"lobster back", puzzling meaning

[Joel S. Berson]

At 8/22/2008 11:58 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
>>I forgot to mention an interesting quotation revealed by Google
>>Books, with a possibly different sense:
>>
>>1847, in Historical Collections of Ohio: Containing a Collection of
>>the Most ... by Henry Howe - Ohio - 1847 - 581 pages, Page 254 "If
>>any traveller, in passing through Ohio, should chance to see a large
>>number of " lobster back" people on the farms, or about the village
>>taverns, ...".
>The reference is to people wearing a certain red flannel garment: looks
>like it probably just means "[people] dressed in red" or so.
>
>http://books.google.com/books?id=ri8WAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA254&dq=%22lobster+back+people%22&lr=&num=100&as_brr=0#PPA254,M1

Thanks, Doug -- I didn't have the perseverance to look further.  But
I only wear red flannel in bed.

Joel

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