Doris Eaton Travis: An oral history of her life in theatre, film and dance.

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to document through an oral history the life of Doris Eaton Travis from the beginning of her career in entertainment as a child actor in the Poli Theatre Stock Company in Washington, D.C. and later in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1918, 1919 and 1920 to the end of her professional career with the Arthur Murray Dance Studios in 1968. This study chronicles not only her work on Broadway with the Ziegfeld Follies, but her transitional work in silent and early sound films, her contributions to trends in social dance via the Arthur Murray Dance Studios, and her development and implementation of a televised instructional program on social dance.

Based on research for this paper, the author recommended the following for further study: similar historical research should be conducted with living individuals from this era regarding their views of theater and dance history further studies that concentrate on the role of women in theater and dance in the early part of this century should be undertaken, a thorough investigation of occupations available to women in the first part of this century is warranted, and one major archive dedicated to the Women of the Ziegfeld Follies or Women or American Popular Culture and Theater should be established where materials from the personal collections of performers from this period can be catalogued for future research.

This study was based on interviews with Dons Eaton Travis. Through these interviews, Doris provided an oral narrative of her career from 1918 to 1968. Data were collected through: structured, semi-structured and non-structured interviews with Doris Eaton Travis, review of pertinent documents, such as newspaper articles, production playbills, music manuscripts, letters, and other professional memorabilia that Doris has collected, interviews with other members of Doris Eaton Travis' family completed prior to this study, observation of the subject directly recorded on film and video media.