Jaywalkers, Jayhawkers, Jay-Towns and Jays –
a Pedestrian History and Etymology of “Jaywalking”
The word, “Jaywalking,” did not
originate with Jay Leno.
The word, “Jaywalkers,” did it
originate with the British-Invasion pop-group, Peter Jay and the Jaywalkers, who
toured with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the mid-Sixties.
But when Peter Jay and the “Jaywalkers”
released their 45 of Lieber
and Stoller’s classic song, Kansas City, in 1963, they hinted at (most likely unknowingly)
the origins of both expressions.
Kansas City, you see, is the
place on the map that put “jaywalking” on the map.
The First Anti-Jay-Walking Law
When only horse-drawn wagons and
pedestrians vied with one another for space on city streets, there was little
or no reason for traffic laws. Horses
were slow – and pedestrians were agile. But
when new technologies entered the fray, confusion, chaos and danger
reigned. In Brooklyn, New York, for
example, the wholesale introduction of electric trolleys in 1892 led to
hundreds of deaths, a trolley operator strike, and a popular uprising that led
to the introduction and enforcement of some of the first speed limits. The name of the Los
Angeles Dodgers is a lasting vestige of that conflict; honoring the Brooklyn
pedestrians who famously dodged the new, and more dangerous, electric trolleys. The subsequent introduction of
privately-owned, motor-operated vehicles, that were not confined to a set of
tracks, and were not necessarily operated by professional drivers, created
new dangers, new solutions, a new frame of mind, and new words to make sense of
the new world.
In 1912, Kansas City, Missouri enacted
the first ordinance of its kind in the United States, if not the world,
criminalizing the behavior of pedestrians on public streets:
“Jay
Walking” Curbed in Kansas City.
By way of improving traffic
conditions in Kansas City, Mo., a city ordinance has been passed prohibiting
pedestrians to cross streets at any places other than the regulation crossings,
the practice being labeled “jay walking” and reproved as something quite as bad
as “joy riding.” . . . The enaction itself seemed to be alright, but
it had the one drawback of seemingly taking away a certain amount of personal
liberty, and natives of Kansas City, being from Missouri, wanted to be shown
why they could not walk across a street when they saw fit. But be it also known that Kansas City is
placed twentieth on the list of large cities in the United States, and the
natives are very proud of this fact, and are very averse to being thought of as
boobs, jays, ginks or farmers, and so, working on this point, and with the
knowledge of the psychological make up of the average dweller of Kansas City in
mind, the town council got together and termed this cutting across streets as
“jay walking.” It had the immediate
effect of making the Kansas Citian march along streets in military fashion,
never daring to cross streets except in the approved style.
Automobile Topics, Volume 25, Number 9, New York, April 13, 1912,
page 492.
Although the idea of requiring
pedestrians to follow traffic laws may seem second-nature in the twenty-first
century, it was a radical idea in 1912.
The automobile industry was still in its infancy. New York City had only recently enacted the
first comprehensive traffic codes, in 1903; the first line down the middle
of the road was painted in Michigan the previous year; and traffic lights and
stop signs were still a few
years in the future. Pedestrians who had
always enjoyed free access to, and the right-of-way, on public streets, were
confused and bewildered by the new world order.
Kansas City’s anti-jaywalking
ordinance was novel enough at the time that it made national news. Some critics decried the loss of
personal freedom, and mocked the idea of regulating pedestrians; cars,
after all, and not pedestrians, posed the real danger:
The
Jay Walker.
Consider the jay walker. He is omnipresent and although you may never
have heard of him the chances are that you are “him” yourself. The jay walker was discovered, examined,
classified, named, and catalogued by faunal naturalists of the Kansas City
police force. . . .
A jay walker, let it be
explained for the benefit of the uninitiated, is a pedestrian who walks all
over the street, turning to the right or to the left, without rhyme or reason,
cutting angles across corners in defiance of Euclid, taking the middle or the
wrong side of the sidewalk, without compunction of conscience, and otherwise
behaving as if it were plowed ground and not city pavement beneath his feet.
