was a huge threat to the community. Typhoid broke out and medicine was not accessible. In 1908, the Grahams moved to Santa Barbara, California in hopes that West Coast weather would be healthier for the children. The Grahams now found themselves living in an interesting mixture of cultures drastically different from their Puritan life in Pennsylvania (McDonagh, 12). Martha credits her career of dance to her move to California because in Allegheny the "people were strict religionists who felt that dancing was a sin...they led (me) to fear it myself" (McDonagh, 13). Three years after moving to Santa Barbara, she attended a Los Angeles recital put on by the dance pioneer Ruth St. Denis. It was the first dance performance of any kind that Graham had ever attended, and it astonished her (Teachout). Instead of attending an "academic" college like her father, Graham made the radical decision to attend The Cumnock School where "self-expression" was emphasized and dance and drama were offered as part of
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