sartorialadventure:newberryprinting:Popular in the 18th and 19th century, dance cards were used by w
sartorialadventure:newberryprinting:Popular in the 18th and 19th century, dance cards were used by women to record the names of their dance partners. It appears these cards were also used for a question-and-answer game requiring prospective dancers to answer a riddle before being granted a dance.Newberry call number: Wing Ephemera File, Des Arts Studios (The riddle game thing wasn’t typical of dance cards.)The cards would tell you what kinds of dances would be played and when, and sometimes gave the names of the musical pieces that would be played.^As you can see, this one tells you when supper is served and when the ball ends. You can see from the different handwriting that the gentlemen wrote their own names on the lady’s dance card.Usually ladies kept dance cards, but here’s one from 1892 that was used by a man–which would have been handy, because it might be hard to remember whom you had promised to dance with!(^source) Apparently he wanted to spend a lot of time with MIS! (The archive that keeps this card doesn’t seem to think that this might be a woman’s card from a women-only affair, such as a dance at a women’s college, where women would have had only women on their cards. But I digress.)Sometimes the dance cards were printed in creative shapes, like this one, which is made to look like a fan:Dance cards were given out to attendees when they arrived, and as you can see, they came with a little attached pencil and hung on a loop of string so you could wear it on your wrist and not lose it while dancing. Because NO POCKETS. -- source link