The nicest cakes(baked by the prettiest most available girls) were “walked for” first. But it was a secret whose cake was whose, till the walk was over(supposed to be, anyway). Then eventually, all that was left was the old ladies cakes. Those were walked for by anyone, women included.
That’s what I first think of, too, when I hear “cakewalk.” We did it at our elementary school Halloween carnival and I won a cake every year. Loved it. It was just like musical chairs.
But the dance itself, now that I think of it, conjures up pictures of something like the “Darktown Strutters’ Ball.” I’m picturing lots of folks dressed to the nines in Gibson Girl-era fashions, sort of promenading, doing something like a Virginia reel, but with high-stepping - something like the Mummers when they parade.
It may be incorrect, but it’s *my* imagination, lol.
Maybe you’re right. That fits in more with the county fair model, and fits with what I vaguely remember from childhood. But Wiki says...
Cakewalk is a traditional African American form of music and dance which originated among slaves in the US South. The form was originally known as the chalk line walk; it takes its name from competitions slaveholders sometimes held, in which they offered slices of hoecake as prizes for the best dancers.[1]
The dance was invented as a satirical parody of the formal European ballroom dances preferred by white slave owners, and featured exaggerated imitations of the dance ritual, combined with traditional African dance steps.[2] One common form of cakewalk dance involved couples linked at the elbows, lining up in a circle, dancing forward alternating a series of short hopping steps with a series of very high kicking steps. Costumes worn for the cakewalk often included large, exaggerated bow ties, suits, canes, and top hats.
Dances by slaves were a popular spectator pastime for slaveholders, evolving into regular Sunday contests held for their pleasure. Following the American Civil War, the tradition continued amongst African Americans in the South and gradually moved northward. The dance became nationally popular among whites and blacks for a time at the end of the 19th century.[1] The syncopated music of the cakewalk became a nationally popular force in American mainstream music, and with growing complexity and sophistication evolved into ragtime music in the mid 1890s. The music was adopted into the works of various white composers, including John Philip Sousa and Claude Debussy. Debussy wrote Golliwog’s Cakewalk as the final movement of the Children’s Corner suite (1908).[3]
(It does mention the walk you describe as well.)