[Ads-l] Early Evidence for "Nobody Here But Us Chickens"

[Shapiro, Fred]

In the Yale Book of Quotations I included the saying "There's nobody here but us chickens," with a citation from 1937.  Subsequently I have found a 1912 occurrence of "There ain't nobody here but us chickens" in the New Orleans Times-Democrat.  Still earlier, Wikiquote cites a racially charged version, "dey ain't nobody hyah 'ceptin' us chickens," from Everybody's Magazine, July 1908.


I would welcome information about any variants of this before July 1908.


Fred Shapiro

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