The Blackshirt Parade: Emos, Flappers and The Daily Mail

On Saturday at least 200 people demonstrated outside the offices of the Daily Mail in London against its coverage of 'emo' - after a young My Chemical Romance fan committed suicide the paper ran a story headlined 'Why no child is safe from the sinister cult of emo’ (photo by Abbi London - more reports and reflections at Thrash Hits).

There's been some incredibly patronising coverage but I think it's great. The Daily Hate needs to be called to account more often for its ludicrous 'reportage', and hopefully these mostly young MCR fans will be inoculated for life against its daily tirades against migrants, gypsies and other affronts to the enraged Middle England Right Wing.

Flappers

'Emos' are far from the first group of young people to be targeted by The Daily Mail. Way back in the 1920s there was "an obsession with the moral and physical deterioration of British men and women" with the Daily Mail worrying about civilisation being destroyed by women not breeding enough thanks to short hair and lesbianism. Young women enjoying themselves dancing and partying – so-called ‘Flappers’ – were particularly criticised. There were "hysterical attacks in the Daily Mail and Daily Express on the irresponsible behaviour of the 'Flappers', those selfish and irresponsible young women who were alleged to be pursuing an energetic social life and sexual emancipation. In the process, the pundits claimed, they ceased to be real women in both the psychological and even the physical sense. Referring darkly to women 'with short hair, skirts no longer than kilts, narrow hips, insignificant breasts' the Express warned: 'this change to a more neutral type can only be accomplished at the expense or the integrity of her sexual organs'".

When it was proposed to allow women to vote at the same age as men, The Daily Mail waged a vigorous campaign against it, arguing that women would be more likely to vote Labour: "In a bizarre campaign the Mail carried daily headlines that screamed: 'Men Outnumbered Everywhere'; its editorials exploited Conservative fears by suggesting 'Why Socialists Want Votes for Flappers" and they urged 'Stop the Flapper Vote Folly'".

Fascists

In its recent tirade against emo, the Daily Mail described it as a 'trans-Atlantic import' whose 'followers dress in black, favouring tight jeans, T-shirts, studded belts and sneakers or skater shoes. Hair is all-important: often dyed black and straightened, it is worn in a long fringe brushed to one side of the face'. In the 1930s though the Daily Mail was quite keen on people dressed in black clothes - as long as they were members of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists. It's quite well known that the Daily Mail once had an article headlined 'Hurrah for the Blackshirts', but this was not just a one-off throwaway comment:

"This pattern of support for the BUF in the Conservative journals culmin­ated on 5 January 1934 when the Daily Mail published its notorious head­line: 'Hurrah For The Blackshirts!', thus inaugurating six months in which it promoted the movement. There was nothing anomalous about this initiative. Lord Rothermere had been heaping praise on fascist dictatorship throughout the 1920s…. Rothermere controlled a large slice of the press including the Daily Mail, Sunday Dispatch and Evening News, as well as several dozen provincial newspapers. He lauded the BUF as a modernising, virile, British movement, above party politics and above all as 'the Party of Youth'. 'The Blackshirt Movement', enthused the Mail, 'is the organised effort of the younger generation to break the stranglehold which senile politicians have so long maintained on our affairs.' There followed a systematic campaign of promotion in which the Sunday Dispatch turned itself into a house journal for the BUF. Not content with regular features on 'What the Blackshirts Are Doing' and biographies of the leading personnel, it endeavoured to engage its readers' involvement in the movement. In April 1934 the news­paper offered free tickets to major rallies including the one at Olympia in June 1934 and £1 weekly prizes for readers' letters on 'Why I Like the Blackshirts'. Winning entrants wrote: 'The Blackshirts place King and Country before personal motive. Up to the present, no party has done much good for the community', and 'I like the Blackshirts because they stand for Empire Unity, the re-establishment of British prestige and the reawakening in the British public of pride in the nation' The Sunday Dispatch also carried frequent reports on female fascists along the lines of 'Girl Blackshirt Attacked' and 'Beauty Joins the Blackshirts', as well as pictures of women practising ju-jitsu, fencing and physical exercise."

So you see whether you like My Chemical Romance or not, you should certainly be on the side of their fans expressing their disgust at The Daily Mail.