In Kansas City there be traffic
regulations for feet as well as for wheels, and when a pedestrian fails to
execute properly the maneuver of crossing a street he is arrested by the
watchful traffic cop and is run in as a jay walker. This reform is said to have
added greatly to the comfort and peace of mind of automobilists of the
city. As yet no schools for pedestrians have
been opened, and as the traffic regulations are complex it is quite difficult
for even an experienced chalk-line performer to avoid occasional lapses into
jay walking.
The Washington Times (Washington, DC), April 26, 1912, last
edition, page 10.
Kansas City has decided that as
a city grows it is very evident that all traffic on foot as well as on wheels
must be controlled. It believes that the
“jay walker” is a menace to traffic in a busy city and will not permit him to
stray all over a street on which the movement of vehicles is strictly regulated
and so increase the danger of accidents, nor will it allow him to cut corners.
Evening Times Republican (Marshalltown, Iowa), May 10, 1912, page
6.
Regulating the Pedestrian.
The public especially in our large
cities is at last to have the protection that it deserves. The pernicious pedestrian is to be
regulated. Kansas City has recently
adopted a new ordinance for the control of travel, not on wheels, not in autos
or aeroplanes, but on foot. This important
step means that our large cities are finally to become fairly safe for buzz
wagons, street cars, and vehicles of sundry other sorts and descriptions. Kansas City is to be congratulated on setting
the pace. These pedestrians at whom the
law is aimed, who recklessly jeopardize the lives and limbs of the law-abiding
public, are characterized by the ordinance as “jay-walkers” . . . . But,
regardless of the terminology, we are glad to learn that the deadly foot
passenger is going to be regulated. It
is to be hoped that Kansas City will be progressive enough to prescribe the
strictest possible regulations; the pedestrian should be compelled to wear two
fenders, one before and one after; he should be forced to carry head and tail
lights and also a tag with a number thereon in plain figures, such number to be
registered at police headquarters; and he should be provided with a horn which
will give a loud, clear not so that express wagons and freight trucks may have
plenty of warning and ample time to get out of the way.
The public must be protected at
all hazards; and the pedestrian must learn that vehicles have the same right on
the street and the same right to protection as himself.
Albuquerque Evening Herald, June 19, 1912, page 4.
But while many people, presumably
walkers, bemoaned the loss of freedom, other cities with high-volume automobile
traffic soon followed suit:
Motorists Interested in New
Regulation.
Washington motorists are much
interested in a new ordinance recently put into effect in Kansas City, Mo.,
which enables the police to control pedestrians in the town district the same
as they do the drivers of motor cars and other vehicles.
Visitors to Kansas City are
surprised to find themselves hailed by a crossing patrolman for cutting
corners. In Kansas City the walker must
follow the sidewalk, and those that do not are told that if they are caught
doing the same thing over they will be taken to the police station and
fined. There is a penalty of $5 to $50
for this offense. This new law has been
in force for the past month, and has proven very satisfactory. The chief advantage of the new law is that it
makes it much safer for the driver of any kind of a vehicle. There is no congestion around the main
corners, and visitors marvel at the ease with which the traffic squad handles
the traffic.
New York is giving serious
consideration to controlling the pedestrians, while in Chicago an ordinance
with this end in view is in course of preparation, it is declared.
The Washington (DC) Times,
June 1, 1912, Final Edition, page 10.
Washington DC enacted its own
“jay-walker” laws by 1913:
“Jay-Walker”
Rules Made in Washington.
Traffic regulations just
decreed by the commissioners of the District of Columbia should be studied by
politicians, pleasure seekers, patriots and others who are planning to visit
Washington.
The new rules are in line with
those adopted some time ago by several western cities and are designed to
suppress the so-called “jay-walker.”
These new rules regulate the pedestrian, and if similar measures were
enforced in Salt Lake and other cities it would tend to minimize the danger
attendant on traffic.
