As their only resort to money during the Great Depression, many people signed up for dance marathons during the 1930’s. These marathons lasted weeks or months, yet allowed many to the necessities that they needed at the time like food and shelter. Dance marathons started in 1923 when one dance instructor named Alma Cummings, outdanced 6 couples for 27 hours straight. From there the craze began, the objective to keep dancing and be the last ones standing.
Yet sleep deprivation was the negative result that came from these marathons while at the same time they were being shown to the public for entertainment. Contestants were pushed to their limits by having to keep dancing, barley or not receiving any breaks in between. Although the marathons were not always like this, in the beginning, actual dance moves were judged on and awarded for the best ones until the depression made it into who would withhold exhaustion. The dancers would exaggerate, have their train-wreck moments and do anything in order to win. Some of these traits are similar to what goes on in reality tv now which is what attracted many to come and see them. The spectators were more interested in what was going to happen physically to the dancers, like how long till they would collapse rather than cheering them on.
Many couples used a variety of items and remedies to keep themselves up, some extreme ones were smelling salts and applying ice packs on their backs. Yet while the length of the shows grew, the effects of sleep deprivation got worst. Some of the dancers would begin to hallucinate, picking up imaginary flowers from the dance floor to even leaving the building from imaginary attackers chasing them. Their bodies would also react as quick as their minds, many couples getting irritated easily and turning on one another. In the end, the chaos of these marathons ended when people would realize how bad the marathons were and would not even think about signing up again, also a boom of local business started and residents were needed at the time.
I think the information you provided above is very interesting. I find this topic really intriguing that despite the Great Depression, people still found entertainment and ways to keep each other happy. That in this decade, some of the most unique included gold fish swallowing, flag pole sitting events, kissing marathons and soap box derby races. In addition, it was during this time many of the still popular games was created. Those including the monopoly, Disney starting Micky Mouse club in theaters in 1930s, miniature golf, electronic operated pinball machines and college football.
ReplyDeleteI found it was really interesting to see that people would dance for long amounts of time just to try winning the prize money at the end. It did not surprise me to see that people would dance for that long since people would go to the extreme to earn money durring the Great Depression. I think that there could and would be some kinds of dangers when attempting to win the competition that would take a long time. Even if they were given time off to rest there would still be a lot of problems that the people doing the dancing competition would face like sleep deprevation that would affect them a lot.
ReplyDelete