Dance Floor Democracy

Sherrie Tucker is Professor of American Studies at the University of Kansas. She is the author of Swing Shift: "All-Girl" Bands of the 1940s and coeditor of Big Ears: Listening for Gender in Jazz Studies, both also published by Duke University Press.

Acknowledgments vii Prologue. Dance Floor Democracy? xiii Introduction. Writing on a Crowded Dance Floor 1 Part I. On Location: Situating the Hollywood Canteen (and Swing Culture as National Memory) in Wartime Los Angeles 1. Wrestling Hollywood to the Map 25 2. Cruising the Cahuenga Pass(t) 51 3. Operating from the Curbstone 76 Part II. Patriotic Jitterbugs: Tracing the Footsteps of the Soldier-Hostess Dyad 4. Dyad Democracy 107 5. Injured Parties 146 6. Torquing Back 179 Part III. Women in Uniforms, Men in Aprons: Dancing outside the Soldier-Hostess Dyad 7. The Dyad from Without 199 8. The View from the Mezzanine 212 9. Men Serving Men 226 Part IV. Swing Between the Nation and the State 10. (Un)American Patrol: Following the State on the Dance Floor of the Nation 243 11. The Making(s) of National Memory: Hollywood Canteen (the Movie) 281 Notes 321 Bibliography 351 Index 365