Square Meal (1857)

Fri Feb 7 02:59:30 UTC 2003

   OED has 1882 for "square meal."  Two citations below are from 1857.  This one is from the NEW YORK TIMES:

   22 August 1857, NEW YORK DAILY TIMES, pg. 4:
   If he does, they'll learn how to enjoy a good square meal when they get back, if they live long enough.

   The term probably comes from California, and Mark Twain should know.  These two are from Literature Online (prose):

1. Gissing, George, 1857-1903 [Author Record]
New Grub Street (1891) 1185Kb
New Grub Street: A Novel: By George Gissing ... In Three Volumes: Second Edition 1184Kb
Found 1 hit:
VOL. III. 417Kb
CHAPTER XXVIII INTERIM 32Kb
...sat down to a "  square meal," and ate ---my conscience,...

2. Twain, Mark, 1835-1910 [Author Record]
The Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrim's Progress. (1869) 1226Kb
The Innocents Abroad; or, The New Pilgrim's Progress. 1224Kb
Found 2 hit:
Main text 1204Kb
CHAPTER XXXIV. 29Kb
...they term in California "a  square meal." I went into one...
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 19Kb
...Duke's, and give them a  square meal. Adien! I am happy---I...

   From the North American Women's Letters and Diaries database:

1. Sanford, Mollie Dorsey. "Diary of Mollie Dorsey Sanford, June, 1857"
[Page 37 | Paragraph | Section | Document]
it seemed a gloomy prospect, for those that wished to be hospitable. Mother, who feels our circumstances more keenly with her proud English spirit, took the babies and fled to her retreat in the woods, where she often goes to gain her equilibrium. I knew our bachelor friends would expect a square meal, so as I'm chief cook anyway, I knew the honors devolved upon me, so put my wits to work accordingly. We have put up a brush kitchen at the end of the house, as it grew so hot we could not cook indoors, so leaving the girls to entertain the gentlemen, now increased to four by Uncle George and

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2. Olnhausen, Mary Phinney, von. "Letter from Mary Phinney von Olnhausen, December 25, 1864"
[Page 163 | Paragraph | Section | Document]
when who should come in but Dr. Barnes (medical inspector of the whole troops here); I was so glad to see him, and he seemed pleased, too. He stayed to tea, and was too glad to get something to eat; for they had had nothing but salt pork and hard tack for many days. He said it was the first "square" meal he'd eaten for a long while. He appealed to the benevolent ladies of Lexington, said he remembered them, and claimed their charity; for he was both lousy and dirty, and did not even blush to own it. He left that for General Butler to do, who got them into that condition. I had nothing for him

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3. Peary, Josephine Diebitsch. "Diary of Josephine Diebitsch Peary, July, 1891"
[Page 36 | Paragraph | Section | Document]
This state of affairs continued until the afternoon, when the storm finally abated and the boys began work again on the roof. The water in the tent subsided, and by putting pieces of plank down I could again move about without sinking into the mud, and I at once set to work to get the boys a square meal. By Saturday morning our habitation was under cover, the stove put up temporarily, with the stovepipe through one of the spaces left for a window, and a fire made from the blocks and shavings that had escaped the flood. The house was soon comparatively dry,-- at least it did

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4. O'Shaughnessy, Edith Louise Coues. "Diary of Edith Louise O'Shaughnessy, July, 1917"
[Page 91 | Paragraph | Section | Document]
real trouble." "Well, you'll get it when you see your officer," I remarked, unfeelingly. Just then a poilu whom they seemed to know approached with his ten centimes. One of the Sammies knocks it out of his hand onto the counter, points to his own chest, says, "On me, a square meal," and opens his bursting purse for me to take whatever is necessary. The poilu, hearing the chink of coin and rustle of paper, says to me, with eyes the size of saucers, "Sont-ils tous millionaires?"... Apart from his "private resources," which seem unlimited, the

