Square dance: bow to your partner; photo by Poul-Werner Dam on Flickr (use permitted with attribution).
Official State American Folk Dance of New Jersey
New Jersey designated the square dance as the official state American folk dance in 1983. All State Dances
Twenty-two states have passed legislation to declare the square dance as the state folk dance and more than thirty bills have been introduced at the federal level proposing the square dance as the national (folk) dance of the United States
Every region has folk customs - they give people a special sense of identity and belonging to a group. The square dance provided pioneers recreation and social contact with neighbors - and is still doing that today!