"I'm from Missouri--Show Me" (1894)

[Sam Clements]

If you go to Proquest, type in "John S. Johnson" and "Buffalo" you get the
same story of Johnson setting a new record in the Oct 25th Boston Daily
Globe, NY Times, Washington Post.  So, the dates are correct.

Sam Clements

----- Original Message -----
From: "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at UMR.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, August 27, 2006 11:45 AM
Subject: Re: "I'm from Missouri--Show Me" (1894)


   If the 1894-1896 dates are in fact accurate, their "show-me" quotes would
indeed be startling.  The earliest previously noticed "show-me"
attestation--discovered by Barry Popik--is May 9, 1897.  Until now the
rationale for the expression lay in the 1896 miners strike in Leadville,
Colorado, with Missouri miners brought in as strikebreakers.  The mining
techniques were a bit different in Colorado than in Missouri, and the
Missouri miners often had to be shown (key word) the new techniques. "He's
from Missouri, you've got to show him" spread above ground, and in the
spirit of hatred against the Missouri strikebreakers (there was a full-scale
labor-riot that required the state militia to get control of the situation),
the expression was adopted in Colorado as a put-down on Missourians, i.e.,
they were mentally a bit slow and had to be shown. When the expression got
back to Missouri, the Missourians gave it their own twist: hard-minded
scepticism.

     This lovely interpretation will now be blown out of the water by the
pre-1896 information spotted below by Barry, and no new interpretation comes
to mind to replace it.  BUT, before this upheaval occurs, let's be sure that
the dates are in fact accurate and not the result of some glitch in the
database.  Tomorrow I'll order microfilms of the 1894-1896 "show-me" items
to check on this.

      My concern is that all 1894-1896 "show-me" quotes appear in an Omaha,
Nebraska newspaper. Now, as Barry is well aware (he discovered this
material), the "show-me" expression was the slogan of the Kansas City
delegation at the 1898 Transmississippi Exposition at Omaha, Nebraska
(August 6, 1898ff.).  The "show-me" slogan caused a bit of a sensation
there, and the 1898 Exposition no doubt played a role in spreading the
expression.

     So, I suspect that the 1894-1896 Omaha quotes fit better into a time
frame of 1898 or later than into an earlier one.  Let's see. If the
1894-1896 attestations do pan out, it's back to the drawing-board for an
explanation.

Gerald Cohen

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