A REAL DANCE HALL GIRL wrote it down...

Above- a real dance hall girl, as described by a real dance hall girl... **************************************************************************************** People my age grew up watching GUNSMOKE on television, and Miss Kitty was a household word. Hollywood did a great deal over many years to fabricate the myth of the western saloon girl, and Miss Kitty was the female icon of every wanna-be cowboy's eye. The idea of the female saloon owner/manager was created so as to include women in Hollywood scripts, but there were very few in real life. And Miss Kitty's big hair, sexy attire and solid, midwestern values were something of a contradiction. How was it, really?

Lottie Deno (ABOVE), Squirrel-tooth Alice, and a few others certainly ran their own saloons, but they were mostly remembered because of their unique roles in a “man's world.” And along with the myth of the female saloon manager, was the western saloon girl, bedecked in a colorful, Moulin Rouge costume, feather in her hair, swaggering among the men with legs exposed like Esther Williams about to dive into the pool...

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No less than Norman Rockwell, America's premier illustrator, joined in the perpetuation of the myth... This was a movie poster for a remake of STAGECOACH, starring Ann-Margaret. ****************************************************************************************** It might be impossible to set the record straight about this, a runaway train of merry misinformation, because western history buffs today are mostly male, and they love the vision of sexy saloon girls sitting around the poker tables, legs crossed, knees shining, swigging beer and swinging their feet like bait before a large-mouth bass. But we will try here to at least tell you how it really was... ******************************************************************************************* You don't have to like it... ;)

First of all, last of all, there is so little original, period material to work from, that Hollywood was able to drive its eighteen wheeler full of nonsense right into the west and park it in the space reserved for SALOON GIRLS. I have searched for years for articles, photographs, anything that might shed light on the saloon culture of the 1870's. There is almost nothing. I found the tintype above after a decade of watching tintypes for sale on ebay. Photographs of western saloons almost never show even one woman in them. Maybe a horse, or a dog, or even a stuffed bobcat, but never even a hint of Miss Kitty. A few photos made in Montana show what appear to be prostitutes in their moo-moos, and some from the mid-west show husband and wife owners standing proudly in their establishments... but still no leggy, feather-headed flirters. ***************************************************************************************** I have found some evidence of the true saloon girl, and some readers will be greatly disappointed. Some of my female readers might be pleased... because all evidence points to a much less lusty, much more conservative appearance for the western saloon girl. Ft. Worth or Dodge were a long way from Paris, where the popular, ribald saloon girl costumes made famous in Hollywood came from. And as the illustration for a French poster shows, even those girls had hems fairly low, back in the day.

Let's stop right here and address where I am going with this. Some female readers may be reading this, hoping to learn a little about the cute saloon outfit they are planning for a costume party. You can stop right now... this article is not for you. There is so little in common between the truth and the myth, and you are caught up in the myth; one contrived by men to objectify women, that there is no compromise. This article will disappoint you, and all the men looking forward to your... objectification. I am no prude, and love to look at sexy women too... but they have very little place here in Hidetown. Here is where we try to wade through all of the bull, and learn about the real American West. So sex-pots, you are free to go. Your history began in Europe, around WWI. **************************************************************************************** Here at Hidetown, among many other stereotypes of the American West, we try to delineate the subtle difference between saloon girls, bar maids, saloon entertainers (musicians), dance hall girls and prostitutes. In some cases, one woman might have served all of these purposes. In larger establishments in larger towns, women could specialize. But not all saloon girls could sing, or dance, or had great legs, or sold their bodies. Many of them had regular male companions and would not sell themselves to anyone. Saloon girls were hired to fraternize, flirt, and encourage beer and liquor sales. Some of them might be able to sing or play the piano... and so they might not have to schlep drinks... and could wear fancier outfits. I have learned to read these basic facts in antique images... and have collected some great old tintypes, which may illustrate these various roles played by women in the western saloon. One thing I have deducted is the massive influence German immigrants made on the saloon trade. It was German "hurdy-gurdy" girls who invaded the bars in the mid-century and brought European music and fashion to the Midwest. These ladies display a variety of styles, but mostly reflecting the various looks of those hurdy-gurdy girls, who became the standard for all dance hall girls afterwards.

So after a lifetime of Hollywood misinformation, prepare your mind to rewrite history as you know it. ***************************************************************************************** The first and main point is simple. Many western saloon girls looked and dressed like most other women, especially in the early years of the West. Take the average Victorian woman, perhaps add an apron, perhaps shorten her dress a little to allow freedom of movement, maybe let her put her hair up to get it out of the way, even have her wear a hair net, and maybe put on a little bling... and that's it. She might have a flower in her hair on a special occasion. She might wear a “low-cut” dress, exposing her collar bones, if she was sassy. She might even let her hair down to flow on her shoulders... if she was feeling really daring...

When I painted my murals at Washington on the Brazos, I learned that the Mexican flamenco dancer was the springboard for the Southwestern saloon girl legend. That concept spread from Texas and California throughout the West. So let's start there.

The pleated dress, about ankle high, the low-cut blouse, the hair held up and pinned by a tiara, and out of the way, a carnation behind her ear, this was the sex-symbol of the cantina. Many Victorian girls found this a bit too provocative, and dressed according to Mid-western standards... until sexier girls down the street took business away from their saloon... and so they responded with many variations of what they thought was acceptably sexy. We should note that Victorian girls had been donning low-cut dresses at their “coming out” parties, for decades... and Southern girls were already beautifully adorned with tear-drop ear-rings, gold chain necklaces, tiaras, and flowers in their hair as a matter of custom, by the 1860's. But with Hollywood's help, the standard saloon girl costume got more than a little bit out of hand... ***************************************************************************************** The real cultural barrier was the hem of the skirt. Even ankles were customarily hidden. Raising dress hems was a scandal. This is why it took forty years for dress hems to raise just six inches... and it should be noted that acceptable ladies fashion was usually leading the way to more liberal hemlines, not the saloon girls. Saloon girls had to wrangle with drunk cowboys and miners who needed no encouragement to manhandle them. If there was a place where a girl needed to “look” like a lady, it was a saloon, even if she was faking it. Unwelcome advances could get someone killed, because every pretty girl had a willing, and probably drunk avenger, who was probably packing some heat.

