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roughly four times per year.15 The guest list was highly selective of Boston's elite families. No divorced persons were allowed, and newcomers had to wait at least one year before being considered.16 A man with the peculiar name of Hooper Hooper ran these functions.17 Hooper was in charge of both the rigorous vetting of the guests and every possible detail of the event. New dances were only sanctioned for Boston Assemblies after Hooper had decided that they were not a fad.18 Men had to follow rigorous rules of etiquette, including shining their shoes between dances in the men's room and carrying a handkerchief that was placed between their hand and their partner's back.19 Lorenzo Papanti prepared his students fully for such events, and his students remembered him fondly: “we all who jumped and changed our feet, and chasséd under Mr. Papanti, owe him a debt of gratitude.”20
The clergymen of nineteenth-century Boston continued to oppose dancing as idleness at best and a “carnal activity” at worst.21 Their sermons and tracts against dances are well documented, yet these protests did not have any profound impact on Boston's wealthy citizens. Despite the controversy over balls and mixed-couple dancing, the activity was generally accepted by Bostonians and embraced as an important component of social interaction.
The widespread acceptance of professional dance, however, was much less certain. The Bostonians celebrated the talented European danseuse but did not see professional dance as a worthy career for their daughters. When Fanny Elssler danced for the first time in Boston on 7 September 1840, she was preceded by her reputation and caused the normally “staid citizens” to indulge “in various acts of enthusiasm…many actually walked before the Tremont House for hours, in hopes that the divinity would show herself at the window.”22 Elssler's extraordinary skill was widely celebrated, and she clearly captivated audiences in America, but institutions to rigorously train American dancers were mostly absent in Boston in the nineteenth century. The profession of dance was considered unacceptable for upper-class Bostonian girls.
In order to understand the challenges faced by Boston's early schools of expressive dance, it is important to revisit America's prejudices concerning