All quotes from Martin Pugh, Hurrah for the Blackshirts - fascists and fascism in Britain between the wars (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005).

See also: News of the World 1967; Mexico Emo bashing

History of Gay Bars in New York City

History of Gay Bars in New York City is a remarkable blog that does just what is says. There is some great material - police raids, mafia connections, reflections on differences between Italian and Jewish gay cultures. Nothing's been posted since December last year, so hope this project hasn't ground to a halt.

In view of my earlier post on Holland Park in the 1930s, I was struck by a New York Times report of a February 1923 raid in Greenwich Village:

Village Raid Nets 4 Women and 9 Men: Detectives Thought They Had Five Females, but Misjudged One Person by Clothing

The police continue to pay special attention to Greenwich Village. Every tearoom and cabaret in the village was visited yesterday morning by Deputy Inspector Joseph A. Howard and Captain Edward J. Dempsey of the Charles Street Station, and a party of ten detectives. Detectives Joseph Massie and Dewey Hughes of the Special Service Squad were at the Black Parrot Tea Shoppe Hobo-Hemia, 46 Charles Street, to witness what they had been informed would be a “circus.” They arrested what they thought were five women and eight men. It developed later, however, that one of the “women” was a man, Harry Bernhammer, 21 years old, living at 36 Hackensack Avenue, West Hoboken, N.J. He is familiaryly known in the Village as “Ruby,” according to the police. The charge against him is disorderly conduct for giving what the police termed an indecent dance (NY Times 5 February 1923)

Everything is Now - Toni Morrison

We've discussed house rent parties in pre-WW2 Harlem here before. Toni Morrison's novel 'Jazz' is set in Harlem in the 1920s. First published in 1992 it is an imaginative reconstruction of Harlem life rather than a contemporary decsription. Nevertheless her depictions of parties ring true, not just for Harlem but for many other times and places:

Before the lights are turned out, and before the sandwiches and the spiked soda water disappear, the one managing the record player chooses fast music suitable for the brightly lit room, where obstructing furniture has been shoved against walls, pushed into the hallway, and bedrooms piled high with coats. Under the ceiling light pairs move like twins born with, if not for, the other, sharing a partner's pulse like a second jugular. They believe they know before the music does what their hands, their feet are to do, but that illusion is the music's secret drive: the control it tricks them into believing is theirs; the anticipation it anticipates. In between record changes, while the girls fan blouse necks to air damp collarbones or pat with anxious hands the damage moisture has done to their hair, the boys press folded handkerchiefs to their foreheads. Laugh­ter covers indiscreet glances of welcome and promise, and takes the edge off gestures of betrayal and abandon...

Two arms clasp her and she is able to rest her cheek on her own shoulder while her wrists cross behind his neck. It's good they don't need much space to dance in because there isn't any. The room is packed. Men groan their satisfaction; women hum anticipation. The music bends, falls to its knees to embrace them all, encourage them all to live a little, why don't you? since this is the it you've been looking for.

Her partner does not whisper in Dorcas' ear. His promises are already clear in the chin he presses into her hair, the fingertips that stay. She stretches up to encircle his neck. He bends to help her do it. They agree on everything above the waist and below: muscle, tendon, bone joint and marrow coop­erate. And if the dancers hesitate, have a moment of doubt, the music will solve and dissolve any question...

Anything that happens after this party breaks up is nothing. Everything is now. It's like war. Everyone is handsome, shining just thinking about other people's blood. As though the red wash Hying from veins not theirs is facial makeup patented for its glow. Inspiriting. Glamorous. Afterward there will be some chatter and recapitulation of what went on; nothing though like the action itself and the beat that pumps the heart. In war or at a party everyone is wily, intriguing; goals are set and altered; alliances rearranged. Partners and rivals devastated; new pairings triumphant. The knockout possibilities knock Dorcas out because here- with grown-ups and as in war­ - people play for keeps.

Also of interest: A Spectacle in Color: The Lesbian and Gay Subculture of Jazz Age Harlem

Japanese Silk Workers Songs

In late 19th century and early 20th century Japan, thousands of young women workers were recruited from villlages to work in the cotton and silk mills. The work was hard with long hours and dangerous conditions, and even outside of work the companies controlled their workers' lives, keeping them in dormitories and controlling their movements.

