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"Peg Leg" Bates: Monoped Master

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INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313/761-4700 800/521-0600 Order Number 1345758 Clayton “Peg Leg” Bates: Monoped master of the art of tap dance Vaughn, Carol Blair, M.A. The American University, 1991 Copyright ©1991 by Vaughn, Carol Blair. All rights reserved. UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Arbor, MI 48106 CLAYTON "PEG LEG" BATES: MONOPED MASTER OF THE ART OF TAP DANCE by Carol B. Vaughn Submitted to the Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences of The American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of the Degree of Master of Arts in Dance Signatures of Committee Chair o o an ofI the College illl Date 1990 The American University Washington, D.C. 20016 TEE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY (c) COPYRIGHT by CAROL B. VAUGHN 1991 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED To Kathryn Blair Vaughn and Louise Anne Fleischman TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT ............................................. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ..................................... iv Chapter 1. AFRICAN-AMERICAN ROOTS OF TAP DANCER CLAYTON BATES ................................. 1 2. FROM AMATEUR DANCER TO THE PROFESSIONAL STAGE . 20 3. BATES TOURS HIS WAY TO NEW YORK C I T Y .......... 36 4. BROADWAY AND BLACKBIRDS OF 1928 57 5. TELEVISION AND THE PEG LEG BATES RESORT .... 75 Appendix 1. TOTAL SLAVE IMPORTS INTO THE AMERICAS ....... 91 2. DRAFT LEGISLATION: NATIONAL TAP DANCE DAY . 92 3. LIST OF APPEARANCES ON THE "ED SULLIVAN SHOW" . 94 4. LIVE INTERVIEW WITH CLAYTON "PEG LEG" BATES . 95 BIBLIOGRAPHY ......................................... 129 i ABSTRACT CLAYTON "PEG LEG" BATES: MONOPED MASTER OF THE ART OF TAP DANCE Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates (born 1907) developed as one of tap dance's most important artists during the period 1920 through 1960. This paper will address the dual intertwined questions of the relationship between the socio-economic and cultural changes in the Black American community in New York and Washington, D.C. during that time, and the nature of Bates' creative pioneering as a disabled but brilliant tap dancer. Bates' life and the context of the development of his career have never before been documented in writing. His life illustrates the development of tap dance as one of America's few indigenous art forms, the development of the Black Broadway Vaudeville Circuit, the empowerment of the Black businessman, the creative potential of handicapped people everywhere, and the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. A critical analysis of the life and work of Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates is important as it documents new material related to the history of tap dance and the context of its development in the twentieth century. Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates is acknowledged as one of tap's most creative and heroic pioneers. He is considered a maverick of television dance, ah inspiration for handicapped artists of all disabilities, a dissolver of cultural barriers between races, a first-rate performer, and a model for Black business entrepreneurs. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Special thanks go to the Canadian Arts Fund for their support, to Nicola Daval and the Tap America Project for their help, to Dr. Naima Prevots for her patience and encouragement, and to Clayton Bates for sharing his life story. Thank you all. CHAPTER 1 AFRICAN-AMERICAN ROOTS OF TAP DANCER CLAYTON BATES Clayton "Peg Leg" Bates was a brilliant tap dancer whose career spanned the 1920s through the 1960s. His work on the Broadway stage, as well as on the television screen, earned him widespread critical acclaim as well as the outspoken admiration of his peers. And yet, this noted comedian and dancer "is probably the only man on the stage who has scaled the heights of fame and fortune with only one leg."* He was known as the "king of the one-legged 2 dancers" and has become a symbol for the triumph of the human spirit over adversity. The Encyclopedia Americana defines tap dance as "an indigenous American step dance form, usually in complex syncopated rhythms and executed audibly with the toes and 1 Cunard, Nancy, ed., NEGRO; An Anthology (New York: F. Ungar Publishing Co., 1970), 191. 2 Frank, Rusty E., TAPi The Greatest Tap Dance Stars and Their Stories. 1900-1955 (New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1990), 46. 1 3 heels of the feet m specially designed shoes." This definition goes on to point out that tap dance was born out of adversity, the first tap dancers probably having been African slaves who were brought to America against their will. These slaves danced to please their masters, to exercise their bodies, and to maintain a spiritual and 4 rhythmic tie to their heritage. Tap dance is the expression of a spirit which refuses to be enslaved and emerges stronger for its ordeals. Clayton "Peg Leg” Bates embodies that spirit. He represents the heretofore little documented contribution of the African-American to our cultural heritage, a contribution which was often made anonymously and almost always at great personal expense to the artist. To trace the development of Clayton Bates from handicapped sharecropper's son in Fountain Inn, South Carolina to the stages of Australia, France, Italy, Singapore, and Broadway, is to trace the development of tap dance from a little recognized folk art 3 Hering, Doris, "Tap Dance" (Danbury, CT: Grolier Inc., 1989), S.V. eds. Encyclopedia Americana. Vol. 26. 4 Ploski, Harry A. and James Williams, eds., The Negro Almanac: A Reference Work on the Afro-American (New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1983), 1115, Fourth edition. of immigrants to its recent Congressional acknowledgement as 5 "America's gift to dance." Clayton Bates (born 1907) is descended from slaves brought to South Carolina, probably in the late 1700s, to provide manpower for labor intensive crops such as tobacco 6 and rice. The majority of slaves bound for the American colonies arrived between 1741 and 1810, with slaves arriving 7 at the rate of over 5,000 per year between 1741 and 1760. It was during these decades in South Carolina that rice production increased substantially and the black population of South Carolina grew until it finally surpassed the white population. By 1739, South Carolina contained roughly 8 39,000 blacks and 20,000, or barely half as many whites. 5 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, H.J. Res. 131, "National Tap Dance Day," 1989. This bill was signed into law by President Bush on November 7, 1989 and designated May 25, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson's birthday, as National Tap Dance Day. See Appendix for complete text. 6 Johnson, Daniel M. and Rex R. Campbell, Black Migration in America. A Social Demographic History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1981), 11. 7 Thernstrom, Stephan, ed., Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1981), 6. 8 Low, W.A. and Virgil A. Clift, eds., Encyclopedia of Black America (New York: McGraw Hill Book Co., 19 ), 16. See Table 1. This was the year of the first federal census and blacks g nationwide numbered 757,000, 700,000 of whom were slaves. It is difficult to determine what part of Africa Bates' ancestors were from as evidence is scarce and most slavers did not keep accurate records. To further complicate the problem, European record-keepers were unperceptive about the subtler differences between Africans and often only notated their port of embarkation, not their tribe or country of origin. Statistically, it is most likely that Bates' people hailed from the West Coast of Africa, where natives were already cultivating rice along the riverbanks.^ West African slaves were prized by South Carolinians because they possessed skills and strengths which were ideally suited to work in the Carolina lowlands. Frank J. Klinberg, in The Negro in Colonial South Carolina, explains: West Africans, like Sicilians and others who have lived in malarious climates for centuries, had retained a high incidence of sickle-cell trait, a genetic characteristic the negative side effects of which were balanced by its positive contribution: the ability to inhibit malaria among humans constantly exposed to infectious mosquitoes, as was the case among the swam£j and marshes of the Carolina rice country. 9 Johnson and Campbell, 11. 10Low and Clift, 15. 11 Klingberg, Frank J., The Negro in Colonial South (Footnote Continued) Although we cannot be sure what port Bates' people departed from, it is very likely that they arrived and were quarantined briefly at Sullivan’s Island on the northeast end of the Charleston, South Carolina harbor, not far from Clayton Bates' birthplace of Fountain Inn.
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