Back in 1945, past-president Clarice Dechant collected data about the people who made up the dance community by distributing a survey at a festival in San Francisco in October. It was not unusual for 500 or more dancers to attend one of the monthly dance events in the San Francisco Bay area, so it is notable that about 25% of the surveys were returned. Clarice presented the results of her survey in the January 1946 issue of Let’s Dance! If you want to read her entire report, it was reprinted in the November 2024 issue of Let’s Dance!.
In brief:
- 27% married women, 20% married men, 3% divorced
- 26% single women, 21% single men
- Average age: women – 22, men – 34
- Occupations (more than one): clerk, engineer, educator, chemist, secretary, carpenter, accountant.
- 91% of women and 84% of men were native-born (26 states). 50% had native-born parents.
- 41% owned their home.
- 71% of men and 50% of women danced more than once a week.
- 70% of men and 62% of women attended festival once a month.
- 14% had danced for less than one year. 11% had danced for more than five years.
- Most said “word of mouth” got them started, followed by public demonstrations and festivals.
- 95% reported dancing “for the joy of it.”
- After dancing, outdoor activities ranked second, followed by music appreciation.
The Federation Board thought it would be an interesting project to survey the current dancing population and see what we look like now. We are well aware we are much older, but we don’t really know much beyond that. There is no record of the survey questions themselves, but we extrapolated them from the results. [There was a question about family income which has been dropped].