taxi dancer

See also: taxi-dancer

English

Alternative forms

• taxi-dancer

Etymology

Refers to the fact that a taxi dancer is paid per dance, and thus proportionately to the time spent with a client, similarly to a taxi driver.

Noun

taxi dancer (plural taxi dancers)

1. (US) A woman who works as a professional dance partner in a dancehall that charges customers a price per dance.
   • 1946, George Johnston, Skyscrapers in the Mist, page 88:

     They apparently remain taxi-dancers for only about a year or two[.]

   • 1990, Clinton Sanders, Marginal Conventions: Popular Culture, Mass Media, and Social Deviance‎^[1], page 45:

     Historically taxi-dancers were considered immoral women by the reformers of the nineteen-teens and twenties both because they participated with strangers in an activity generally reserved for established couples and because some engaged in various forms of prostitution.

   • 1991, Joanne J. Meyerowitz, Women Adrift: Independent Wage Earners in Chicago, 1880-1930‎^[2], page 107:

     Like waitresses, taxi dancers, women who danced with male customers for a small fee, created a cooperative atmosphere with each other both in the closed dance halls in which they worked and outside of the workplace.

   • 2007, Graham Russell Hodges, Taxi!: A Social History of the New York City Cabdriver‎^[3], page 40:

     At times, taxi dancers were observed arriving at the club in the front seat of the cab, which suggested a relationship with the hack man.

Related terms

• taxi dance, taxi-dance
• taxi dancing
• taxi dance hall, taxi-dance hall