The American Ballet That May Be
A 1924 New York Times Magazine article lamented that the U.S. didn't have a flagship ballet company. The nation's oldest ballet company, San Francisco, wouldn't be founded until 1933.
The other two which comprise the supposed "top three" best U.S. ballet companies are American Ballet Theatre founded in 1939, plus New York City Ballet founded in 1948.
Back in 1924, though, the journalist Diana Bourbon began her article with this (hesitant) prophecy:
After many years of kneeling at the artistic shrine of the Russian Ballet, the Swedish Ballet, and various parts and scions of them both, America may at last have a national American Ballet of her own — equal to, perhaps surpassing, any of the others.
Bourbon's description of one aspect of ballet in 1924, though, very much fell by the wayside over the subsequent century:
The publication of names and personalities is no part of corps de ballet tradition and is not allowed.
Not in the social media era. Misty Copeland has 1.9 million Instagram followers, was profiled by 60 Minutes in 2015, and spoke with President Barack Obama for Time.
The American Ballet That May Be
Published: Sunday, February 24, 1924