'Many did not get out of their dorms until the end of the year when they were allowed to visit their homes for New Year's. In order to keep the girls confined, factories built tall fences around the compounds - much like those of a prison camp. In fact, factory girls used to sing:

Working in a factory is like working in a prison
The only difference is the absence of iron chains'

In 1927, silk workers went on strike in Okaya. They 'marched through the town of Okaya singing labor songs, one of which went:

Harsher than prison life is life in the dormitory
The factory is like hell
The foreman is the devil,
and the spinning wheel is a wheel on fire

I wish I had wings to fly away to the other shore,
I want to go home, over the mountain pass,
to my sisters and parents.'

Source: Mikiso Hane, Peasant, Rebels and Outcastes: the Underside of Modern Japan (New York: Pantheon, 1982, p.185-196.

Steppenwolf

Herman Hesse's novel Steppenwolf, first published in 1928, is an outsider novel whose protagonist, disgusted by German militarism and bourgeois complacency, retreats into self-loathing and isolation like a lone wolf of the Steppes. That is until a series of encounters lead him into a world of bisexual flirtation, sex, drugs, jazz, dancing, 'Anarchist Evening Entertainment' and ultimately a fantasy Magic Theatre where he must come to terms with the illusion of the self.

The book has had an influence on music- its title gave a name to the rock band who recorded 'Born to be Wild', while one of its phrases, 'For Madmen Only', was used by proto-goth band UK Decay for the name of their first album.

For me though the most interesting aspect is its description of dancing. I used to wonder if that euphoric sense of dance as festival was a product of late 20th century electronic music and MDMA, but Hesse describes similar sensations in the 192os in his imagined Fancy Dress Ball where they danced the foxtrot to unamplified sound. Check this out:

'Every part of the great building was given over to the festivities. There was dancing in every room and in the basement as well. Corridors and stairs were filled to overflowing with masks and dancing and music and laughter and tumult… the whole building, reverberating everywhere with the sound of dancing, and the whole intoxicated crowd of masks, became by degrees a wild dream of paradise… the intoxica­tion of a general festivity, the mysterious merging of the personality in the mass, the mystic union of joy... I myself swam in this deep and childlike happiness of a fairy­ tale. I myself breathed the sweet intoxication of a com­mon dream and of music and rhythm and wine and carnal lust…I was myself no longer. My personality was dissolved in the intoxica­tion of the festivity like salt in water. I danced with this woman or that, but it was not only the one I had in my arms and whose hair brushed my face that belonged to me. All the other women who were dancing in the same room and the same dance and to the same music, and whose radiant faces floated past me like fantastic flowers, belonged to me, and I to them. All of us had a part in one another. And the men too. I was with them also. They, too, were no strangers to me. Their smile was mine, and mine their wooing and their's mine.

I had lost the sense of time, and I don't know how many hours or moments the intoxication of happiness lasted…There were no thoughts left. I was lost in the maze and whirl of the dance. Scents and tones and sighs and words stirred me. I was greeted and kindled by strange eyes, encircled by strange faces, borne hither and thither in time to the music as though by a wave... And now a feeling that it was morning fell upon us all. We saw the ashen light behind the curtains. It warned us of pleasure’s approaching end and gave us symptoms of the weariness to come. Blindly, with bursts of laughter, we flung ourselves desperately into the dance once more, into the music, and the light began to flood the room. Our feet moved in time to the music as though we were possessed, every couple touching, and once more we felt the great wave of bliss break over us'.

1920's London Nightclub

This is an extract from the 1929 silent movie, Piccadilly, featuring a dance sequence with two of the film's stars, Gilda Gray and Cyril Ritchard. The nightclub used in the film was The Cafe de Paris, still going today despite a bomb landing on the dance floor in 1941 and killing 80 people.

Australian Jazz Panic

From the archive - this is an article I wrote for Alien Underground 0.1, Spring 1995, a zine edited by Christoph Fringeli (Praxis Records) which promised 'techno theory for juvenile delinquents'.

The powers restricting "raves" in the Criminal Justice Act are not the first authoritarian response to a dance-based culture. The association of popular dancing with sex, intoxication, and black people has made it an object of moralist suspicion at various times in history. It was the jazz dance craze which swept across much of the west that was the source of both pleasure and panic in the 1920s, as Jill Matthews told a meeting of London History Workshop (an informal group of radical historians) in November [1994].

