Spreading the Gospel of the Modern Dance: Newspaper Dance Criticism in the United States, 1850-1934

In the fall of 1927, newspaper dance writing in the United States evolved from a haphazard and largely throw-away subspecies of music criticism (covered by music and drama critics and sometimes sports and society critics) into a specialized field of arts reporting and commentary. Lynne Conner investigates the watershed moment when New York City's three leading daily newspapers--the New York World, New York Herald Tribune, and the New York Times--all hired full-time dance writers. Her investigation reveals the rise of American concert dance, the solo and modern dance movements, and the emergence of corresponding critical discourse, ndance writing in American dailies.