Harriet Hoctor collection
Published: 1917
Language: eng
Number of pages: 1700
Subjects: Photographs; Correspondence; Women dancers; Dance schools; Dance; Vaudeville; Dance music; Musical theater; Costume design; Choreography; Dance in motion pictures, television; Archives
Description: Contains materials that document Harriet Hoctor's professional life as a vaudeville, Broadway, and film dancer. It also contains items related to her early dance training at the Louis H. Chalif Normal School of Dancing in New York and to the Harriet Hoctor Ballet School in Boston, which she founded in 1945. Materials include correspondence from various notables, including Mary Pickford, Ted Shawn, Walter Winchell, Billy Rose, Milton Berle, and Florenz Ziegfeld; a scrapbook; clippings; contracts; photographs; programs; posters; reviews; publicity materials reflecting various periods of her performing career; choreographic notes; music; personal papers; and costume designs.
Notes: Open to research.

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Harriet Hoctor Collection, Music Division, Library of Congress.

Certain restrictions to use or copying of materials may apply.

Gift; Harriet H. Groeschel; 2000.

Harriet Hoctor (b. Sept. 25, 1905 in Hoosick Falls, New York; d. June 9, 1977 in Arlington, Virginia) was a dancer on Broadway and in films during the 1920s, 1930s and early 1940s. She began dance lessons at the age of twelve with Louis H. Chalif. She also studied with Ivan Tarasov, Anton Dolan, Merriel Abbott and Nicholas Legat. At seventeen, she started performing in vaudeville with the Keith/Orpheum Circuit. A year later the Duncan Sisters hired her to dance in "Topsy and Eva." In 1926, Hoctor began a life-long dance partnership with William Holbrook. She also became a featured dancer in Florenz Ziegfeld musicals. Hoctor danced in the films The Great Ziegfeld (1936) and Shall we dance (1937). She opened her own ballet school in Boston in 1945. In 1974, she retired and moved to Lorton, Virginia.

Finding aid available in the Library of Congress Performing Arts Reading Room and at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/eadmus.mu010013