“From the start Ziegfeld offered an audience-pleasing combination of creative visual spectacle, topical comedy and beautiful girls: after its success in New York the first Follies went on a brief tour, featuring the “Ziegfeld Girls” as mosquitoes from the New Jersey marshes flying through the Holland Tunnel (which was then under construction). These showgirls followed on the heels of the “Florodora girls”, who had started to “loosen the corset” of the Gibson Girl in the early years of the twentieth century. Decked out in Erté designs, the girls gained many young male admirers and quickly became objects of popular adoration. Many were persuaded to leave the show to marry, some to men of substantial wealth. The Follies continued into 1931, and the Ziegfeld Ball in New York City continued as a social event of the season for years after the last production of the Follies.”
