Can someone explain the meaning of "prom" as used in "Run With the Horsemen"?

[OpalCat]

I recently finished reading the book Run With the Horsemen which takes place in rural Georgia in the…um…'30s? Anyway, when the character gets to high school, he goes to the prom. But it isn’t like what we think of as a prom (i.e. a big formal dance) it’s some sort of weird thing where you have a card and sign up different dates for 10 minute intervals doing…??? god knows what. Seems to be that they walked ("prom"enaded???) around the town square or something?? Anyway, it was weird and I didn’t really understand.

I found it hard to relate to about, oh, 98% of the book as it is, but that part just threw me completely because I didn’t know what the hell they were talking about. Can someone enlighten me?

[friedo]

Was it a dance card, perhaps?

[OpalCat]

I don’t think so, because I didn’t get the impression that dancing was involved at all. It seemed that most people took each “prom” off in their car for a drive to get a soda, or for a walk around the town or something. I don’t think there was any dancing at the event at all.

[Cunctator]

Perhaps it was the equivalent of a dance card, but instead of reserving partners for each dance, you reserved partners for a ten minute stroll or promenade around the town square, indulging in polite conversation, seeing and being seen.

[OpalCat]

I’m not so much looking for the purpose of the card–which is pretty self-explanatory–but rather a description of the actual EVENT as told by someone who actually knows.

[Walloon]

It seems that author Ferrol Sams uses several related definitions of “prom” in the novel:

1. A social event held by high school or college students.

That spring he went to the Junior-Senior Prom. Theoretically, this was a farewell party for the senior class hoste as a gala by the junior class. . . . The next issue to be decided was where the prom would be held. There was no public meeting place in Brewtonton suitable for a party; so it was traditionally held in the home of some junior class member, with the understanding that the class would do the decorating and supply the refreshments.

2. An individual promenade (formal stroll or excursion) with a partner at such an event.

I tell you what let’s do. I’ll take Renda Belle with us for the third prom, and then me’n James Herman will have the fourth prom with both of you.

Each prom lasted ten minutes, and one did not really have to appear until intermission at the end of the fifth prom. . . . The chaperons rang a big dinner bell at the end of each prom to notify the young celebrants that the prom was over. The bell could be heard for a good half mile, and the boys who were walking the girls around the courthouse square in their evening finery had no excuse for not returning on time.

He claimed Gladys for the first prom, and they set off excitedly down the walk admist a crowd of chattering, animated couples. The boys without cars steered their partners toward town, since the only paved sidewalks were those around the courthouse and fronting the businesses around the square. The Braswell brothers, best-raised boys in town, were careful to walk on the outside of the sidewalk with their dates on the inside.

The boy felt uncomfortable. He squirmed a little. "Gosh, I’d like to have all ten proms with you, Gladys. You’re the prettiest girl here. But if a girl has more than one prom in a row with the same boy, everybody talks about her. They think she’s smooching.

Wes, the main character, seems to spend each of his proms by taking the girl to the drugstore for a soda.

[OpalCat]

Is that how proms used to be? I mean is that the way it started, or is that some strange rural Georgia interpretation?

[Walloon]

The earliest use of “prom” to mean a dance or ball came from the U.S. in 1899. Before that, a “promenade” was a formal stroll or ride (e.g., on horse, or in a carriage or boat).

[OpalCat]

Ok, so Ferrol Sams’ use of “Junior-Senior Prom” (and the word prom in general in this context) is fairly unusual even for the time period?

[Walloon]

OpalCat, I am not sure if you are saying the author’s use of the word “prom” was ahead of its time or behind its time. But Ferrol Sams was born in 1922, the novel is set in the 1930s, and it was published in 1982.

[OpalCat]

I’m not saying either. I’m saying his usage is atypical for any time. If it already meant a dance by the late 1800s, and the term for a formal walk was ‘promenade’ not ‘prom’ and all that, then it seems like he used it in a fairly unique way. Maybe it was a regional thing or maybe it was a Ferrol Sams thing…

[SkeptiJess]

Well, it doesn’t sound like any sort of a prom I’ve ever heard of. I read a book about the history of the high school prom a few years ago. This one. I read it from the library so I don’t have it here to check, but according to my recollection, the prom (which was named for ‘promenade’) has always been a dance. Proms did get their start in the late 1920s, early '30s, though, so at the time the book was set they would have been fairly new and the format not yet set in stone. My WAG would be that the ‘prom’ in the book was a local variant. But, as I said, that’s just a WAG.

[Walloon]

A.H. Quinn, Pennsylvania Stories (1899):

All you children can get tickets of me for the Senior Prom right now.

The New York Herald (1905):

The fair guests invited to the Junior Promenade, the great event of the college year.

Springfield Weekly Republican (1905):

The senior ‘prom’ of the central and technical high schools crowded the armory Friday night.

[OpalCat]

@Walloon

A.H. Quinn, Pennsylvania Stories (1899):The New York Herald (1905):Springfield Weekly Republican (1905):

Yes, but were those “proms” a bizarre event where people took 10-minute walks with different dates for the evening? Or were they, as we know them today, formal dances? THAT is the point/question I’m trying to figure out here. I have never heard, in my life, of a senior/junior/whatever “prom” that was anything other than a dance. Ferrol Sams’ book’s prom has no dancing. Just walking/driving around, or whatever. THAT seems like a strange use of the word “prom”, which is why I’m asking the question.

[delphica]

Okay, I know this isn’t very specific, but I’m wondering if it’s a religious thing. I haven’t read the book, and I don’t know if Ferrol Sams is a Baptist but he did go to a baptist college (Mercer U, which actually isn’t Baptist anymore, but whatever) and if he was raised in a primarily Baptist community, they very well might not have had dancing at school functions.

I haven’t come across anything about a school prom involving walking, but I have read accounts of turn of the century* proms being non-dancing affairs, such as banquets or award ceremonies, while still being called “proms.”

*the last one, that is, not the most recent one

[Walloon]

Baptist through and through:

In the uncompromising presence of death in this community, there was absolutely no doubt, even among the Methodists, that Jesus was Baptist to the bone.

And there is no mention of anyone holding a dance, or just dancing, in the town, although that would be a common social event at the time.

[OpalCat]

@delphica

I haven’t come across anything about a school prom involving walking, but I have read accounts of turn of the century* proms being non-dancing affairs, such as banquets or award ceremonies, while still being called “proms.”

Interesting. Have you heard of proms where you were expected to rotate dates like that? (it read to me like a sort of 1930’s version of speed dating!)