[Ads-l] Antedating of "White Shoe" (Company or Law Firm)

[dave@wilton.net]

There is this 1955 profile of newly appointed Supreme Court Justice John Marshal Harlan II, using "white shoe" in a legal context, a transitional usage from Ivy League to Big Law:
 
“High Court.” Trenton Sunday Times-Advertiser (New Jersey), 25 September 1955, Part 4, 14/6–7. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
 
"Indeed he is a new breed of cat on the Court. Though born in Chicago, he is a Princeton-to-Oxford-to-Wall Street product—the Court’s first Ivy League 'white-shoe' boy, its first Rhodes scholar, its first full-fledged eastern Dewey Republican."
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: "Shapiro, Fred" <00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Saturday, August 2, 2025 11:18am
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: [ADS-L] Antedating of "White Shoe" (Company or Law Firm)



white shoe (OED, 1.b., 1960)

1958 New Jersey State Bar Journal Spring 91/1 (HeinOnline)

A few big firms ... reputedly have a predilection for young men who are listed in the Social Register. These firms are called "white-shoe outfits," a term derived from the buckskin shoes that used to be part of the accepted uniform at certain eastern prep schools and colleges.

Fred Shapiro


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