In Australia (where Jill comes from) the dance craze began around 1911 and really took off in 1917 with the arrival of the new "hot jazz" sound from New Orleans. Within a few years, dance halls holding up to 2000 people had opened in most Australian towns, with dances being held almost every afternoon and evening. Dance styles with names like the Whirligig, the Bunny Hug, the Turkey Trot and the famous Charleston (1926) rapidly succeeded each other in popularity, each lasting for a year or two before passing out of fashion. While these steps were highly formalised by today's standards, the emphasis was more on rhythm than on the more difficult to perform steps that existed before 1910, and this was part of their mass appeal.

Soon the dancefloors became a battlefield as the moralist backlash gathered momentum. Dance was condemned as sensual, barbaric and pagan by churches, with the Methodists leading the way in banning mixed dancing on their premises. Doctors got in on the act, with some claiming that doing the Charleston could cause death. There was a strong racist element, with black US jazz musicians being banned from the country in 1928 as part of the government's White Australia policy (supported by the Australian Musicians' Union).

Meanwhile professional dance associations sought legiti­macy by trying to distance themselves from the undisci­plined dancing masses. Their aim was to reimpose the boundary between the artist and the audience by insisting that dancing should be the preserve of properly trained experts. Such dance entrepreneurs reached a compromise with the anti-dance moralists on the basis of licensing respectable dances properly controlled by professionals. By the 1930s a range of local and national licensing laws and restrictions on building use had succeeded in regulat­ing and taming the dance craze.

The discussion after Jill's talk included parallels with the CJB and other situations. Somebody said that in France in the 1840s, particular types of dancing were banned and the police had the power to come on to the dance floor and arrest people (usually working class youths) for dancing in inappropriate ways. Not even Michael Howard has thought of that one yet...

Jill Matthews went on to write Dance Hall and Picture Palace (2005), a book about popular culture in Sydney from the 1890s to 1930s. I haven't seen a copy of this yet, but it sounds very interesting. Michael Howard, the Conservative Home Secretary behind the anti-rave Criminal Justice Act 1994 went on to oblivion.

Rent Parties

"House rent parties were a facet of Harlem life even before the Depression. An outgrowth of parlor socials and church suppers held to raise funds for church needs, house rent parties aimed at helping dwellers of Harlem's railroad flats meet rents that skyrocketed monthly. Neighbors brought all kinds of food—fried chicken, baked ham, pig's feet, pork chops, gumbo, potato salad, and more—to which a supply of bootleg liquor was added. An admission was charged, and the piano players supplied the entertainment. "James P. Johnson, Willie "The Lion" Smith and Fats Waller became great favorites," Ellington recalled. "For ten bucks a shot, they somehow made appearances at three or four different rent parties on a good Saturday night," which did not end until sometime on Sunday.

It has been suggested that the house rent party grew in popularity as a reaction of blacks to their exclusion from Harlem clubs like the Cotton, Connie's Inn, Smalls' Paradise, etc. There was dancing—the bump, grind, monkey hunch. The pianist, assisted at times by a drummer who muffled his traps by covering the head with a blanket, sought to approximate orchestral effects, which, perhaps, helps explain the character of stride piano".

Source: The Jazz Age: Popular Music in the 1920s – Arnold Shaw (Oxford University Press, 1987)

"Although house-rent parties once flourished in the black neighborhoods of Chicago, Detroit, Washington D.C., and other cities, they have become most closely associated with Harlem. During the 1920s and 1930s (and even into the 1940s), such parties formed the backbone of Harlem nightlife, and became for many working people not only an enjoyable and affordable way to dance and socialize but also an economic necessity. For the reasonable admission price of between ten cents and a dollar, plus the cost of liquor and food, guests could dance, drink, flirt, and gamble, while the hosts collected enough money to pay the landlord for another month.

The house-rent party evolved out of traditions that were several generations old by the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance. Since the late nineteenth century, African-American families in the rural south had enjoyed Saturday night barbecues and fish fries, complete with music and dancing, at events called "frolics" or "breakdowns." By the turn of the twentieth century, African-Americans in southern cities were throwing dance parties expressly to raise money. Dozens of couples would cram into tiny apartments, and the sometimes painful results of dancing in such confined spaces led to the term "shin-digs" to describe these events, though they were also referred to as "stomps," "boogies," "breakdowns," "skiffles," "scuffles," "struggles," "shake-me-downs," "chitterling rags," and "struts."

