Satan in the Dance Hall: Rev. John Roach Straton, Social Dancing, and Morality in 1920s New York City [Paperback]

Describes a huge cultural phenomenon focusing on the debate about the morality of social dancing. Foreword Reviews, January 2009 This is a book of amazing revelations, leaving no doubt that jazz culture was more threatening than punk. Djhistory.Com, Fall 2009 An in-depth examination of the clash between morality and modernism in New York City in the 1920s. College and Research Libraries News, March 2009

Satan in the Dance Hall explores the overwhelming popularity of social dancing and its close relationship to America's rapidly changing society in the 1920s. The book focuses on the fiercely contested debate over the morality of social dancing in New York City, led by moral reformers and religious leaders like Rev. John Roach Straton. Fed by the firm belief that dancing was the leading cause of immorality in New York, Straton and his followers succeeded in enacting municipal regulations on social dancing and moral conduct within the more than 750 public dance halls in New York City. Ralph G. Giordano conveys an easy to read and full picture of life in the Jazz Age, incorporating important events and personalities such as the Flu Epidemic, the Scopes Monkey Trial, Prohibition, Flappers, Gangsters, Texas Guinan, and Charles Lindbergh, while simultaneously describing how social dancing was a hugely prominent cultural phenomenon, one closely intertwined with nearly every aspect of American society from the Great War to the Great Depression. With a bibliography, an index, and over 35 photos, Satan in the Dance Hall presents an interdisciplinary study of social dancing in New York City throughout the decade.

Ralph G. Giordano is the author of Social Dancing in America, Volume 1 (2006) and Volume 2 (2007).