lunatic fringe

Thu Oct 8 17:04:38 UTC 2009

John Avlon--of the Daily Beast and formerly of the NY Sun--wrote

> Teddy Roosevelt coined the term 'lunatic fringe' to describe the
> anarchist wingnuts of his day.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/10/07/avlon.civility/index.html

*Is the claim true?*

It's easy enough to find the *1913* text (which is the date MWOLD pins
on it; RHD 2009 gives 1910-1915; AHDE4 also 1915; AH Cultural Literacy
just blames it on Roosevelt, without a date):

> It is vitally necessary to move forward and to shake off the dead
> hand, often the fossilized dead hand of the reactionaries; and yet we
> have to face the fact that there is apt to be *a lunatic fringe* among
> the votaries of any forward movement. In this recent art exhibition
> *the lunatic fringe* was fully in evidence, especially in the rooms
> devoted to the Cubists and the Futurists, or Near-Impressionists.
 From "An Art Exhibition", History as Literature and Other Essays, 1913,
p. 305

*OED online has the same citation and nothing else.*

The same phrase is used in other essays published the same year, as well
as in the Autobiography.

> "Then, among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting
> and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are the foolish
> fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting
> it--the men who form *the lunatic frunge* in all reform movements."
(p. 225 of the original 1913 Macmillan edition, possibly an early and
page 211 in the 1984 Da Capo reprint of the same edition--both listed as
"1913" by Google)
> "As I have already say, there is *a lunatic fringe* to every reform
> movement. At least nine-tenth of all the sincere reformers supported
> me ..."
(p. 296 of the 1913 edition and p. 282 of the 1984 Da Capo reprint)

I put the references in this order because History as Literature is
listed as published in September, 1913, but the Foreword to the
Autobiography is signed on October 1, 1913, and the book is listed as
published in November. Furthermore, since History as Literature is a
collection of speeches and essays, the actual use clearly occurred much
earlier--sometime between 1900 and 1912. (See below for more precise
dating--pre-1907.)

The bulk of references appears to follow, often citing Roosevelt, in the
mid-teens and twenties. Most of the other references dated prior to 1913
are Google flubs--an obvious one is an Irish history from 1923 to 1970
dated as 1873 (Church and State in Modern Ireland, 1923-1970).

However, Roosevelt is *not* the first to use the phrase "lunatic
fringe"--not by a long shot!

First, a dud: James Esdaile's Mesmerism in India, 1850, is most
certainly *not* an early source, as the phrase that pops up on Google is
from the 1957 reprint of the volume under the title Hypnosis in Medicine
and Surgery. Unfortunately, the phrase is used in the 1957 introduction
by Dr. Kroger, not in the original text.

Among all the periodicals that are mis-tagged (some quite wildly, as a
1997 poem is tagged as 1890), there is Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly,
for the first half of *1888* (vol.  25, p. 271), which is tagged
*correctly*. In "The Widow's Baby" by K. F. Hill, we find,
> Her brow, so smooth and broad, was undisfigured by *lunatic fringe* or
> bang. Her eyebrows were black and delicate, but straight, not arched.
Admittedly, the phrase clearly does not have quite the same meaning as
the one attached to it by Roosevelt. But it is certainly a precursor to
the metaphor--that is, if this was normal use, it is not hard to squeeze
Roosevelt's metaphorical use out of it. The reference seems to be to a
wild bang of hair hanging over the forehead, and it's a somewhat
derogatory one.

UMichigan's copy of the same publication is tagged "American Magazine",
but is otherwise undistinguishable from Stanford's copy (the title page
for Frank Leslie's Popular Monthly is the same--the difference is only
in the outer cover).

But it gets better.

The Hill find is followed in GoogleBooks by several references in
1873-78 (somewhat imprecisely labeled).

> She was not unlike Gretchen either, at sixteen, tall for her age,
> inclined even then to a delightful plumpness, all that flaxen hair
> falling fluffy and crimpy to her waist, and in "lunatic fringe" to her
> very eyebrows.
May Agness Fleming, Silent and True, or, A Little Queen. A novel; 1877,
pp. 146-147

> "The girls!" exclaimed Miss Lizzie, lifting her eyebrows till they met
> the "lunatic fringe" of hair which straggled uncurled down her forehead.
> ...
> "Was that why you studied so hard all winter, and wouldn't go to
> singing-school, you sly thing?" said Lizzie, eyebrows and lunatic
> fringe almost meeting again.
Sophie May, "Four Days", in Oliver Optic's Magazine; February 1874, pp.
142, 143

> "No," replied Arthur; "I was only thinking that your 'lunatic fringe'
> is a great improvement to your face, and that you have just succeeded
> in getting it into nice order for Christmas."
The Monomaniac of Love: A Study in the Pathology of Character. Vol. I;
1878 (London), p. 142 (there is no author and the Preface is
unsigned--note that Monomaniac is a British publication, while the rest
are all US)

There should be no mystery that the "lunatic fringe" in all these
references identifies what seems to be the bangs in a hairstyle, the
same meaning as in the 1888 reference. This is confirmed by A Dictionary
of Men's Wear by William Henry Baker, 1908. The entry under "Lunatic
fringe" redirects to "Idiot fringe", which is defined as "football hair;
bangs". (p. 135)

One entry is interesting because it appears to deconstruct Roosevelt's
usage. Unfortunately, Google only has a snippet. The reference is from
Vol. 16 (claimed 1907, p. 271) of Everybody's Magazine.

> "Mollycoddle"? "Undesirable Citizen"? "Malefactors of Great Wealth"?
> "Race Suicide"? "The Strenuous Life"? "Speak Softly and Carry a Big
> Stick"? "Lunatic Fringe"? "Outpatients of Bedlam"? "Byzantine
> Logothete"? Not a phrase-maker? He is a the greatest phrase-maker in
> our history.
> Well, Colonel Rooselvelt, we repeat, is /not/ a phrase-/maker/. He is
> a picker-up of ...
Unfortunately, the rest is missing. It seems to be a useful clue. I may
try to sneak into Harvard to check out their copy later this week,
unless someone beats me to it. The magazine was published from 1899 to
1923, with the last listed volume being 48, so the numbers appear to fit.

But even without this bit--which appears to suggest what I am about to
say--it seems clear that Roosevelt simply picked up a commonly used
identification (wild bangs of one or several popular hair styles
prevalent in the 1870s-1900s) and gave it a metaphorical twist. To put
it simply, Roosevelt did not *invent* the term--he simply adapted it for
political theater. In particular, note that the 1870s references come
from both sides of the Atlantic. A search of newspapers may push the
date beyond 1874--in fact, it should do so relatively easily.

    VS-)

PS: I am quite frustrated no so much by Google's inability to tag items
correctly--they've made a few improvements in the last few months on
that account--but by the fact that publications that have been in the
public domain for decades, such as those from 1907-09, are not fully
scanned.

PPS: Denis Howe/Online Computer D adds internal IBM jargon from years past:
> lunatic fringe
> [IBM] Customers who can be relied upon to accept release 1 versions of
> software.
PPPS: Macmillan gives a slightly different (individual and relative)
version from other dictionaries:
> people whose opinions are far more extreme than the opinions of the
> rest of their group
    MWOLD has
> the members of a usually political or social movement espousing
> extreme, eccentric, or fanatical views
    The OED also has the collective definition, but a neutral one
> a minority group of adherents to a political or other movement or set
> of beliefs

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