September 05, 2005
Loafers, now and then
150 years later, Substitute "Republican" for "Whig"; and "Hipster" for "B'hoy" and "G'hal," and Nothing has changed
Quote taken from the fascinating Walt Whitman's America by David Reynolds:
In terms of the party arrangement of the day, the Whigs were usually associated with the capitalist success ethic and the democrats with loaferism. It was this distinction that George Templeton Strong had in mind when in an 1838 diary entry he said a Democratic meeting "looked like a convention of loafers from all quarters of the world" and when elsewhere he noted that while the Whigs attracted respectable types Democrats tended "to take in all the loaferism of the nation." So distinct a class did the loafers become that by 1856 the New York Times could note, "New York may be classified into Uppertendom, Loaferdom, and Shantydom," with the Bowery the center of Loaferdom. Urban versions of loaferism, especially street loungers known as the b'hoy and the g'hal, would attract Whitman when he became a city journalist. For the time being, his experience as a working-class Democrat set adrift in the unsteady world of country teaching made him contemplate loaferism as a viable alternative to a social system that had in many ways beaten him down, as it had many others. "I have sometimes amused myself with picturing out a nation of loafers," he wrote in a November 1840 essay, "only think of it! an entire loafer kingdom!" Adam, he says whimsically, was a loafer, and so were all the philosophers. The political underpinnings of his conception of loaferism were undeniable:Give us the facilities of loafing, and you are welcome to all the benefits of your tariff system, your manufacturing privileges, and your cotton trade. For my part, I had serious thoughts of getting up a regular ticket for President and Congress and Governor and so on, for the loafer community in general.
(p 62-63)
And, funnily enough, he was a racist, too.
"We call upon every mechanic [that is, workingman] of the north, east, and west," [Whiteman] continued--inserting a long list of workers including the carpenter, mason, stonecutter, blacksmith, shipbuilder, shoemaker, paver, and others--"to speak in a voice whose great reverberations shall tell to all quarters that the workingmen of the free United States, and their business, are not willing to be put on the level of negro slaves."
(p. 124)
Posted by Morgan at 01:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (1)
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.spareink.com/mt-tb.cgi/115
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Loafers, now and then:
» Loungers from Loungers
Fingers crossed it a) fits in the lounge.Is carefully crafted each individual piece with care Fill in so... [Read More]
Tracked on August 5, 2006 06:08 PM
Comments
Post a comment
E-mail this entry to a friend!
