Antedating of "Unemployment"

[Baker, John]

        This sounds like "not in use," rather than "forced idleness" (the meaning referred to in the infamous Wall Street Journal article).  Is there an antedating for the "forced idleness" meaning?

John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: Fred Shapiro [mailto:fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU]
Sent: Friday, January 23, 2004 10:10 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Antedating of "Unemployment"


unemployment (OED 1888)

1717 _The Censor_ (ed. 2) III. 191 (Eighteenth Centuryu Collections
Online)  I may lay all Day on the Solitary Board buried in Dust and
Obscurity, and owe a Perusal only to the Unemployment of the indolent
_Waiters_.

Fred Shapiro