Sean Curiosity MAXIMUM!!!
So what to do???
Google/Wikipedia it of course!
And this is what I found out!
Taxi dancer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A taxi dancer, or taxi for short (the word has been used since circa 1927), is a paid dance partner in a partner dance. For official purposes in the US, their occupation was referred to as "dancer", when they worked in taxi-dance halls that had all the necessary business permits. But there were some professional secretaries who did moonlighting, or who worked part-time legally as a "dancer". Taxi dancers are hired to dance with their customers on a dance-by-dance basis. The term "taxi dancer" comes from the fact that, as with a taxi-cab driver, the dancer's pay is proportional to the time he or she spends dancing with the customer.
Contents
1 History
2 Taxi dancers today
3 References in Contemporary Culture
4 See also
5 References
History
During the 1920s and '30s when taxi dancing enjoyed its peak popularity, patrons in a taxi dance hall would typically buy dance tickets for ten cents each, giving rise to the term "dime-a-dance girl". When a patron presented a ticket to a taxi dancer, she would dance with him for the length of a single song. The taxi dancers would earn a commission on every dance ticket that they collected from their dance partners. Typically half the price of the ticket went to pay for the orchestra, dance hall, and operating expenses, while the other half would go to the taxi dancer. The "ticket-a-dance" system was the centerpiece of the taxi-dance halls where the taxi dancers worked. During the 1920s, taxi dancers, while only working a handful of hours an evening, frequently made two to three times the salary of a woman who might work in a factory or a store.[1]
Descriptions of taxi dancers and taxi dancing were documented as early as 1913 within San Francisco's Barbary Coast neighborhood. At that time in San Francisco, the ticket-a-dance system was used in what were called closed dance halls, because female customers were not allowed: the only women permitted in these halls were the dancing female employees.[2]
In the 1920s taxi dancing reached national popularity. At that time in Chicago and in other large cities of the United States, dance academies began to adopt the ticket-a-dance system for their students. This system was so popular at dance academies, that taxi dancing quickly spread to an increasing number of non-instructional taxi-dance halls. By the mid 1920s, scores of taxi-dance halls had opened in Chicago and other cities, as the taxi-dance hall became the most popular place for urban dancing. Some films and novels of that era occasionally chronicled the life of taxi dancers. In 1927, Joan Crawford starred in the film The Taxi Dancer. Near that time actor Ed Wynn starred in the Ziegfeld Broadway musical Simple Simon, which popularized the song "Ten Cents A Dance".
Taxi-dance halls flourished in America during the 1920s and 30s. But after World War II the popularity of taxi dancing began to diminish, and most of the taxi-dance halls disappeared by the 1960s.[3]
SEAN - curiosity satisfied...for now!! LOL!
