Florence Treadwell Boynton in Progressive Era Berkeley: Early Modern Dance and California’s Political Unconscious

Abstract

Florence Treadwell Boynton was a dancer, teacher, and bohemian health enthusiast who spent most of her life in Berkeley, California. A childhood friend and contemporary of Isadora Duncan, Boynton espoused a similar movement aesthetic. Yet, in spite of her lively contributions to the cultural life of the San Francisco Bay Area, she has remained largely a footnote in the extensive literature on Duncan. Revisionist histories often draw out the importance of figures omitted from the dance historical canon. This article goes beyond mere inclusion and rectification of the historical record to reframe both Duncan and Boynton as symbols of the political economic tensions specific to their Californian context in the early twentieth century.