Pedestrians in Washington are
now forbidden to cross a street except at a corner, to walk in the street
except at a corner, or to cross the street diagonally.
“The roadbeds of highways and
streets,” say the new rules, “are primarily intended for vehicles,” and while
drivers “must exercise all possible care,” pedestrians must not “needlessly
interfere with the passage of vehicles or walks or sidewalks in such a manner
as to “obstruct their free use by others” is prohibited.
It requires the enforcement of
rigid rules to protect the “jay-walker” from his self-made peril.
The Salt Lake Tribune, March 23, 1913, Second News Section, page
21.
Earlier Use of “Jay-Walker”.
Although the word, and the crime
of, “jay walking,” first gained notoriety, and came into widespread use, in the
wake of Kansas City’s pedestrian ordinance of 1912, the expression had been
used before 1912. Peter Norton, the
author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age
in the American City (MIT Press, 2008), has identified at least two
earlier uses; a cartoon ridiculing “jay walkers,” from the Kansas City Star (April 1911), and a brief item that appeared in
the Chicago Tribune (April 7, 1909):
Chauffeurs assert with some
bitterness that their ‘joy riding’ would harm nobody if there were not so much
jay walking.”
At the time, the word “jay” was a
common synonym of rube, rustic, or hayseed – a country bumpkin.[i] The word was considered insulting, and could
be used as a noun, an adjective, and ultimately an adverb. A person could be a “jay rube,” they could be
“jay,” a backwards town could be a “jay town.”
“Jay-walker” would have been a natural, literal use of the word “jay” to
describe an unsophisticated pedestrian.
 |
| Roanoke Times - May 30 1894 |
Although the expression,
“jay-walker,” would have been understood in 1909 to have the same meaning
ascribed to it in Kansas City by 1911, the
few appearances of the word in print may suggest that the word was not
idiomatic, but merely one of several possible, literal descriptions of a dangerous
pedestrian. The writer of the Chicago
article may have used, “jay walking,” to play off the expression, “joy riding,”
used earlier in the same sentence.
The choice of those specific words,
in Kansas City, Missouri, however, may have been intended as a pun, of sorts;
influenced by a cross-border rivalry with Kansas. Kansas and Missouri had been rivals since the
Border War of the 1850s, when pro-slavery “Border Ruffians” from Missouri
battled free-soil toughs from Kansas.
Those Kansas toughs were known as – “Jay Hawkers.”
Writers in 1912 picked up on the
word-play; presumably the Kansas City lawmakers could have been just as clever:
These pedestrians at whom the
law is aimed, who recklessly jeopardize the lives and limbs of the law-abiding
public, are characterized by the ordinance as “jay-walkers,” probably partly to
distinguish them from the Kansas jayhawkers across the river.
Albuquerque Evening Herald, June 19, 1912, page 4.
The name probably was suggested
by Kansas City’s intimate acquaintance with a certain animal known to science as
a “jayhawker,” but on this point the authorities are silent.
The Washington Times (Washington, DC), April 26, 1912, last
edition, page 10.
A related expression, that pre-dates
the earliest-known uses of “jay walker,” may also have influenced the choice of
words – the “Jay Driver” terrorized the Southwest for years before jaywalkers
were deemed to be the problem.
 |
| The Guthrie (Oklahoma) Daily Leader, October 22, 1907. |
Jay Drivers
If a bad walker is a “jay
walker,” then wouldn’t a bad driver be a “jay driver”? As it turns out, the answer is yes. Before 1912, when the emphasis was on
restricting or controlling the behavior of drivers, the term, “jay driver,”
appeared in print dozens of times.
All of the examples of the phrase that I have found all come from the
corridor from Southern California, through New Mexico, Oklahoma, Kansas,
Missouri and Nebraska; suggesting that it may have been somewhat of a
regionalism (if not indicative of some procedural error or limitation of my
searches – perish the thought).
