Antedating of "Jim Crow"

[Sam Clements]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Fred Shapiro" <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, June 05, 2006 10:05 PM
Subject: Antedating of "Jim Crow"


> Jim Crow (OED 1832)
>
> 1831 _Richmond Enquirer_ 3 June 3 (Early American Newspapers)  Mr. HENRY
> BANKS of Virginia has "jump'd Jim Crow" -- gone over to the opposition.
>
> [This citation predates the "Jim Crow" song and thus implies that the
> sequence of senses of "Jim Crow" is different from the accepted one
> followed by OED.]
>
> Fred Shapiro

>From Newspaperarchive,

_The Hagerstown(MD) Mail_  14 August 1829.  p.2

"...when the following toasts were drank:  <snip>

8.  Pensylvania--who led the van in the Jackson election and gave him a
majority of Fifty Thousand votes.
                                                                [Jim Crow.
"

--ed.  The "Jim Crow" was to indicate  the tune to which the toast was sung.

Sam Clements

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