[Ads-l] Slight antedating of "baby boom" (generic)

[dave@wilton.net]

This isn't the post-WWII "the Baby Boom." The OED has November 1879.
 
Madison Daily Evening Star (Indiana), 8 September 1879, 4/2. Newspapers.com.

"The baby 'boom' has begun and in the Sixth ward there is joy. Mr. Will Davis and Mr. Ootson have both been presented within fifty-eight hours, with bouncing babies. There are at least four more Madisonians than there were on Saturday morning."
 
(And what about the women who did all the work?)
 
 
“The Baby Boom.” Evansville Daily Courier (Indiana), 17 September 1879, 4/2. Newspapers.com.

"THE BABY BOOM.

"A Walnut’s Street Crack Yesterday.
 
"Yesterday was a gala day in the baby line on Walnut street, only five little bald-headed, red-faced waifs (some of them no balder or red-faced than their male progenitors) came to the front during banking hours."

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