan. ”Negotiating Compromise on a Burnished Wood Floor,” in edited by Julie Malnig, Ballroom Boogie, Shimmy, Sham, Shake – A Social and Popular Dance Reader. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2009. Iwaschkin, Roman. Popular Music – A Reference Guide. Routledge Library Editions: Popular Music, 2016. Manning, Frankie and Cynthia R. Millman, Frankie Manning – Ambassador of Lindy Hop. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2007. Miller, Norma and Evette Jensen, Swingin at The Savoy – The Memoir of A Jazz Dancer. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1996. mischalke04. ”Stompin’ at the Savoy.” Berlin Beatet Bestes. August 28, 2012. Retrieved March 8, 2021 from https://mischalke04.wordpress.com/tag/four-hundred-club/ . Monaghan, Terry, ” ”Stompin At the Savoy”: Remembering, Researching and Re-enacting the Lindy Hop’s relationship to Harlem’s Savoy Ballroom” in Terry Monaghan and Eileen Feeney. Dancing at the Crossroads: African Diasporic Dances in Britain: Conference Proceedings. London: London Metropolitan University, Sir John Cass Dept. of Art, Media, and Design, 2002. Monaghan’s thesis was updated in 2005. That is why I will use for his thesis the year 2005 instead of the year 2002. Monaghan, Terry. ”Remembering ”Shorty”.” The Dancing Times. July 2004. Monaghan, Terry. ”The Chicago and Harlem Savoy Ballrooms – Different Cultures – Different fortunes.” in Society of Dance History Scholars Proceedings (Twenty-Eight Annual Conference Northwestern University – Evanston, Illinois 9-12 June 2005). Society of Dance History Scholars, 2005 (2005b) Stearns, Marshall and Jean Stearns. Jazz Dance – The Story of American Vernacular Dance. New York, NY: Da Capo Press, 1994. The Savoy Story. Unknown publisher, 1951.

Interviews

Myron Steves. ”DVD – George Sullivan – Savoy 80th Anniversary.”, undated.

9 A correction on August 9, 2021: Herbert White asked Norma Miller to join his Savoy Ballroom-based dance group somewhere at the end of September and the beginning of October 1934. Norma Miller and her partner, Sonny Ashby, won the Apollo Theatre contest probably at the end of September. They performed for one week at the Apollo at the beginning of October 1934 after winning the contest. See endnote 31 and the text before it.

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