What is a Sock Hop?
A sock hop is a dance, often held for teens, that first became popular in the 1950s, when the term was incidentally coined. Since dances were often held in school gymnasiums, dancers would often kick of their shoes and dance in socks or stockings so as to avoid marking up gym floors, and to get better slide in dances like the Twist, the Mashed Potato and others. Dances held might simply be referred to as sock hops, since the practice was so common.