It is not the world's most sophisticated art form, but tap dancing is a big part of American history. Closely associated with jazz music, tappers use the sounds of their shoes hitting the floor as a form of percussion. According to one dancer, tap was "one of [America's] two really indigenous forms", with jazz the other. As late as the 1950s that statement certainly held true. Tappers like Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly and Ginger Rogers are icons of America's economic and military strength of the 1940s and 1950s. But tap also has a dark side: for many people, it has clear racist overtones. This complex history needs unpicking. However, studies of tap dancing are few and far between. It is a tall order to write about any sort of dance from before the 20th century; the historian must rely on drawings and eyewitnesses, rather than videos. Tap and its ancestors are particularly difficult to research. They have typically been the preserve of the poor and downtrodden, about whom there are fewer historical sources than for rich folk. A history of tap dancing is thus what E.P. Thompson, a Marxist historian, called a "history from below" at its most extreme.
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