Gray Lady

[Mike Salovesh]

Barry says:

> GRAY LADY (continued)
>
>    The New York Times is the Old Gray Lady.
>    The NYHT, 31 January 1946, pg. 22, col. 8, describes a "Red Cross Gray      >    Lady."  A possible  influence?

Maybe nobody on the list is old enough to remember . . .

"Grey Ladies" were hospital volunteers -- participants in a nationwide
program. They wore grey uniforms, and took on such jobs as taking library
carts to patient wards, running canteens where useful personal items were
sold, etc.  I don't remember the particulars of their organization, but it
wouldn't surprise me to hear that the American Red Cross was the
organizational impetus behind the Grey Ladies.  (Cf.,  if you wish, "Candy
Stripers": younger volunteers [often, high school girls] whose  name  came
from the white and red stripes of the uniforms they wore.)

>From personal observation at the time, I can provide another meaning for
"Grey Lady".  The term was used in  Bronzeville, Chicago's black ghetto, as
a term for "white woman" in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Note that I've spelled the word as "grey", not "gray".  I'm not sure, but I
think I remember that hospital-type Grey Ladies spelled it that way. . .
unless it really was "gray".  Maybe  I'm under the influence of the Mother
of All Rubbernecker Buses, Grey Line Tours.

Barry, I think you're looking on the wrong side of the Big Pond for
possible influences leading to calling the New York Times the Old Gray
Lady.  A much more likely model is "The Old Lady of Threadneedle Street",
AKA the Bank of England -- with headquarters on Threadneedle Street.

-- mike salovesh   <m-salovesh-9 at alumni.uchicago.edu>   PEACE !!!

        IN MEMORIAM:     Peggy Salovesh
        25 January 1932 -- 3 March 2001