"Bostonians are an elegantly athletic lot," began the story in the New York Times. "They prove it periodically by swirling, twirling and swooping about in graceful dance patterns until beads of perspiration materialize on their aristocratic brows." The byline belonged to Charlotte Curtis, 36, a supercharged, auburn-haired divorcee who probably ranks as the first society reporter in journalistic history to publish the fact that proper Bostonians sweat.
The Times's Curtis was covering an upper-crust Waltz Evening in Boston's Sheraton Plaza Hotel, and she could not resist noting that the ballroom...