The earliest appearance of “Jay
driver” that I could find is from Kansas, again, in 1905. It is not clear whether the “drivers” are
necessarily automobile drivers, or drivers, generally, including the drivers of
horse-drawn vehicles:
I think that “Close Observer”
is one of those jay drivers who goes
plugging along in the same old ruts and mud holes, and spends most of his time
in observing, but does not observe that when an obstruction has been placed in
the road it is for the purpose of getting the jay drivers to drive to one side
so as to make a new track, and save the roads.
Baxter Springs News (Baxter Springs, Kansas), September 21, 1905,
page 4, column 2;
I asked him what those rocks
were in the road for. He said to keep the jay drivers from wearing the road
all in one place. I asked him why he had
not burned the brush that lay on the side of the road. He said, “it’s none of your dam business.”
Baxter Springs News, October 5, 1905, page 5, column 1.
An article in the Los Angeles Herald, from late-1905, however,
is expressly aimed at all drivers of all “wagons, carriages, wheels
[(bicycles)], and autos.” People who
have driven through downtown LA recently, may recognize that some things remain
the same:
One of the most prolific causes
of accidents in the busy streets of Los Angeles is the “jay” driver. He is
especially a nuisance in this city right now, as the crowded tourist season
comes on, and measures should be taken to suppress him.
There are certain well defined
rules of the road that prevail all over the United States and are as
fundamental as the common laws. It
requires that teams meeting shall pass to the right. Teams overtaking shall pass on the left
side. A team shall be hitched facing the
way it would drive, with the right side to the curb. Corners must not be “cut,” but be taken at a
full swing. And traffic at crossings
must pass and repass by turns.
Every driver knows, or should
know these rules. An observance of them
keeps traffic moving orderly in the most crowded streets in the world. They are disregarded every minute of the day
in Los Angeles, and no one pretends to enforce their observance. The driver is a law into himself; he goes in
either direction on either side of the busiest street, and he cuts and crosses
at his own sweet will. As a result, rows
and clashes are continual, and collisions, with serious results, are
inevitable.
Los Angeles has a “traffic
squad” of policemen, who stand on the downtown corners, supposedly to keep the
order of the road. So far as regulating
traffic is concerned, they might as well be wooden Indians. They are highly ornamental, but they do
nothing to keep the several streams of teams moving unobstructedly in their
proper channels. Wagons, carriages,
wheels and autos drive indiscriminately about, and the only effect on the
policemen is to keep them awake sufficiently to dodge death, the same as
pedestrians must do.
It would be a simple matter to
regulate the “jay” driver. The power rests in Chief Auble and his
traffic squad. The chief should see that
his ornamental policemen get busy as well, and that they take a hand in sorting
out the traffic and keeping it moving properly, safely, and sanely. The congestion that now often marks Main, Spring
and Broadway and the cross streets could be materially lessened, the number of
accidents could be considerably cut down and the safety of pedestrians,
especially strangers, would be vastly increased, at no cost except a little
work and intelligence on the part of men now chiefly poseurs.
Other cities do this – Paris,
London, New York, even San Francisco, Los Angeles can and should.
Los Angeles Herald, December 15, 1905, page 6, column 2.
 |
| Albuquerque Evening Citizen - June 27, 1907 |
Albuquerque also had a “jay driver” problem. The various uses of “jay,” throughout the articles, illustrate how the word was used, and understood, at the time. You can also get a sense of the problems encountered when cars, horses and people first vied with one another on the mean streets of Albuquerque:
Albuquerque is not a jay city. In fact, we are a good many years in advance
of times in the southwest and more up to date than any city of our size in the
United States. At the same time there is
one jay feature in Albuquerque which
is annoying, dangerous and unnecessary.
During the cool summer
evenings, the streets of Albuquerque are alive with carriages, autos and saddle
horses. Almost invariably drivers will
be found with their rigs or autos on the wrong side of the street. Endless confusion results and the few drivers
who do know how to drive are put to no end of trouble to avoid collisions with jay drivers. . . .
A well known Albuquerquean said
last night: “The habit of jay driving
is growing until it is becoming a nuisance.
