[Ads-l] antedating totem pole (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Baker, John]

That is a Newspapers.com error.  The quoted article is actually from the Naugatuck Evening News, August 16, 1949.  Articles from the Hagerstown Morning Herald on Newspapers.com generally should be regarded with suspicion.  

The phrase's origin, or at least its popularization, seems to be the humor book Low Man on a Totem Pole, by H. Allen Smith, 1941.


John Baker


Sent from my iPad

> On Mar 24, 2016, at 1:08 PM, Mullins, Bill CIV (US) <william.d.mullins18.civ at MAIL.MIL> wrote:
> 
> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
> 
> 
> OED has 1945 for "Low man on the totem pole"
> 
> 
> Hagerstown MD _Morning Herald_ 18 Apr 1939 p 4 col 4 [Newspapers.com]
> "Bob started a few months ago as low man on the totem pole."
> 
> 
> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
> 
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