“What’s that tutti frutti [dance] stuff?” Mine Mill Local 598’s Cold War Cultural Tool

Abstract

This study focuses on Sudbury and the successful efforts by Mine Mill Local 598 to develop a community culture that valued inclusion, cultural education, and the political beliefs of its unionists. This paper specifically argues that Mine Mill’s leaders chose to fund a dance school as a tool to enable their children to develop cultural fluency, deliver a political message and celebrate their multicultural membership. The school would not have been able to realize these ends without hiring the right teacher for the job, and Mine Mill found her in the person of Nancy Lima Dent. The dance program that she fostered during her short stay in Sudbury (1955-1957), including the class curricula and content of her students’ recitals, attested to Mine Mill achieving its cultural objectives.