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Ten Real Photo Postcards "Le Cake Walk" Excellent set of Ten (10) Real Photo Postcards Featuring Bla

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Cultures & Ethnicities Start Price:1.00 USD Estimated At:300.00 - 400.00 USD
Ten Real Photo Postcards  Le Cake Walk  Excellent set of Ten (10) Real Photo Postcards Featuring Bla
<B>Excellent set of Ten (10) Real Photo Postcards Featuring Black Performers doing "Le Cake Walk".</B></I> By the 1890s, the "Cake Walk" was the most popular dance in the United Sates and created a similar sensation in Europe. The exact origin of the dance is in some dispute, but it appears to have been performed in 1889. The first cake walk contest was held in a New York ballroom in 1892. The dance likely had its roots in "The Chalk Line Walk", popular on plantations in the 1850s. Many of the special movements of the cake walk, such as bending the back of the body and the dropping of the hands at wrists, were also a distant feature in certain tribes of the African Kaffir dances. The dance evolved into an exaggerated parody of white, upper-class ballroom figures. Dancers would imitate the mannerisms of those in the master's house with over-dignified walking, bowing low, waving canes, doffing hats, and high kicking in a grand promenade. Some plantation owners would hold dance contests on Sundays, offering a cake as a grand prize, giving rise to the expression "This one takes the cake." The postcards, published in Paris (one bearing the credit "Walery, Paris"), feature several different performers including "The Florida Créols Girls" and "Nouveau Cirque". Cards measure 3.5" x 5.5".