Dance crazy: swinging to the music in wartime Chicago

During World War II, Chicago’s ballrooms, hotels, and other dance venues, buzzed with activity. In those uncertain times Americans celebrated life with dance. Providing a glimpse into this lost era of Chicago history are letters addressed to a local teenager, written by smitten soldiers whom she swung with to big band music.

Dancing in wartime Chicago

Just one year after the US entered World War II, a local newspaper called ‘1942 a banner year for Chicago night clubs’.¹ Chicago and its environs experienced a massive increase in the presence of military personnel. Work was also plentiful for a Depression weary civilian populace, which put spending money in peoples’ pockets. Both factors contributed to an an explosion in the region’s entertainment industry in a matter of months.

Former dance combo leader and researcher Charles A. Sengstock Jr. stated that ‘music and entertainment activity in the downtown [Chicago] area was never brisker than during the World War II years’.² He in fact called this period the Last Hurrah for American dance bands, before they went out of style in the 1950s.

Ballrooms all over the city experienced high levels of attendance. Places like the Trianon and Aragon, sister establishments, operated seven days a week.

The Trianon was located on Chicago’s South Side and with its 29,580 square-foot dance floor, could accommodate up to 3,000 dancers. Its North Side counterpart was the Aragon and although it had a smaller dance floor in comparison, at 21,036 square-feet, there was enough space for up to 2,000 dancers.

Within the Downtown area, however, patrons found hotels more plentiful than ballrooms. Crowds of dancers flocked to big name hotels like the Lasalle, Sherman, and Stevens. Smaller establishments saw a great increase in activity as well. For instance, there was the Midland Hotel at 172 W. Adams St.³

The Midland had regular Sunday afternoon dances by July 1945. They were organized by Bigger and Better Representation (B.B.R.), a private Polish-American social organization. Members of the B.B.R. were young ladies who paid for the privilege, in annual dues and event tickets, of dancing with servicemen. In mid 1945 the organization was approximately 1,000 persons strong.⁴

One possible member of the B.B.R. was Rosalie Ochol.

The child of Polish immigrants, Rosalie was born and raised on the southwest side of Chicago. She graduated from Kelly High School in 1943. Her teenage years coincided with the height of the war and unsurprisingly, being full of vigor and vitality, she enjoyed partaking in the nightlife that a wartime Chicago provided.⁵

Dance partners from afar and abroad

Rosalie loved to dance. She frequented venues all over the city, on the southside, northside, westside, and Downtown. Countless military members danced with her but only a few stayed in touch. What is noticeable in the soldiers’ letters to Rosalie is that the men came from unique backgrounds, distinct from one another. The wartime dances in Chicago brought people together from different walks of life and even cultures, all in the name of fun.

One soldier was Sal Marino, an Italian-American from New York City. He was a private in the 417th Infantry Regiment of the 76th Infantry Division. His unit underwent winter training at Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, beginning in late 1943, and shipped out for Europe in November 1944.

Sal met Rosalie one weekend while on furlough. The closest town to Camp McCoy was Sparta and not having much in terms of entertainment, it was a small farming community of a few thousand inhabitants, Sal and his friends traveled to Chicago by train. This journey today takes at least five hours. Little did he know that he would meet a girl who made his life in the Army a little more bearable.

An excerpt from a letter to Rosalie, from Sal, dated January 27, 1944:

Well Rosalie about that leap year dance Feb. 3, I won't be able to make it as a matter of fact I don't think anybody in the 76th div. will because we are all going out on a problem out in the field, and I know I won't be able to get a weekend pass until after Feb. 10, you know the way this army is it's tough and we have to make the best of it. 

Sal’s story of journeying to Chicago from afar was not uncommon for military personnel on furlough. Another man Rosalie met was Edward Gronkowski, a B-17 crewmember stationed at Gowen Field, Idaho.

Edward wrote Rosalie that after their time together, ‘I managed to get a seat all the way to the base, but it sure was a tiresome trip’. The allure of Chicago was enough to attract visiting soldiers stationed on the other side of the country.

Despite the tiresome trip to and from Chicago, Edward thought it was well worth the effort. A photo of him and Rosalie at the Midland Hotel made fellow soldiers envious. His time with a fellow Polish-American dance partner was memorable to say the least. Dances at Gowen Field lacked enough lady partners for soldiers and were rather dull, an opinion that Edward shared with Rosalie in a letter of 10 June, 1944:

Dear Rosalie, 

Received your letter a few days ago, but was too busy to answer sooner. I'm still feeling fine and working harder than ever. It's been raining here and kinda cold lately. I'll be waiting for the pictures. Yes, I guess the dances aren't very good since the shortage of men. Bring the dances and girls out here and I guarantee you'll have plenty of men.  Over here [illegible] we have a dance, we have plenty of fellows but not enough girls. Yes, I had to work on Memorial day, it was just like any other day. Yes, we get the latest pictures here even before the civilians have a chance to see it. I seen "Up in Arms" and it was very good. I thought the photo was very good and will send it back in this letter. Tomorrow is my birthday and I'll be 24 years old. That's all for now, will write again.

As Ever, Ed. 

Not all military personnel passing through Chicago were American. Some served in other Allied armies, even coming from exotic lands half-way across the world. Such was the case with William Hughes of the New Zealand Royal Air Force. William was sent to Canada for advanced training on bomber aircraft and having some down time, along with two companions, embarked on a short tour of the American Midwest.

It was at the Aragon Ballroom that William and Rosalie met. Besides a mutual interest in dance, the pair was equally enthused in learning about one another’s culture. The conversation continued in their correspondence. As William’s letter of 28 September, 1944, illustrates, motion pictures shaped their cultural understanding to a large degree:

For your question, we are not very much like the "English" as you call them, and have none of their class and racial distinctions down our part of the world. Of course you must realize too that in England there are only relatively a small number of people who are not English by birth, + minorities anywhere always seem to be treated with suspicion, if not hostility. You in the states represent such a mixture of nationalities that the same position could not arise. 

I was surprised to hear an American say that Americans are not so mature, age for age. That is correct, + was perhaps the feature about American servicemen that struck New Zealanders most forcibly when your chaps started to arrive down under. I should not like to suggest a reason for it. No doubt there are a lot reasons, such as different way of life, different education, a much greater energy for pleasure and countless others.

1. Will Davidson, ‘Banner Year for Chicago Nightclubs’, Chicago Daily Tribune, 27 December, 1942, p.C4.
2. Charles A. Sengstock, Jr., That Toddlin’ Town: Chicago’s White Dance Bands and Orchestras, 1900-1950 (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004), p.172.
3. For a history of Chicago’s entertainment industry during the war, read Sengstock, Jr., That Toddlin’ Town.
4. Staff, ‘Girl hostesses see trickery in dance ‘center”, Chicago Daily Tribune, 20 July, 1945, p.21.
5. Rosalie’s membership in the B.B.R. is speculated based on a wartime letter addressed to her from a Polish-American airman. The airman mentioned having danced with Rosalie at the Midland Hotel, and its is likely that he was drawn to meet ladies from his own ethnic group at a Sunday dance hosted by the B.B.R.