University of Wisconsin-Madison President Edward Birge did not want the university to be known as a dancing school.
But after physical education instructor Margaret H’Doubler began teaching dance classes in 1918, that’s the direction things were headed. Hundreds of students signed up each semester, and H’Doubler and her students were being invited to colleges and universities across the country to share their methods.
Birge took away H’Doubler’s travel privileges, to no avail.
“It was too late. Other institutions were inviting H’Doubler all the time, and if she couldn’t come to them, they would come to her,” said Andrea Harris, professor of dance history and Buff Brennan faculty fellow in dance at UW-Madison. “The interest outweighed any pushback that there was at that time.”