From Supper Clubs to Striptease: How Nightlife Evolved One Gin-Soaked Floor Show at a Time

It’s 1944. The world is at war, but inside a dimly lit American nightclub, cultural critic Gilbert Seldes is nursing a drink and a nagging question:

“What the hell am I doing here?”

That very same question haunted Seldes as he sat beneath dim lights and cheap sequins in the war-weary clubs of 1944—and he had some ideas.

In his essay “The Evolution of the Night Club,” published in Esquire during the back half of World War II, Seldes offers a no-nonsense tour through the lineage of the American night club—how it sprang from upper-crust supper culture, flirted with French cabaret, tangoed with Prohibition, and eventually got a little too cozy with low-budget floor shows and burlesque’s bare-legged shadow.

Where It All Began: Delmonico’s and Decorum

Seldes suggests it all started, oddly enough, in places like Delmonico’s—those plush after-theater dinner spots where the well-heeled lingered over oysters and opinions. It was here, in the gilded quiet before jazz and gin, that the ritual of “nightlife” began to simmer.

Then came whispers of Maxim’s, the Café de Paris, and stories of European men dining with actresses in scandalous proximity. American audiences took the idea and gave it a cleaned-up, self-conscious twist. As Seldes writes, the U.S. version tried to split the difference between public spectacle and private indulgence.

But then…

Enter: The Castles, the Jazz Age, and the Women Who Wanted In

The next chapter in the club’s evolution was pure velocity.

Vernon and Irene Castle—social dance pioneers—waltzed in with new rhythms and elegance. Jazz crashed the gates. And perhaps most importantly, women started insisting that they deserved a seat at the table after dark.

Suddenly, there was a growing hunger for places where people could eat, drink, dance, and shake off the starch of early 20th-century manners. Seldes nails it when he says:

“Jazz had a solvent action on many habits and inhibitions.”

Nightclubs became the house that jazz built—and jazz didn’t ask your permission.

Gin, Glue, and Glitter: The Prohibition Years

As the 1920s raged and the Volstead Act tried (and failed) to put a cork in the fun, the nightclub dug in deeper. Seldes, dry as ever, gives credit where it’s due:

“Prohibition gin helped make noise and smell and low-grade fun in a thousand clubs tolerable.”

The club became a composite creature: part speakeasy, part dance hall, part comedy pit. And always—ALWAYS—a space thick with smoke, bad acoustics, and the chance you might stumble onto a performance so strange or raw it would haunt you for years.

The Grind Creeps In

By 1944, the nightclub had become something more complicated. Big bands were playing concert halls and movie theaters. Club owners, stripped of war-time resources and talent, leaned harder on floor shows. The good ones (Jane Froman, Hazel Scott, Jimmy Savo) made it feel like you were witnessing something rare.

But most clubs?

“Eight big young women who ‘pass jokes’ with the comedian are dressed to represent potted palms, but naked somehow…”

Seldes isn’t just poking fun—he’s pointing to something real. The grind of burlesque was drifting into the mainstream. Audiences weren’t going to Minsky’s anymore… but the Minsky aesthetic was showing up at their local nightspot, minus the clever patter or political punch.

The result? Clubs full of half-hearted striptease, faded Follies leftovers, and gag lines that hadn’t been funny since the Coolidge administration.

Wit, Taste, and the Case for Something Better

Despite the shade he throws, Seldes isn’t calling for a return to Victorian restraint. He just wants audiences to get more than what the average club was offering: loud music, half-drunk crooners, recycled comedy, and ambient disappointment.

He knew the club could be something else. He’d seen it. When the timing was right, the light hit just so, and the act on stage had that rare mix of presence and polish—it felt electric. That fragile, after-midnight magic.

It’s the reason we still go out, hoping to catch a spark.

What It Means for Burlesque

For anyone digging into burlesque history, Seldes’ 1944 dispatch is a critical breadcrumb. It captures the moment where nightclub entertainment began absorbing the grit and glamour of burlesque, even as traditional burlesque was being regulated, raided, and sanitized.

If you want to trace how America learned to love striptease while pretending not to—it’s all here, dressed in rumba jackets and hiding behind a dinner menu.

And that lingering question Seldes asked? It’s the same one that pulses under every blue spotlight, behind every stage curtain, every girl who dares to step into the spotlight:

What the hell are we doing here?

We’re chasing the moment, the mood, the spark. The wild thing that once made it worth staying up too late with strangers in a room full of martinis and sound—hoping to find a piece of ourselves in the glow.