Slight antedating of "crew(hair)cut" (1935)

[Sam Clements]

A thread this morning over at the Straight Dope caused me to see if the origin of "crew cut" could be pushed back any.  As an aside,  the Yale alumni magazine has had stories suggesting that John Hay Whitney(Jock) 'inspired' the term.  I have no information that would support this, but I haven't done an exhaustive search.

>From the _Yale Alumni Magazine_ April,  2002, 

     "Jock" Whitney was born in 1904 and entered Yale in the Class of 1926, where his major activities were the Dramat and rowing. The stroke of the University crew in junior and senior years, Whitney became part of crew history by inspiring the coining of the term "crew cut." 

Let's divide this post into three parts:  First, "crew cut."  MW11 has 1942, as does the 1989 OED.

Newspaperarchive produces, from the 7 November 1939 _Kingston(NY) Daily Freeman_, pg.5, a column by Emily Post:

    "Dear Mrs. Post: Perhaps you'll say that haircuts are outside the subject of etiquette. However, its unsuitability is in question, and so I take heart in addressing you. My son wears a crew haircut every summer, but this is the first autumn that he has taken a notion to cut his hair short again. For school it might be all right but how is he going to look when he puts on his Tux and goes to a dance? His father thinks we should just let him cut it off again if he wants to. But 1 feel that if you disapprove of the crew cut and tux combination, he might be influenced before the time is too late."

Of course, the actual term "crew cut" probably wasn't very common at that date.

Part Two:  A haircut which was was inspired by rowing crews, whether from Yale or elsewhere.

OED has 1938, Hemingway.  
1938 HEMINGWAY Fifth Column (1939) 111 Wilson noted his crew-cropped hair. 

Again, using Newspaperarchive, a Daymon Runyon byline on a story about a Yale football game.  _Charleston(WV) Gazette_, 21 October 1935.  Pg. 12.

    "A crew haircut thrust itself  over our shoulder. A crew haircut is a form of tonsorial atrocity greatly indulged in by the current youth of the Big Three. A crew hair cut is a hair cut that looks as if it might have been performed with a lawn mower. The name comes from the fact that members of the boat crews go in for these hair cuts, but not as a decorative measure. They don't want their hair blowing in their eyes when they are out on the jolly old river."

Part the three:  Can anyone(Fred?) supply when the Whitney connection to the haircut arose?

Sam Clements


  

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