RootsChat.Com

Well done Trish!

S_L

The inscription states where the sword was made and when.
Manufacture Nationale at Châtellerault in March 1872

Link below gives more details including other small stamped marks that may be present.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210421102505/http://users.skynet.be/euro-swords/chatellerault.htm

S_L

The digital collection of the University of Wisconson has a few sheet music examples if you search for cakewalk. There's also a female student's scrapbook from c. 1906 that includes the music played at dances and a programme for a multi-ring grand circus show (put on at a cost of $100000!) though no mention of ragtime that I could see.
https://search.library.wisc.edu/search/digital

If you're lucky you may be able to take a sheet music title and look up the Discography of American Historical Recordings and find mention of a recording of it along with a sound file you can play.
https://adp.library.ucsb.edu/

If you do find recordings mentioned but no sound to play back then it's worth trying the title and artist in youtube. There's a couple of library of Congress historic film examples of cakewalks as well.

I appreciate that doesn't answer your query of whether it would have reached the less urban areas or how it was perceived/received. There is someone at the University whose research may be relevant as they refer to it here:
https://ls.wisc.edu/news/the-mad-bad-world-of-ragtime
There's a photo of a cakewalk couple at the bottom.

S_L

I am doing a study of life the year 1929, and life in London and New York that year. Also researching my old village life that year. In 1929 many Londoners still lived in tenements and terraced housing/tenement blocks. Same for New York. Mid January 1929 in NY saw -13% weather so very cold. Most people in the tenements would have used the fireplace or stoves for heating in the dimly lit tenements. And the corridors would have been like ice boxes I would think.

Tenement living isn't that different today, the stairwell here is still dimly lit and an icebox in winter though I can't see much of an argument for heating it.
S-L