the grapevine

Sun Feb 21 20:43:49 UTC 2010

I guess, the real question whether the prison slang term "grapevine"
predates the Civil War or not. If indeed it is short for "grapevine
telegraph", it seems unlikely to have become a common prison term long
before the Civil War; unless I got my technology landmarks
confused--Trans-Atlantic Cable would have been 1856, but, of course,
the actual telegraph goes back much further. The naval telegraph
(optical) was adopted by Sir Home Riggs Popham in the early 1800s, in
a manner following the French semaphore operations. (See Philosophical
Magazine, 1810, p. 321, among others--Wiki is not helpful because it
does not say when the actual term was introduced, rather than the
concept that became telegraph) Prior to the 1850s, telegraph would
have been associated more with the military dispatches than anything
else. So, if indeed the expression was "grape-vine telegraph", then
the phrase might have originated during the Civil War, but not in New
York, with unofficial (and wrong) reports, but, rather, in prisons and
concentration camps of the war, as well as other military camps where
access to information might have been limited.

There is some suggestion in the literature (both late 1880s and
modern), however, that "grape-vine" was already in use in prison
populations even before the war and might have been sarcastically
adopted by POWs (and others--see below) during the war as "grape-vine
telegraph". I don't find definitive information on this
account--merely guesses and suggestions from incomplete sources, but I
will look into it closer at a later date.

The glossary attached to Portals to Hell: Military Prisons of the
Civil War (by Lonnie R. Speer, 2005) lists
"grapevine telegram" == "A note attached to a stone thrown over the
wall. Used most often in prisons where a wall separated officer
prisoners from enlisted-men prisoners so the two different groups
could communicate and pass information.

There is also an entry for
"grape" == "Short for grapevine; referred to false or baseless rumors
and reports heard in prison; often introduced with, 'The latest grape
circulation ...'."

These two are oddly contradictory, given that they are next to each
other in the glossary. Historical newspapers might do better, but GB
only has "latest grape" in horticultural context prior to 1890, but
there are two hits through 1921 (I did not check further). But it is
these two references, combined, that gave me the only Civil War era
clues (and one later)

[scanned from Stanford]
==
A soldier's recollections: leaves from the diary of a young Confederate soldier,
By Randolph Harrison McKim, 1910, p. 52
> The following letter gives a picture of our life in winter quarters at Fairfax station:
> Winter Quarters January 27, 1862.
> To my mother:
> ...
> Our amusements are various--reading, singing, quarreling, and writing. We employ the twilight in > conversation, the subject of which is the "latest grape-vine" (i.e., rumor), or a joke on the Colonel, or when we are alone, our domestic concerns.
==

This seems rather definitive.

The second piece is from 1916.

[Scanned from Harvard]
==
Minutes and testimony of the Joint legislative committee appointed to
investigate the public service commissions; Volume 5; New York
(State). Legislature. Joint Committee on Investigations of Public
Service Commissions. J.B. Lyon company, 1916
p. 52
[2nd Executive Session. May 19, 1916, 3 p.m.]
> O. B. Phillips on the stand:
> Examination by Judge Swann:
> Q. Mr. Phillips, what was the "grape-vine" source of information that you had for obtaining information from J. P. Morgan & Company in regard to munition contracts and orders?
> A. The term "grape-vine" to me simply means information that you get here and there. It comes to you through several different channels. That is a Western expression that I knew from my boyhood.
> Q. Now, is that the only explanation you have of that?
> A. Yes, sir.
> Q. And then when you wrote to Mr. Jarrell, giving him the latest from the grape-vine, that is what you mean, is it?
> A. Yes.
> Q. And you meant to give Mr. Jarrell, giving him the latest from the grape-vine, that is what you mean, is it?
> A. Yes.

p. 56
> Judge Swan: [exchange with Mr. Phillips]
> Q: You don't know. Then I will read you this, handed to me by the person to whom that letter is addressed, and says it is a carbon copy of his reply to you, written from Tennessee:
> "Mr. O. B. Phillips, c/o Seymour & Seymour, Equitable Building, New York City:
> Your letter of the fourth inst. has been received and duly noted. I have read with much interest the latest grape-vine information on the lot of fibre we hope to furnish JP Morgan & Company. It appears that the proposition continues to be a live one and for your information will say that on the date of the fifth we received a letter from J. P. Morgan & Company, reading as follows: ..."
[From the context, the letter was written on March 22, 1916--see p. 54]
==

Well, there you have it. Despite later historical attestations, no
"telegraph". Yet, of course, what would an 1862 citation to
"grape-vine" be without an 1863 citation to "grape-vine telegraph"!

