Booth's Escape Route

[BettyO]

Quote:Were the women employed at such establishments still considered "respectable", or did they rank somewhere near the prostitutes?
What kind of dances were held during the Civil War anyway? I've heard that Baptists didn't dance, but this completely contradicts some of the more "Gone With the Wind" impressions I must have concerning grand balls in giant plantations.

Women who went on stage were usually associated with the "nether regions" of the social scale, unfortunately - usually seen as little better than prostitutes. One reason supposedly, that Edwin Booth did NOT want his wife Mary Devlin to continue on stage after he married her.

Dances varied during the war period, with waltzes and polkas popular. Line dances such as schottishes were popular as was the Virginia Reel, based on the Roger de'Coverly dance from early Britain.

What you see in Gone with the Wind is pure "Moonlight and Magnolia" fictional myth for the most part....