Price: $450.00
Hardcover. Quarto. Green string tied commercially produced scrapbook of nightclub dancer Alda Retta Whitacre who performed as Janet Dale. Very good. A modest scrapbook kept by Whitacre chronicling her dancing career. She has apparently used it as a ledger, noting where she had performed, how much she was paid, and who she performed with (in one case with a talking dog). In a few instances, clippings from newspapers advertising her appearance are included. Laid into the scrapbooks are five different artist contracts engaging her services to perform at various Ohio nightclubs, five Western Union telegrams confirming her bookings to perform, a page clipped from another scrapbook with newspaper clips pasted on it advertising another dancing group, as well as a program from 1940 advertising the Jitterbug Jamboree featuring "Cook & Dale – Sensational Hollywood Dance Stylists." Also includes a few additional newspaper clippings and dance review programs. Alda Retta Whitacre (b.1920) grew up in Columbus, Ohio to working class parents. She used the stage name Janet Dale and was popular among the nightclubs in Columbus, Ohio and surrounding towns for her tap and character dancing. She was often a headliner in ads for the clubs. She maintained this small scrapbook to chronicle her early career, covering the months of June through August 1942.
Item #392343
