{"id":7056,"date":"2016-03-24T10:01:41","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T15:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/maxwellhalsted.publish.uic.edu\/?page_id=7056"},"modified":"2017-11-25T15:18:03","modified_gmt":"2017-11-25T21:18:03","slug":"promiscuous-amusements","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/maxwellhalsted.uic.edu\/home\/girls-mothers-children-everywhere\/promiscuous-amusements\/","title":{"rendered":"HOKEY-POKEY MAN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Appearing in the 1880s, the itinerant Hokey-Pokey man with his simple pushcart and ringing bell with a sign on the side \u201cHokey Pokey\u201d selling cheap ices and ice cream on city streets was a favorite with the children. Sweltering temperatures with high humidity in Chicago\u2019s tenement districts during long hot summers\u00a0were brutal. \u00a0Absent were the forms of relief and escape to the countryside and suburban lake shores available to the more privileged middle classes. Captured in photograph and illustration, the presence of the Hokey-Pokey man was a moment of instant pleasure. For a penny the peddler would lay a mound of shaved ice on a piece of paper, and pour one\u2019s choice of flavored syrups on the snowball.<\/p>\n

Middle-class reformers, nevertheless, were less than enthusiastic about the street trades and the public health threat inherent in badly prepared or stored street foods. Rates of communicable diseases, sickness and mortality, they presumed, were higher in the West-side \u201cslum\u201d than elsewhere in the city. The Hokey-Pokey man dispensing good humor to children congregating on crowded city streets was unregulated and unsupervised. Bad milk dealers needed to be put out of business. One study concluded that deadly bacteria\u2013\u201cstreptoccocus lanceolatus\u201d–which killed a guinea pig in short order also thrived in cheap ice cream contaminated by diseased cows, dirty handling and filthy receptacles.<\/p>\n

Despite the negative publicity, the low comedy Hokey-Pokey street character persisted in playing a joyous role as an enduring fixture within inner-city neighborhoods. The origin of the name was vulgar slang, presumably a convoluted form of \u201chocus-pocus\u201d or \u201chokum\u201d–the deception and cheatery associated with cheap products hawked on slum streets. Contrary to the bleakness and darkness publicized by reformers who stepped outside their domestic shelters, the pleasure West-side children expressed dancing around the Hokey-Pokey man was irrepressible and infectious.<\/p>\n

With suggestive origins in early modern deviltry, dancing the Hokey Pokey accompanied by folk lyrics grew in popularity and became a favorite in the U.S. by the 1940s. Even as the original Hokey-Pokey man himself was forgotten, shall we dance?\u00a0 Are you in or out? \u00a0That\u2019s what it’s all about! \u00a0 bjb<\/p>\n

\u201cYou put your right hand in,
\nYou put your right hand out,
\nYou put your right hand in,
\nAnd you shake it all about.<\/p>\n

You do the hokey pokey
\nand your turn yourself around
\nThat\u2019s what it\u2019s all about.\u201d<\/p>\n

2) left hand
\n3) right foot
\n4) left foot
\n5) head
\n6) butt
\n7) whole self<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

PHOTO GALLERY<\/strong><\/h3>\n