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5. Best, Mary Kinsley?. "Diary of Mary Kinsley Best, July, 1920"
[Page na | Paragraph | Section | Document]
Last month he had a gallbladder operation. He's home again now, still looking a little pasty, and fighting mad at his hospital bill. "Would you believe it?" he told me. "That two-by-four room cost as much as the fine hotel room I had at Atlantic City last summer-- and the hotel gave three square meals a day, too!" Hospitals are presumably not run for profit; they pay no taxes; most of their nurses are in training or receive merely a pittance. And yet, despite their "hotel rates" they are always begging for financial aid from the public. Maybe hospitals need a few lessons

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6. Nowell, Elizabeth Howland. "Letter from Elizabeth Howland Nowell to Thomas Clayton Wolfe, August 10, 1938"
[Page 131 | Paragraph | Section | Document]
But from what I can gather, you really won't have it unless you try to drag yourself around and do too much, and sleep and eat wrong and do everything wrong, the way you're apt to. When I think of it, I just plain want to tie you to my apronstrings and see that you go to bed, and eat three square meals a day, and live like other people, instead of driving yourself and driving yourself and wasting an equivalent of time wandering round on trains looking for "peace" and rest and never getting it. God knows, you've got a basically superhuman-strong physique or you never could have got away with

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7. Crouter, Natalie Stark. "Diary of Natalie Stark Crouter, September, 1943"
[Page 222 | Paragraph | Section | Document]
when the cat's away, peer into windows or sit in corners watching our life which is joy and gaiety compared to their lot. Poor devils-- most of them never had anything and have nothing to look forward to except fighting and dying. I hope someday they will get cooperatives and a square meal a day even if no extra frills. It means nothing to them when our fruit and eggs are cut off for they know camp gives us more than they get. September 27, 1943 We drink "submarine coffee" (made from the dregs of a first boiling).

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Results Bibliography
Sanford, Mollie Dorsey, 1838-1915, Diary of Mollie Dorsey Sanford, June, 1857, in Mollie: The Journal of Mollie Dorsey Sanford in Nebraska and Colorado Territories 1857-1866. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 1959, pp. 199. [Bibliographic Details] [6-5-1857] S313-D006
Olnhausen, Mary Phinney, von, 1818-1902, Letter from Mary Phinney von Olnhausen, December 25, 1864, in Adventures of an Army Nurse in Two Wars. Munroe, James Phinney, ed.. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, & Co., 1903, pp. 355. [Bibliographic Details] [Biography] [12-25-1864] S1010-D049

Peary, Josephine Diebitsch, 1863-1955, Diary of Josephine Diebitsch Peary, July, 1891, in My Arctic Journal: A Year Among the Ice-Fields and Eskimos. New York, NY: Contemporary Publishing, 1893, pp. 240. [Bibliographic Details] [Biography] [7-2-1891] S1065-D004

O'Shaughnessy, Edith Louise Coues, 1870-1939, Diary of Edith Louise O'Shaughnessy, July, 1917, in My Lorraine Journal. New York, NY: Harper & Brothers, 1918, pp. 196. [Bibliographic Details] [7-25-1917] S1120-D003

Best, Mary Kinsley, 1885-?, Diary of Mary Kinsley Best, July, 1920, in The Diary of a Physician's Wife. Rutherford, NJ: Medical Economics, 1931, pp. 139. [Bibliographic Details] [7-1-1920] S1130-D011

Nowell, Elizabeth Howland, 1904-1959, Letter from Elizabeth Howland Nowell to Thomas Clayton Wolfe, August 10, 1938, in Beyond Love and Loyalty: The Letters of Thomas Wolfe and Elizabeth Nowell. Together with No More Rivers, a Story by Thomas Wolfe. Kennedy, Richard S.. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1983, pp. 164. [Bibliographic Details] [8-10-1938] S564-D101

Crouter, Natalie Stark, 1898-1979, Diary of Natalie Stark Crouter, September, 1943, in Forbidden Diary: A Record of Wartime Internment, 1941-1945. Bloom, Lynn A., ed.. New York, NY: Burt Franklin & Co., 1980, pp. 546. [Bibliographic Details] [9-2-1943] S1167-D024