"Jazz Means Happy and Loose Like" (1917) (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Baker, John]

        Nice work.  Any theory why there would have been a ten-fold leap
between 1880 and 1920?  The emergence as "Rastus" as a stigmatized name
during that period might have suggested less popularity, not more.


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Mullins, Bill AMRDEC
Sent: Monday, December 03, 2007 4:30 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: "Jazz Means Happy and Loose Like" (1917) (UNCLASSIFIED)

Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE


Ancestry.com lets you search census records.  For 1870 and 1900, the
report page includes the race of the individuals found.  After searching
for firstname = Rastus:


1870:  1 Mulatto, 3 Black, 38 White (42 total)
1900:  1 Negro, 2 Indian, 125 Black, 345 White (473 total)

I didn't do the counts for years after 1900.


Total people named Rastus:
1810:  4
1820:  3
1830:  2
1840:  2
1850:  24
1860:  36
1870:  42
1880:  90
1890:  (no data, records lost)
1900:  473
1910:  753
1920:  1023
1930:  926

Census records after 1930 are not yet publicly available.

Bill Mullins
Classification:  UNCLASSIFIED
Caveats: NONE

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org