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Skating at Montreal's Amateur Athletic Association 1909. Edith and Marion went often and met all their friends there. But, it appears, they only could go if they had male escorts. I wonder if this was MAAA policy, or just the 'proper' way for young city women to conduct themselves. Meeting men seemed a little more 'casual' in the country towns. Read Marion's 1907 diary to see how 'the rink' was the center of social activity in Sherbrooke, Quebec, a large rural town.
The MAAA is a proud Montreal institution.
The New Skating, it appears, was more than figure skating which at that time meant only cutting figures in the ice. It was a way to encourage 'dancing on ice' for couples. Of course, these days, figure skating means only the artistic part, with the school figures (figure eights) no longer a part of Olympic competition. (Too boring to watch on TV.) I really wonder, was courtship on ice being touted in the U.S. as a wholesome alternative to going to the 'new' motion picture shows where couples could, uh, grope in the dark?
Excerpt for The New Skating, Youth's Companion Magazine, November 1909.
"Skating includes speed skating and hockey, thoroughly commendable ice sports, skilful, lung-filling eye hand and leg training sports, absorbingly attractive to young America, who loves a game, loves competition, that can be tangibly and fairly measured, loves to 'get there' before somebody else. But you do not dance 'to get there' and dancing too has its attractions for some. Few girls can play hockey; all boys do not wish to; and no boy or girl can both play hockey and skate gracefully on the same flat hockey skates. Besides, exclusive or preponderant indulgence in hockey tends to dull the sense for good form and incapacitates graceful movements. Finally, many skating clubs do not allow for hockey playing at all."
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