Tap shoes worn by Violet Holmes (1927–2019)

The legendary New York City Rockette Violet Holmes joined the precision dance troupe in 1945 when she was 18. Her natural ability to memorize choreography quickly led to her becoming dance captain. After Holmes’s retirement from dancing, she became the director and choreographer of the Rockettes for 21 years, until 1993. Holmes wore the tap shoes on display during her dancing career. In the 1940s, the women joining the troupe often did not have enough money to purchase their own tap shoes, so retiring Rockettes would leave their pairs behind for incoming dancers. Dancers wrote their names on the bottom of their shoes to indicate temporary ownership so that, over time, a lineage of generations of women emerged.