[scanned from Harvard]
==
Loyalty on the frontier: or Sketches of Union men of the South-west;
with incidents and adventures in rebellion on the border
By Albert Webb Bishop
St. Louis: R. P. Studley, 1863
[Preface signed on March 4, 1863]
[John Worthington's account, signed December, 1862]
p. 209
Others, also, shook off the bondage of an accursed usurpation, and by
the first of April the establishment of this single post, had become
fruitful of exceedingly cheering results, to all who were really
interested in the development of Arkansian loyalty. ... It was also
known that the force was feeble, far too feeble for the duties imposed
upon it; that it was one hundred miles from any support, and /that/
the precarious aid that Springfield could render; that forage was
scarce and guerrillas plentiful, and that the difficulty of
communicating with Headquarters was daily becoming greater; still we
were to work away, holding the delusive chalice to the lips of
suffering loyalty. /The post was not to be abandoned/. With rebels in
our midst, it was to be supposed that the "grape-vine" telegraph was
kept in active operation, and the expectation of attack was constant.
==

There are also similar texts from 1864 and 1866.

==
The California Teachers, Vol. 2, November 1864
p. 136
> Don't like it.--We have heard that the Board of Public School Trustees of the Timbuctoo District, County of Sahara, Central Africa, have instructed the king of that region, known by the title of County Superintendent, not to forward the _California Teacher_ to them, as they have never seen it, never read it, and never intend to do either, they having heard by the grape-vine telegraph that it is a fierce "abolition paper" and goes in for "eddicating niggers." Probably it is the same Board of Trustees which called "Eaton's Arithmetic" an "abolition text-book" because it was published in Boston.
==

[scanned at IndianaU]
==
Hospital Pencillings; being a diary while in Jefferson General
Hospital, Jeffersonville, Ind., and others at Nashville, Tennessee, as
Matron and Visitor
By Elvira J. Powers
Boston: Edward L. Mitchell, 1866
p. 179
March 2, 1865
> "I say he is a copperhead," she affirmed, "for whn you hear a man say 'Lee has whipped the Feds all to pieces,' and say it as if he enjoyed it--and besides he was looking down and digging his toes into the ground when he said it--its [sic] safe to pronounce him one. And," she continued, "I'll wager what money I have against a penny, that if we ask those people who are coming what the news is, we shall get a different report, for just after a rebel defeat, you'll always hear copperheads relate the dispatches which come through their grape-vine telegraph."
==

[scanned at IndianaU]
==
Hospital Pencillings; being a diary while in Jefferson General
Hospital, Jeffersonville, Ind., and others at Nashville, Tennessee, as
Matron and Visitor
By Elvira J. Powers
Boston: Edward L. Mitchell, 1866
p. 179
March 2, 1865
> "I say he is a copperhead," she affirmed, "for whn you hear a man say 'Lee has whipped the Feds all to pieces,' and say it as if he enjoyed it--and besides he was looking down and digging his toes into the ground when he said it--its [sic] safe to pronounce him one. And," she continued, "I'll wager what money I have against a penny, that if we ask those people who are coming what the news is, we shall get a different report, for just after a rebel defeat, you'll always hear copperheads relate the dispatches which come through their grape-vine telegraph."
==

But, interestingly, it is the other 1866 piece that gives a
contemporaneous folk origin (really?).

