A pathbreaking social history that takes seriously the experiences of the countless everyday people who pursued recreational ballet, Ballet Class: An American History explores the growth of this now quintessential extracurricular activity as it became an integral part of American childhood across borders of gender, class, race, and sexuality.

Polly Go Lightly practices her ballet positions and dreams of dancing on the big stage.

The reissue of a classic first storybook to celebrate Helen Oxenbury's work. A little girl is taken to her first dance class. Her mum buys her some ballet shoes and a pair of baggy tights, and ties her hair into a bun. The girl bounces about with all the other girls and boys and just as things get exciting, her laces come undone and everyone falls down. A warm and funny depiction of a girl’s first experience of a dance class and her delight in galloping about with her classmates. Helen Oxenbury’s First Storybooks perfectly describe the small but memorable events of childhood. The words are a delight and are perfect for reading aloud, while the pictures offer warm, affectionate visions of a child’s world, which parents and children will instantly recognize and love.

"Tomko blazes a new trail in dance scholarship by interconnecting U.S. History and dance studies. . . . the first to argue successfully that middle-class U.S. women promoted a new dance practice to manage industrial changes, crowded urban living, massive immigration, and interchange and repositioning among different classes." —Choice From salons to dance halls to settlement houses, new dance practices at the turn of the century became a vehicle for expressing cultural issues and negotiating matters of gender. By examining master narratives of modern dance history, this provocative and insightful book demonstrates the cultural agency of Progressive-era dance practices.

It's a special day. The children practice their ballet. But something is odd. Let's count down from 10 to 1 to find the surprise before the class is done.

Edgar Degas (18341917) is best known for his luminous studies of dancers. Illustrated with drawings, pastels, paintings, prints and sculpture, as well as photographs taken by the artist and his contemporaries, and samples of film from the period, this text follows the development of Degas's ballet imagery.