To prepare for a rent party, hosts would clear all furniture (except for the piano) from the front rooms of the apartment, take up the rugs, replace regular lightbulbs with more sensuous colored ones, and sometimes rent folding chairs from a local undertaker. Some hosts would even hire "home defense officers" (HDOs), to bounce unwelcome guests and squelch incipient brawls. The highlight of any rent party was the music, often provided by a single piano player, a series of pianists, or even a three-or four-piece musical ensemble. Well-known pianists such as "Fats" Waller, James P. Johnson, and Willie "the Lion" Smith regularly made the rounds at rent parties, where musicians competed in "cutting contests" to determine who was the most talented. Bootleg liquor, usually homemade corn whiskey (called "King Kong") or bathtub gin, was sold by the pint or in quarter-pint portions called "shorties." For an additional price, guests could purchase southern-style meals that usually included some combination of hoppin' John, fried chicken, fried fish, chitterlings, mulatto rice (rice and tomatoes), gumbo, chili, collard greens, potato salad, and sweet potato pone. The party would often last until dawn, or until someone summoned the Black Maria (the police patrol wagon) to break it up.

In order to attract a large number of paying guests, hosts advertised their parties using "rent party tickets." Often, they enlisted the help of the "Wayside Printer," a middle-aged white man who walked the streets of Harlem with his portable press. For a modest fee, he stamped the party information onto tickets about the size of a business card. Interestingly, these tickets always identified rent parties using such terms as "Social Party," "Social Whist Party," "Parlor Social," or "Matinee Party." Other, less elevated terms included "Too Terrible Party," "Boogie," and "Tea Cup Party." Tickets often incorporated popular slang phrases, lyrics from current songs, or bits of poetry. One ticket from 1927 implored: "Save your tears for a rainy day, / We are giving a party where you can play / With red-hot mammas and too bad She-bas / Who wear their dresses above their knees / And mess around with whom they please." Another reasoned: "You Don't Get Nothing for Being an Angel Child, So You Might As Well Get Real Busy and Real Wild."

Hosts would distribute these tickets to friends, neighbors, and even strangers on the street corner. Sometimes, hosts targeted a specific population, such as Pullman porters, interstate truck drivers, or black tourists. Other hosts simply tucked the tickets into elevator grilles or apartment windows. Drumming up a good crowd was important, for competition was fierce; as many as twelve parties in a single block and five in an apartment building, simultaneously, were not uncommon in Harlem during the 1920s. Although rent parties raged every night of the week, the most popular evening was Saturday, since most day laborers were paid on Saturday and few had to work on Sunday. The next favorite party night was Thursday, when most sleep-in domestic workers were off-duty".

Source: Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance

Moonlight dances not allowed

Regulations posted in the dance halls of Lansing, Michigan, c. 1920:

Rules and Regulations for Public Dance Halls

1. No shadow or spotlight dances allowed.
2. Moonlight dances not allowed where a single light is used to illuminate the Hall. Lights may be shaded to give Hall dimmed illuminated effect.
3. All unnecessary shoulder or body movement or grotesque dances positively prohibited.
4. Pivot reverse and running on the floor prohibited.
5. All unnecessary hesitation, rocking from one foot to the other and see-sawing back and forth of the dancers will be prohibited.
6. No loud talking, undue familiarity or suggestive remarks unbecoming any lady or gentleman will be tolerated.

POSITION OF DANCERS

1. Right hand of gentleman must not be placed below the waist nor over the shoulder nor around the lady's neck, nor lady's left arm around gentleman's neck. Lady's right hand and gentleman's left hand clasped and extended at least six inches from the body, and must not be folded and lay across the chest of dancers.
2. Heads of dancers must not touch.

MUSIC

No beating of drum to produce Jazz effect will be allowed.

Any and all persons violating any of these rules will be subject to expulsion from the hall, also arrest for disorderly conduct.

By Order of CHIEF OF POLICE

Source: Vice: an anthology – ed. Rupert Davenport-Hines (Hamish Hamilton, London)