The other evening, one of these careless drivers on the wrong side of
the street ran squarely into my horse and the animal almost threw myself and
wife from the carriage in an effort to get away. Our carriage was forced among several young
trees near the curbing and they were badly damaged. I was on the right side of the street; the
jay driver was on the wrong. I so
informed him and he said that a street was public property and he would drive
on whatever side he so desired. I have
since looked the matter up. There is a
strong city ordinance covering this matter and it should be called to the
attention of the police. Jay driving gives a city the appearance
of a country town quicker than anything else I know. There is no excuse for jay
driving here. Our streets are wide and
there is plenty of room for every vehicle, auto and saddle horse to remain on
the right side. The city ordinance
against jay driving should be enforced.
Albuquerque Evening Citizen (New Mexico), June 27, 1907, page 4,
column 1.
“Jay drivers,” not “jay walkers,”
were seen as the problem in Albuquerque, in part, because pedestrians seem to
have had the right-of-way. The term, “jay
drivers,” as used in Albuquerque, also seems to have encompassed both horse drivers
and automobile drivers:
Jay
Drivers Imperil
Life Each Hour in Albuquerque
City Ordinances Disregarded and
People are Constantly Endangered by Recklessness.
The number of jay drivers on the streets of
Albuquerque seems to be on the increase.
What has become of the courtesy of the road in Albuquerque? . . . .
Horses are not only driven at a
speed prohibited in the city ordinances, but the right of way which is due
pedestrians, is utterly ignored.
Vehicles are driven across the streets in the most crowded places
regardless of the inconvenience to other drivers or pedestrians. Teams are turned about in the middle of the
street and as for keeping to the right, it would seem that a large number of
drivers did not known their right from their left. Every day women and children are forced to
scurry to the sidewalks to escape being run over by reckless or unheedful
driving.
Albuquerque Evening Citizen, June 29, 1907, page 2, column 6.
 |
| Albuquerque Evening Citizen - June 29, 1907 |
When cars were new, the “jay”
driver was seen as the problem. But as
people became more familiar with the new rules of the road, and as the number
of motorized vehicles increased, attention turned to regulating pedestrians. It became clear that “jay” pedestrians could pose
just as much of a hazard as “jay” drivers:
Getting The Jays. Official care has been taken of the jay driver. Now get the jay walker.
The Guthrie Daily Leader (Guthrie, Oklahoma), October 22, 1907,
page 4.
But despite the early recognition
of the problem, and the early use of the word, it took nearly five more years for Kansas City to pass the
first-ever anti-jaywalking law, and to introduce the word "jay walker" on a wide scale.
During the intervening years,
cities and towns grappled with how best to keep the roads safe. There seems to have been a campaign, in
Oklahoma, at least, to educate “jay” drivers to follow all those pesky, new, rules
of the road – like driving on the right side of the road:
After “Jay” Drivers.
Chief Garrett Says Driers of
Vehicles Must Obey the “Rules of the Road.”
Are you a “jay” driver? If so, you had
better begin to look up “the rules of the road,” and hereafter drive on the
right side.
The Daily Ardmoreite, July 1, 1909, page 5, column 5;
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| The Daily Ardmoreite (Ardmore, Oklahoma) - July 1, 1909 |
Rules Proposed for Motor Car
Drivers.
Right Driving Campaign Started
for Education of Jay Drivers.
. . . An automobile, even when
passing a vehicle ahead, shall keep to the right and as near the righthand curb
as practicable.
The Guthrie Daily Leader, September 13, 1909, page 4, column 4.
 |
| Guthrie (Oklahoma) Daily Leader - September 13, 1909 |
Omaha, Nebraska was dealing with similar issues, but their initial solution sounds a bit more complicated, at least as reported in the local newspaper – I’m not sure that the writer knew his left from his right:
Ordinance 6029 provides that
all drivers of vehicles, drawn by horse or propelled by power, shall keep to
the right hand side of the street going west or south and to the left side of
the street going east or north. The intent was to prevent “jay” drivers or “joy riders” from creating confusion and
endangering foot passengers and other drivers at crossings and on crowded
streets.
