Cakewalk (1874); Piece of the Pie (1882)

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CAKEWALK

   I thought I did "cake walk" a few years ago.  OED has 1879, and Poole's Plus has some interesting hits.

13 December 1874, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 4, col. 6:
      A MYSTERY EXPLAINED.
WHAT A CAKE WALK AND LIVE PIGEON
   PIE REALLY ARE--SOCIAL ENJOYMENTS
   IN POTTSVILLE.
   _From the Pottsville (Penn.) Miners' Journal._
(...)
   The entrance fees over, eight couples were found ready to walk for the cakes to be given to those who promenaded with the most grace and the most in accord with the spirit of this enlightened age.  They marched to the tune of "John Brown," played on the organ and sing by the audience.

23 December 1877, NEW YORK TIMES, pg. 2, col. 5:
WALKING FOR THE CAKE.
"OLE VIRGINNY" ENTERTAINMENT.
THE GREAT TRIAL OF GRACE AND AGILITY IN
   THE LONDON CIRCUS--BEAUX AND BELLES
   IN LIVELY COMPETITION.
(Another article is also December 30, 1877, pg. 2, col. 2--ed.)

25 October 1897, NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE, pg. 10, col. 2:
   ORIGIN OF THE CAKE-WALK.
FORMERLY A MARRIAGE CEREMONY, BUT ITS
   SIGNIFICANCE NOW LOST.
>From the New-Orleans Times-Democrat.
   The cake-walk proper had its origin among the French negroes of Louisiana more than a century ago.  There is little doubt that it is an offshoot of some of the old French country dances.  It resembles several of them in form.  From New-Orleans it spread over the entire South, and thence North.  It was found of convenience to the plantation negroes.  They were not wedded by license, and it was seldom that the services of a preacher were called in.  At a cake-walk a man might legitimately show his preference for a woman, and thus publicly claim her for a wife.  In effect the cake-walk was not different from the old Scotch marriage, which required only public-acknowledgment from the contracting parties.  So this festival became in some sense a wooing, an acceptance or rejection and a ceremony.  This explains its popularity with the blacks, outside of its beauties, with the accompaniment of music, which is competent at all times to command negro support.  Cake-walking has improved, as do most things that are constantly practised.  It has lost its old significance in the South.  Negroes now get married, when they marry at all, in white folks' fashion.  It has become, however, a pantomime dance.  Properly performed, it is a beautiful one.  The cake is not much of a prize, though the negro has a sweet tooth.

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PIECE OF THE PIE

Movin' on up
To the east-side
We finally got a pie of the piece.
--THE JEFFERSONS, theme song
(Also, NYC etymologist to himself, in jest)

   "Piece of the pie" is not listed in OED.
   From the NEW YORK DAILY TRIBUNE, 9 September 1882, pg. 4, col. 3 editorial:

   _PIE_
(...)  Because, he (General Francis B. Spinola--ed.) says, "these pie-eaters who are stuffing themselves at the public crib will have to step down and out and make room for others."  What others?  Why other "pie-eaters," of course.  And in the audience before him there was not a mouth that did not pucker at the suggestion.  The great issue is Pie.
(...)(Col. 4--ed.)
   The watchword is "Pie!"  Tammany is in the van, her banners radiant with the motto "The Pie-Eaters must come down!"   The county Democracy will not fail to fall in under the motto "A United Democracy means Pie!"  Irving Hall will follow with "Let Us Have a Peace--of Pie!"  The Purroy-White combination will come next with "Pie or Blood!" and all the fag ends of faction may bring up the rear with "PIE!!!"  "PIE!!" "_Pie!_"--"pie" to the close of the chapter.  Then everybody will know what the Democratic party goes for and what holds it together.

(A pork-pie?--ed.)