A promenade dance, commonly called a prom, is a dance party for high school students. It may be offered in semi-formal black tie or informal suit for boys, and evening gowns for girls. This event is typically held near the end of the school year. There may be individual junior (11th grade) and senior (12th grade) proms or they may be combined.
Prom remains alive in American culture today and has expanded among other countries with another name, but prom is much older than you think, it all started in 1928 thanks to Otto Rohwedders invention. Prom is short for promenade “the formal, introductory parading of guests at a party”, began in the middle 1800s at colleges and universities in the northeast to promote the social etiquette and manners in each graduating class. Here below is a set of cool photos from Flickr members that shows what prom styles looked like in the early 1990s.