Omaha Daily Bee, January 9, 1910, Editorial Section, page 15,
column 6.
 |
| Omaha Daily Bee - January 8, 1910 |
Omaha’s efforts to curb traffic problems were also hampered by a “jay” driving city councilman. In 1907, Councilman Elsasser introduced a resolution to stop enforcement of the new traffic rules, which had only been in effect since 1905. He introduced the legislation after being arrested for driving:
. . . persistently along the
left side of the street and cut[ting] corners to suit himself. In court he maintained that it was his right
to drive as he pleased.
Omaha Daily Bee, January 8, 1910, page 4, and January 9, 1910,
Editorial Section, page 15.
 |
| Omaha Daily Bee - January 9, 1910 |
Although the resolution would ultimately be found to have been illegal, and unenforceable, it passed. As a result, the Omaha police were effectively stopped police enforcement of the traffic laws for three years, until the issue came up in court, and the ordinance was again given the force of law.
With such unrepentant, pedestrian-centric lawmakers in power in Omaha (and
presumably many other cities as well), change was slow to come. It took
two more years, and a one hundred and eighty mile detour south, to Kansas City.
Joy Riders
Another concept ushered in by the
introduction of automobiles to city streets was “joy riding.” Although “joy riding” often involved “jay”
driving, “joy riding” generally had a specific meaning, similar to the meaning
it still has today. Merriam-Webster online
defines a joyride as, “a ride taken for pleasure (as in a car or aircraft);
especially: an automobile ride marked by reckless driving (as in a stolen
car).
When the term, “joy ride” first
emerged in about 1907, it often referred to drivers who borrowed their
employers’ cars overnight:
Automobile owners of California
are much interested in a decision recently made by Superior Judge B. V. Sargent
of Monterey county [(California)], affirming the constitutionality of an act
passed by the State Legislature in 1905 relating to the use of an automobile
without the consent of the owner. A
chauffeur was prosecuted criminally in the Justice’s court at Pajaro for taking
his employer’s car out without permission.
He was convicted and then appealed to the Superior Court on the ground
that the statute did not apply to a chauffeur but was intended only for
application in the case of a person in no way connected with the owner of the
car. Judge Sargent, however, holds that
the statute is enforceable against any person not the owner of the car used and
dismissed the appeal. This is the first
time that the question has been raised and Judge Sargent’s decision has
established a precedent that will be a great help in curbing the “joy ride” practice among chauffeurs.
The Sun (New York), January 29, 1907, page 8, column 5.
Similar “joy riding” cost the
city of New York thousands of dollars in the first few years of the city government’s
car acquisition program, which began in 1903:
 |
| New York Tribune - September 29, 1907 |
The municipal “joy rider” is responsible for the
destruction of more city cars than have ever been worn out in legitimate
service.
So universal has
this abuse become that a prominent city official informed a Tribune reporter
that he was willing to wager that 90 per cent of the cars owned by the city
could have been found any fine evening down at the recent Mardi Gras at Coney
Island. . . .
Of course, a
chauffeur who has been out all night with a party of “joy riders” is in no shape for work next morning. And neither is his car, after having been
raced home in the small hours of the morning more often than not upon soft
tires by a sleepy driver. The chauffeur
does not mind these nocturnal excursions, became he usually receives a handsome
tip from the “joy riders” that helps to swell his $1,200 a year salary from the
city. Besides, his chief would not be
mad enough to expect him to get to work early next morning after being out all
night with a party of somebody’s friends.
New York Tribune, September 29, 1907, page 3, column 3.
 |
| New York Tribune - September 29, 1907 |
But the expression was also used
in association with perfectly legal pleasure excursions:
His summer boarders take “joy rides,” and as these rides are not
included in the board, he nets quite a tiny sum from them. Doing similar work for his neighbors has made
a little fortune for him, and he is now contemplating buying a car of higher
horsepower.
