Angela Isadora Duncan was born, one of four, on May 26,1877 in San Francisco, California. Her mother, Dora Duncan, was a piano teacher, and her father, Joseph Duncan was a banker, journalist, and poet. Her parents were both well educated, charming, and an altogether happy couple. However, their marriage fell apart soon after Isadora's birth.

After the divorce, Dora was left with little money to support her four children; Augastin, Raymond, Elizabeth, and Isadora. She gave her music lessons, but still was not bringing in enough money to keep living in the same house. The family began moving from one apartment to another, learning to leave each one a day before the bills came around.

In those days, when dancing was first popular, "nice" women wore clothing from chin to toe, not showing any skin. However, new kinds of dance were surfacing that allowed the "nicest" women to take of their corsets and not have to pretend to have a perfect figure. More and more women began dancing, inspiring Isadora to help her family by working as a dance instructor. She knew how to dance from all the practice she got from dancing at home to their mother's piano music, but she had not yet taken any dancing lessons. Her mother saved up enough money for her to participate in a small dance school, but Isadora disliked her teacher. He made her dance in pointe shoes, which Isadora found painful, ugly, and unnatural. In ballet, everything has a specific step or a traditional pose. Ballerinas dance with stiff bodies, without freedom of movement. This went against the way Isadora liked to dance. She quit her schooling after three lessons. Although her own dance lessons had not gone well, she quit her academic schooling, and started her business. Her neighbors had noticed her gracefulness and began sending their children to be her students. Pretty soon, word got around and Isadora was teaching some of the wealthy girls of San Francisco. Her classes eventually grew so large that Isadora found that her own dance lessons had indeed been unnecessary.

Isadora Duncan never lived beyond that trip to Paris, for she died on September 14, 1927 after having dinner with her life-long friend, Mary Desti. After dinner, she hopped into a Bugatti sports car with the agent from the car company. She was wearing a long, elegant, red scarf, and as Mary Desti looked on in horror, that scarf got caught in the axis of the spinning wheel and strangled Isadora Duncan to death.

t the age of five. In the late nineteenth century, students were expected to sit still during school, memorizing and reciting their lessons. To Isadora this was "irritating and meaningless." She hated school. She said later in her autobiography that her real education came on the nights when Isadora and her siblings would dance to her mother's music and learn about what they were interested in -- literature and music.

Isadora was told as a child that she would have to learn to depend on herself to get what she needed in life. So as Isadora grew older, she began to understand her family's financial condition and was eager to help. She and her sister Elizabeth began baby-sitting to help the family. To keep their charges busy, they taught them how to dance. The dance lessons were mostly just telling them to wave their arms in the air, but it kept them busy and raised money for the family.

After living in Paris for 3 months, Isadora's brother Augastine Duncan and his wife and children came to Paris. He encouraged his family to come to Athens, Greece with him, and they excitedly agreed. When the family arrived in Greece, they thought for a long while that they would stay there forever, studying about the Greeks and dancing in the Greek temples. But, unfortunately, because they had no income, they were soon left homeless.

It was at the same time Isadora started her school that she met Edward Gordon Craig, the son of actress Ellen Terry. They had a lot in common, and they fell in love immediately. After about three months of heart-felt love and teaching, Isadora found she was pregnant. Her first-born child was born on September 26, 1905. She and Craig named their baby Deirdre.

More than ten thousand people gathered at the cemetery to watch Isadora Duncan's ashes be place next to her children's in their memorial. Even people who had watched her dance decades before came to the solemn service. To all these people Isadora Duncan meant something. She brought into the world the idea of teaching young children how to dance. Even though she knew they would not all become professional dancers, she felt that a feeling of rhythm and freedom of

Some common words found in the essay are:
Isadora Duncan, Elizabeth Isadora, Ellen Terry, San Francisco, Elizabeth Raymond, Grunewald Germany, Halle Isadora, Dora Duncan, York City, Eugene Carriere, isadora duncan, day isadora, san francisco, school isadora, dance school, isadora started, mary desti, dora duncan, dance lessons, isadora found, homes wealthy families, mother dora duncan, late nineteenth century, soon left homeless, isadora started school,
Approximate Word count = 3102
Approximate Pages = 12 (250 words per page double spaced)