Dance Floor Democracy: The Social Geography of Memory at the Hollywood Canteen by Sherrie Tucker (review)

Operating from October 3, 1942, to November 22, 1945, the Hollywood Canteen was a unique enterprise within the greater national United Service Organizations (USO) structure during World War II (WWII). Conceived, built, and staffed by members of a multitude of Hollywood unions, the canteen provided Allied soldiers with an opportunity to be served by and occasionally dance and dine with A-list stars from the major film studios of the day. The canteen and its mystique were even the topic of a 1944 Warner Brothers movie. The enduring national memory of the Hollywood Canteen built around this film—perpetuated by our collective WWII-era nostalgia—is the investigative focus of Sherrie Tucker’s Dance Floor Democracy.

In response to a prospective narrator’s preinterview inquiry, Tucker states that her purpose behind this work is to “understand all the political viewpoints that brought people to the Hollywood Canteen, so I can better understand the struggles that took place over different definitions of democracy” (274). These definitions concern comparative relationships across class, race, and gender. To this end, Tucker attempts to locate the canteen in the greater sociopolitical environment of mid-1940s Southern California, then highlight first-person accounts of a variety of individuals who worked at or visited the canteen. For instance, the “democratic definition” in which she seems most interested has to do with whether or not the dance floor at the canteen was truly integrated, and many interviewees are asked, based on their experiences, to either confirm or refute this particular narrative.

Throughout the book, Tucker highlights first-person accounts of the canteen by introducing the reader to each narrator via a brief biography, then delving into specific stories or answers to questions. Concerning the use of oral history in the work, Tucker attempts to delineate oral history and interview separately, based on the amount of structure assigned to the questioning process. While understandable, this practice leads to some confusion as to the process as a whole and what became of the recordings and other materials she produced during her research. There is no mention of postinterview process in the volume, and my online searches for materials proved unfruitful. In the bibliography, only three of thirty-eight records cited are labelled as oral history; the remainder are listed simply as interview or conversation.

Dance Floor Democracy’s content is divided into four main parts. In part 1, Tucker spends a full third of the volume describing her task, the geography, and the political atmosphere into which the Hollywood Canteen was born. While important details such as the racial struggles of other South California USO operations and the influence of the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots permeate this section, an odd organizational methodology hinders the overall flow of information. Tucker often arranges her narrative around metaphors, such as physical travel paths taken to Hollywood or the “torque” jitterbugging dancers created. While this arrangement is thematically understandable, at times I felt as if I was lost on a crowded dance floor of information. In addition, various geographic placement litanies are sometimes hard to follow, and, unfortunately, the associated maps are practically devoid of contextual detail.

The shared memories from those who experienced the Hollywood Canteen are the highlight of Dance Floor Democracy, and collectively they constitute parts 2 and 3 of the book. These testimonies are organized around specific relationships found at the canteen. The first Tucker labels the “Soldier-Hostess Dyad,” which is often presented as the signature visual associated with the club: small-town soldier dancing with Hollywood starlet. For Tucker, this relationship is more interesting under the investigative filter of black-white relations. After reading the testimonies from both races on either end of the dyad, the answer to the question, was the dance floor integrated, seems to be yes, for the most part.

Interestingly enough, the best evidence in determining the truth here may not necessarily lie in any particular testimony...