Lizzie Beaudrie, a real, honest to god saloon girl, who actually wrote one of the rare, first-hand, detailed accounts of a western saloon girl, left us with a sincere, accurate picture of her culture. She had a typical experience, and like most saloon girls was ushered into the culture by a sorry man who saw her looks and brains as an asset to be exploited. She was not a prostitute... but she came close to that before she met a man who saved her from that life.

Lizzie, illustrated above and at the beginning of this article, was tough and game for what came, and took a job as a saloon girl to support her man, a gambler in one of the toughest places in the West- Cripple Creek, Colorado. It was the 1890's when Lizzie came on the scene. The western saloon was well established, and its culture in full swing. The various roles of women had been pioneered and were well understood. There was some crossover, but women, just like men could be “read” by their attire. Lizzie gave a very thorough description of her saloon attire... which was shared by all of the saloon girls in her place of employment... where only the colors might change. She started by shooting down the saloon girl myth...

“I have seen so many moving pictures and read so many stories about dance hall girls that I am going to tell you how they dressed. The pictures and stories I have read and seen had them dressed in low-neck, no sleeve, short dresses trimmed with spangles and tight fitting with lots of jewelry on and flowers in their hair...” **************************************************************************************** Lizzie does not make it obvious, but she is describing a look she knows to be THE MYTH... She continues by describing the first saloon girl she ever saw... and one she was soon to be working with ... **************************************************************************************** “She wore a velvet suit, a short pleated skirt up to her knees, a white silk blouse, with a sailor collar trimmed with narrow lace, long sleeves with turned back cuffs, and a little Eaton jacket to match her skirt. The shirt and jacket were trimmed with gold braid. The suit was black. She wore black stockings and spring heel patent leather slippers. Her hair was cut short and curled all over her head.” **************************************************************************************** This was the uniform more or less. Very conservative compared to today's standards, in one of the most wild and woolly towns in the mine-fields of Colorado. Other girls might wear the same kind of outfit, only in different colors. And then there were a few with “Short lawn dresses with a drop yoke, and little ruffles on the bottom of the skirt.”

Then Lizzie takes direct issue with the Hollywood myth: “... Not a girl there wore a tight-fitting dress or very much jewelry, and the girls all looked clean.” ****************************************************************************************** If I am not mistaken, Lizzie wanted say that her chosen profession had, at least, a wholesome exterior. The girls who sold beer and liquor carried “a purse under their outside skirt,” where they put money and charge tickets. In the saloon where Lizzie worked, there was an adjacent dance hall, so she was serving drinks and dancing when requested. Dance Hall girls all across the west were often just economically disadvantaged girls who took advantage of an easy job where a girl was paid just to dance with a lonely cowboy. Dance Halls were a social traditon all across America... and there was no insurmountable stigma to overcome if a young woman of her class took such employment...

Saloons tried to be a one-stop-shop... where a miner or a cowboy could get drunk, meet a girl, even dance with her, and if she was also a prostitute, get ultimate satisfaction, all in one place. Where prostitutes were acknowledged, there were rooms available for them to serve their customers. In many towns, where the sex trade was outlawed, they had to take their clients elsewhere. These were sometimes nearby cabins, called “cribs.” This was the sad, sordid, unhealthy career some women found themselves in, which was usually a trail of heartbreak, drug addiction, and early death. These women, often poor and despondent, usually dressed in flowing smocks, with few undergarments... they would use the local dance halls to pick up customers. The numbers of "johns" they reportedly serviced in one night would astound anybody...

Lizzie soon learned who did or did not participate in this lucrative sideline. There was a bizarre network of sexual relationships... and this was all over the West, where the most powerful men usually had an interest in some way with the saloon/dance hall, and "their women" were often employed in them. Some were just dance hall girls, others bar maids or saloon girls, some were prostitutes. If a woman had a man, someone she “belonged” to, Lizzie soon learned they were extremely jealous and even deadly when that bond was threatened. Once she had to fight for her life against an enraged, knife-wielding saloon girl, who assumed her man-friend's attentions were intentionally solicited by Lizzie, who had not learned yet to avoid eye-contact with certain men. Many a gambler like Doc Holliday traveled with a particular woman, who often worked as a prostitute while the male gambled. And when he lost their money, the girls always had some to finance the next town... Holliday, the Earp brothers, many gamblers had this kind of understanding with their paramours... They provided protection, some status, and bail money if necessary, and probably casual pimping, until the town had been sufficiently milked, one way or the other. **************************************************************************************** Often the girls were abandoned and left to fend for themselves in a hostile environment where the mirth soon evolved into morphine addiction. Lizzie Beaudrie was no exception. But she got out of it before her life was totally ruined, and even had the pluck to write her story. It has never been made into a movie... her tale just did not fit the Hollywood narrative, where women were usually mindless sex-objects, looking for a good, rich man in a frontier hell-hole, and things hardly ever working out for them. Well, at least that last part was true for many a poor girl.

Here are some of my girls... saloon girls I believe... who would earnestly love to tell you their stories too... and probably make you cry...