[Ads-l] Barry Popik on "Hooker" (1835, 1842)

[Shapiro, Fred]

See below for information by Barry Popik about the term "hooker."

Fred Shapiro


Subject: "Uncle Sam" and "Hooker" (1835, 1842)


HOOKER
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I was contacted about "hooker" (see below email). See the cites from the New York Transcript (1835) and The Rake (1842). I know that I had looked through the Readex database "American Underworld: The Flash Press" about ten years ago.
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"New-York by Gas-Light, and Other Urban Sketches" (1850) by George G. Foster, has in the chapter starting on page 5, "The Sidewalkers -- Hokking a Victim."
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https://www.google.com/books/edition/New_York_by_Gas_light/ZArVAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1
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"The Rag Pickers of New York" (New York Herald, October 8, 1853) says that the rag pickers were also called "hookers" because they always had a hook to pick up rags.
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https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-new-york-herald-rag-pickers-also-ca/208400243/
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Yesterday's Newspapers.com drop had a number of drips of newspapers that were interesting for the study of "hooker." The problem is that Newspapers.com often leaves this at just 10 pages, and then includes this in the number of newspapers digitized.  Here's a list in yesterday's drop:
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New York City Reformer and Mercantile Advertiser (1846) -- 4 pages
The Atlas (1846) -- 4 pages
The True Sun (1847) -- 8 pages
Evening Mirror (1847) -- 8 pages
Brother Jonathan (1854) -- 9 pages
Daily Morning Courier (New Haven, CT) (1846-1847) -- 48 pages
New Haven (CT) Morning Courier (1847-1848) -- 32 pages
Hartford (CT) Daily TImes (1847) -- 4 pages
New Haven (CT) Daily Register (1847-1848) -- 24 pages
New Haven (CT) Daily Palladium (1843-1863) -- 1,240 pages
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Tiny drips...Today, I see that Newspapers.com has done just newspapers from Ireland, mostly 2010-2024 (already online). Not this again, with so many great American newspapers totally unsearchable.
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Barry Popik
Goshen, NY
BarryPopik.com

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----- Forwarded Message -----
From: Father Knickerbocker <frknickerbocker at gmail.com>
To: "Bapopik at aol.com" <Bapopik at aol.com>
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2026 at 04:02:57 PM EDT
Subject: Hooker etymology

Dear Mr. Popik:

I’ve come across two early uses of “hooker” while poking through disreputable old New York newspapers and thought that you might find them of interest.

The first is from the New York Transcript, a few months before the one that you wrote about.

“Rose Haley was a regular ‘Hooker;’ she lived on the Hook; she walked the Hook – she had a hooked nose and hooked fingers and she hook’d (stole) for a living. And a lively life she led of it – drunk or dancing the whole time – seldom sober and never serious – the instant she entered an oyster cellar she was sure to ‘set the table (not) in a roar,’ but in a reel, for she always kicked it over. For one of these frolics she was committed.”
- New York Transcript, March 26, 1835.

The other is from the New York Rake (a flash weekly), from 1842:

“When will we have a fresh importation of ‘hookers.’ The stock is enlarged and pretty well used up. We want fresh hands at the bellows but don’t want fire.”
- "The Rake Wants to Know." New York Rake. August 20, 1842.

The Rake one strikes me as significant because it doesn't leave open the possibility that "hooker" is being used as a non-sexual pun on the "thief" meaning.

Best regards,
Dennis Harlow



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