Dancing in Paradise, Burning in Hell

Historian Trudy Irene Scee holds a master of arts in history from the University of Montana and a PhD in history from the University of Maine. Dr. Scee has taught history at Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Canada, at Husson University in Bangor, and has worked extensively for the University of Maine system. Her books on Maine history include City on the Penobscot and Tragedy in the North Woods. She lives in Brewer, Maine.

Preface

Introduction––America Meets the New Dancing Women, Recoils in Shock, and Yet Whispers “Come a Little Bit Closer”; The Hurdy Gurdy Girls, Burlesque Women, Little Egypts, and Taxi Dancers of the 1880s-1910s

Chapter One––The New Dancers Come to Maine; Disruption in the Dance Halls, Gold and Silver Purses for Prizes, and Scandal on the Stage, 1900-1923

Chapter Two––As Long as You Stay on Your Feet; The Vaudeville Queens, Taxi-Dancers, and the Early Contest and Endurance Dancers Earn Their Dimes and Dollars Dancing Along the Roadways and in the Dance Halls from Old Orchard Beach to Bangor, Maine, 1923-1932

Chapter Three––Dancing in Paradise, Burning in Hell; The Long-Term Endurance Indoor Dance Marathons of Maine, the Fatal Fire at the Paradise Dance Pavillion, and How What Happened in Maine Changed the Nation, 1930-1935

Chapter Four––The Search for More; Burlesque Masquerades as Vaudeville in Maine, as The Silver Screen Plays the Hootchie Coohcie in its Carnival and Bare Belly Beauties, 1934-1944

Chapter Five––The Dance Didn’t Go On, And They Really Weren’t Strippers; The Maine Shipyard Workers’ Riot of 1944, “The Girl Problem in Portland,” and other Social Transitions in Dance and Society, 1944-1954

Chapter Six––The Fight For the Fifties and Sixties; Ethnic Dancing (largely Greek and Turkish belly Dancing), Vaudeville, Burlesque, and the Lure of Cinema in the 1950s and 1960s

Chapter Seven––The Great Divergence and the United States Supreme Court; Strippers Come to Maine and Elsewhere, the Lines are Drawn, and the Other Dancers Struggle to Define Just Who They Are, 1960s-1970s

Chapter Eight––Little Egypt Grows Up, and Emerges as the Queen of The Coast; Ethnic and Belly Dancing in Maine, 1970-2000

Chapter Nine––The Same Old Moves with New Respectability, at Least in the Eyes of Many: Maine’s Transformed Belly Dancers, Taxi-Dancers, and Burlesque Performers of the Late 1990s and Early 2000s

Conclusion

Index