The Washington Times, July 31, 1907, last edition, page 4, column
1.
The San Francisco Call published a full-page spread, detailing the
various types of “joy riders,” and describing their nefarious methods of
securing free rides or borrowing cars.
 |
| The San Francisco Call - October 6 1907 |
 |
| The San Francisco Call - October 6 1907 |
 |
| The Spokane Press (Spokane, Washington), September 9, 1909, page 4. |
Another aspect of the new
technology that people had to learn to live with was the sometimes excessive
speed of emergency vehicles through town:
 |
| The Tacoma Times - November 12, 1914 |
Although the early appearances of
the words, “jay driver,” were all confined to the Southwest, the word, “jay,”
was not regionally limited to the Southwest.
The word “jay,” denoting a rustic, or rusticity, was known and used
across the entire country; and had been since 1884.
Jay Town - The Origins of “Jay”
The word, “jay,” has not always
meant, a country “jay.” The earliest use
of the rustic sense of “jay” listed in the American Heritage Dictionary of
Slang, is a pun, at the expense of widely reviled financier, Jay Gould, who had
once tried to corner the gold market:
“1884 Dougherty Stump Speaker 12: They
said he was a Jay. If he was such a Jay how did he get all the Gould?”
The earliest appearance that I found
is also from 1884; early January, 1884, but it may have appeared a bit earlier. The word was used in an article, credited to
the New York Times, explaining the meaning
of the show-biz expression, “Jay town.”
The article explains the meaning of the word, as though the writer believed
that the expression was unfamiliar to most readers.
It is therefore unclear whether
the word, “jay,” had already attained currency outside of show-business, or
whether the article marks the moment when the expression broke out of its niche
sub-culture of origin. In either case,
the publication of the article in the cultural center of the country, New York
City, and reprinting of the article in newspapers in remote sections of the
country, may have helped the word achieve a wider level of recognition that it
may not have previously enjoyed:
A
“Jay Town.”
New
York Times. A great deal of success of a traveling
theatrical company depends upon the manner in which its route is laid out, the
endeavor always being to bring the distances to be traveled down to the
shortest point, in order to reduce railway fares as much as possible. To this end it is always attempted to avoid
doubling on the trail, so to speak, and the canceling of a week’s time often
causes a very large additional outlay, and generally produces a corresponding
shrinkage of receipts. In desirable
cities the theatrical dates are filled long in advance, and when a manager, for
one reason or another, suddenly changes his arrangements, he finds it difficult
to secure open time excepting in what are known in the professional vocabulary
as “jay” towns. A “jay” town, it may be
explained to the unversed reader, is a community where unappreciative ignorance
prevails, and where business is consequently pretty bad.
Daily Globe (St. Paul, Minnesota), January 3, 1884, page 3, column
6; The Sedalia Weekly Bazoo (Sedalia,
Missouri), January 15, 1885, page 7, column 2.
Although the article explains
what a “jay” town is, it does not clearly explain the derivation of the
word. However, the beginning of the
article contrasts a “jay” town with more convenient, regular stops, which are
presumably larger towns. A “jay town”
requires a “doubling on the trail, so to speak,” whereas non-“jay” towns “bring
the distances to be traveled down to the shortest point.” This may suggest that the word “jay” is a
reference, at least in part, to the shape of the letter “J”.
But the end of the article
defines a “jay” town as a “community where unappreciative ignorance prevails,”
which may suggest that the word, “jay,” is a reference to a small-town swell
and an allusion to the jay in Aesop’s fable, The Jay and the Peacock. A
country swell, dressed up for the theater, may still be perceived as just a
country bumpkin; just as Aesop’s jay was still just a “jay dressed up in
peacock feathers.”[ii] Perhaps the word caught on in show business
because it resonated on both levels.
The expression may also have
resonated for a third reason. Long
before “jay” was a rustic rube, the expression, “country Jake,” was a common expression
used to denote a country bumpkin:
Well,
you’re a pooty looking country jake,
you are, to advertise for a dog, and don’t know a Chiney terrier from a singed
possum?