[scanned at Harvard]
==
Across the Continent: A Summer's Journey to the Rocky Mountains, the
Mormons, and the Pacific States, with Speaker Colfax.
By Samuel Bowles
Springfield, MA & New York, 1866
[From cover "Advertisement" page:]
> Mr. Bowles went Overland to the Pacific Coast in May and June of this year, (1865,) in company with Hon. Schuyler Colfax, Speaker of the House of Representatives; visited the Mining Regions of Colorado, Nevada and California ...
p. 62
> Letter VI
> A Sunday in the Mountains
> Virginia Dale, Colorado, June 5
> ...
> Modes that were but just budding when I left home, I find in full blossom here. How it is done I do not understand--there must be a subtle telegraph by crinoline wires; as the southern negroes have what they call a grape-vine telegraph.
==

There are multiple copies of the latter volume in GB--some dated 1866,
some 1868, some later. There is a dozen other hits from 1869-1882 for
"grape-vine telegraph". I did not check newspapers. I included the
1916 hit because it is only the second oldest on "latest grape-vine"
and suggests and expression long in use "out West". And there is a mix
of familiar and unfamiliar use among the rest, so the
expressions--both "latest grape-vine" and "grape-vine telegraph" both
may have been in regional use and might have been surprise new
expressions picked up by Union (mostly) soldiers from the locals.
Other than that, no clues.

VS-)

On Sun, Feb 21, 2010 at 1:24 PM, George Thompson
<george.thompson at nyu.edu> wrote:
>
> Here is a tale about the origin of the expression "heard through the grapevine".  I've come upon it on several websites lately, and it appeared in print as early as 1990.  I haven't tried to trace the history of the story.
>
> [On West Eleventh street stood] the Grapevine, a popular roadhouse built here in 1838.  The wood frame structure was a hangout for early artists of the Village who came to this tavern to swap gossip.  Returning to their garrets, or possibly their rooms around the corner in the Tenth Street Studio, these gossiping artists had an answer ready when asked where they got their information: "Through the Grapevine."  During the Civil War, the phrase was adopted to mean "A source of unofficial military information". . . .
> Terry Miller, Greenwich Village and How It Got That Way, New York: Crown Publ., 1990, p. 135.
>
> This is supported with a photograph of The Grapevine in the 1890s.  According to the Encyclopedia of New York City, The Tenth Street Studio Building was erected in 1857.
> On the whole, this strikes me as being One of Those Stories.  I suppose that an army on the march would not carry wagons of telegraph poles among its baggage, but would string the wires from trees and bushes, and that the sight of these wires would enough resemble wild grapevines to suggest the image.
>
> Checking Proquest for the American Periodical Series and those of its newspapers which date to before the Civil War, I find nothing useful from "through the grapevine" or "by the grapevine" (checking "grapevine" as well as "grape vine").  For grapevine and telegraph I find the following, which at least antedates what James Murray knew, circa World War I:
>
> The ladies, you know, are the successful manipulators of the "grapevine" telegraph, and they operate it incessantly.
> ARMY OF THE OHIO.   Our Special Correspondent.   New - York Daily Tribune, December 5, 1862, pg. 3
>
> OED, under "grapevine" has
> 2. In various applied senses:    a. Orig., a canard: current during the American civil war, and shortened from ‘a despatch by grape-vine telegraph’ (Funk's Stand. Dict.). Now in general use to indicate the route by which a rumour or a piece of information (often of a secret or private nature) is passed.
>
> a1867 B. F. WILLSON Old Sergeant vii. (Funk) Just another foolish grape-vine. 1891 Century Mag. Mar. 713/2 The ‘grape-vine’ spoke to us of little else.  ****
>
> and specifically "grapevine telegraph":
> 1889 FARMER Americanisms s.v., During the Civil War exciting news of battles not fought and victories not won were said to be received by grape-vine telegraph. 1936 J. G. BRANDON Pawnshop Murder iii. 26 I'll see what I can get over the ‘grapevine’ telegraph. 1951 John o' London's 17 Aug. 494/2 First with the news was..the little old man who cleans our windows... He is our grapevine telegraph. 1953 X. FIELDING Stronghold I. i. 5, I had long ago ceased to wonder at the workings of their grape-vine telegraph.
> 1864 in Southern Hist. Soc. Papers (1876) I. 437 Many ‘grape-vine’ telegraphic reports are afloat in camp.
>
> The OED uses "the grapevine" as part of its definition of "bush telegraph", composed in the 1890s, probably.
>  orig. Austral., bush-rangers' confederates who disseminated information as to the movements of the police; transf., rapid spreading of information, or of a rumour, etc.; the ‘grapevine’;
> 1878 Australian I. 507 (Morris), The police are baffled by..the number and activity of the *bush telegraphs. 1893 K. MACKAY Out Back v, A hint dropped in this town set the bush telegraphs riding in all directions.
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

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