[Ads-l] Antedating of "Jim Crow" (System of Racist Laws and Practices)

[Shapiro, Fred]

The OED has an entry for "Jim Crow" as an adjective referring to the Southern system of segregation.  That entry explicitly links to "Jim Crow car" meaning the system of segregation of wagons or railroad.  The Jim Crow cars were the quintessence of the Jim Crow system of segregation.

When I pointed to the 1838 citation for "Jim Crow car" I was aggregating the noun and adjectival senses into one antedating referring to the system.  I don't think the 1838 citation is referring specifically to the derogatory name.

Fred Shapiro

________________________________
From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Rich Lowenthal <000018596069864c-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Friday, November 7, 2025 10:27 AM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Subject: Re: Fw: Antedating of "Jim Crow" (System of Racist Laws and Practices)

I believe the 1838 citation refers to OED's meaning 2 of "Jim Crow," "(A
name for) a black person." It is different from the OED meaning 4, "The
system of laws or practices...."

The online OED has 1835 as the earliest citation for meaning 2, from the
"Liberator" (Boston), 6 June. "That portion of our fellow-citizens of
other states, who are opposed to disunion, and are not disposed to yield
the rights of American citizens to an army of Jim Crows and their white
associates."

I believe the earliest citation the OED has for "Jim Crow" as a
discriminatory legal system is 1881.

The topic and citations are pretty confusing though, since there are
several meanings of the term, all going back to the "Jump Jim Crow"
song. One of the earliest citations in the OED for "Jim Crowism" is 1837
and refers to Sir Robert Peel's "political Jim Crowism." This is rooted
in the "Jump" reference in the song rather than any racial meaning.

Rich Lowenthal


------ Original Message ------
>From "Shapiro, Fred" <00001ac016895344-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
To ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Date 11/6/2025 21:16:59
Subject Fw: Antedating of "Jim Crow" (System of Racist Laws and
Practices)

>In my "Note" below, the part about "you will already know ..." was inadvertently copied by me from an email to Henry Louis Gates.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>
>________________________________
>From: Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu>
>Sent: Thursday, November 6, 2025 3:46 PM
>To: American Dialect Society <ads-l at listserv.uga.edu>
>Subject: Antedating of "Jim Crow" (System of Racist Laws and Practices)
>
>Jim Crow (OED, system of racist laws and practices, 1840)
>
>1838 David Ruggles Letter 8 Aug. in Watchtower (31 Aug. 1838) 1 / 4 (Genealogy Bank)  The conductor of the car ... and three others forcibly ejected me from the car, and forced me into what they call the pauper [or Jim Crow] car.
>
>NOTE:  "[or Jim Crow]" appears in the original publication   David Ruggles is new to me, but you will already know that he was a Black abolitionist-journalist-printer.  He was the first Black to own a bookstore.  He was also very active in the Underground Railroad.  One of the enslaved persons he assisted in journeying to freedom was Frederick Douglass.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>

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