"gandy dancer" antedated to 1915

[Stephen Goranson]

By the way, the article makes no mention of railroads.
OED gives: Etymology:  Origin uncertain.
slang (orig. U.S.).
  A railroad maintenance-worker or section-hand.
________________________________________
From: Stephen Goranson
Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 10:55 AM
To: American Dialect Society
Subject: "gandy dancer" antedated to 1915

OED has 1923. Ads-l archives has two from 1917 (thanks to Sam Clements) in the Kansas City Star, also called a "gandy."

Also from that newspaper, earlier:

Kansas City Star, page 3, vol. 35, iss. 362 col. 4
Publication Date:
September 14, 1915
Published as:
The Kansas City Times
Location:
Kansas City, Missouri
Headline:
'Gandy-Dancers' Ate the Stew. Flattery Disarmed the Culinary Cops and Won the Mulligan
Article Type:
News/Opinion

....North Side....Shortly before noon the other day the keepers of the mulligan [who were police] were called out to handle a crowd of erring citizens. When they returned they found a little company of "gandy-dancers" making way with the feast. Now a gandy-dancer is a bewhiskered man who has no occupation. He is not a floater. A classification would place him a little less than a loafer and a degree, perhaps, above a bum....The policemen started to storm, but the gandies, who are artful customers in their way, pitched in the harder....

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Stephen Goranson
www.duke.edu/~goranson

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