Cooper’s Clarksburg Register (Clarksburg, Virginia), November 7,
1856, page 1, column 2.
But maybe you’ve been to
college, (‘most every “county jake”
has, for a session, at least,) and there learned that it is woman’s lawful and
inalienable right to chase the cows out of the corn and pick the apples.
Belmont Chronicle (St. Clairsville, Ohio, September 10, 1857, page
3, column 3.
We have seen country jakes fully as smart as nice
little fellows from the Metropolis. How
some people do “swell.”
Rock Island Argus (Rock Island, Illinois), July 18, 1871, page 4,
column 2.
“Country Jake” was still in use
in 1883, just before “jay” first appeared in print:
“There comes a ‘country Jake’ up the street. Let’s initiate him,” said a couple of “dudes”
the other day.
The Democratic Press (Ravenna, Ohio), October 18, 1883, page 2,
column 3.
The two expressions even
overlapped after 1884, as shown in an article about showgirls at the Minnesota
State Fair:
The way they guy the dudes and
smitten country jakes, makes one’s
hair stand on ends. Look at No. 13
there. She has a very sweet, innocent
face, but delights in smiling at those jays
merely to gather a large following.
St. Paul Daily Globe, April 2, 1888, page 2, column 2.
The word “jay” frequently
appeared in print as part of the expression, “country jay,” which was
essentially equivalent to “country jake.”
“Country jay” and “country Jake” were both still in use in the early
1900s; and “Country Jay” was the name of a famous racehorse in the early
1900s. Even if the word, “jay,” was not
derived directly from “country Jake” alone, it seems plausible that “country
Jake” could have been a factor in the emergence of the new sense of “jay” in
1884.
The word “jay” is attested as early as 1881, but not in the same sense as a rube or country bumpkin. In an article about actors' slang, “jay” was used as an example of an insult one actor might use to disparage another:
The word “jay” is attested as early as 1881, but not in the same sense as a rube or country bumpkin. In an article about actors' slang, “jay” was used as an example of an insult one actor might use to disparage another:
If this representative of the burnt cork branch of the business [(black-face minstrel)] desired to express his contempt for "Gilhooly and McGinnis, Ireland's peerless characterizationists," he would wither the peerless pair by calling them "jays," or "chumps," or "duffers," or "ranks," or perhaps "hams."
Los Angeles Herald, August 13, 1881, page 2, column 3.
Regardless of the precise origin,
“Jay” quickly became a universally known insult, connoting ignorance or
low-brow tastes. The stage was set for
“jay” driving and “jay” walking. The
only thing missing at the time were automobiles. They came later.
Conclusion:
“Jay” walking, was used on at
least a few occasions before it appeared in Kansas City in 1911, and went viral
in 1912. It is unclear whether those
early uses reflect that the phrase had already become idiomatic, or whether
they are just isolated instances of people making the natural, literal
assertion that some walkers were “jay.” When
Kansas City used the word in its first anti-jaywalking ordinance, it may have
been chosen, in part, as a dig at their cross-border rivals in Kansas. At least that is how it was perceived by some
observers at the time.
But the now extinct expression,
“jay driver,” is even older, dating to at least as early as 1905. All of the pre-1912 examples of “jay driver,”
that I found, were all from the southwest quadrant of the United States,
suggesting that the term may have been a regionalism. But after 1912, possibly influenced by the now
well-known expression, “jay-walking,” “jay” driving became a common expression
used everywhere. “Jay driving” was still
in use in the 1930s; it shows up several times in searches of the New York Times
Archives for the 1930s.
The word, “Jay,” the foundation
of both “jaywalking” and “jay driving,” appears to have been popularized in
about 1884. It may have come from the
show-biz term for out-of-the-way places with unappreciative audiences. Perhaps from the “J” travelled when
scheduling such a town, perhaps from “Jay,” as in a jay dressed up in peacock
feathers, and perhaps as a corruption, or streamlining, of “country Jake.”
Rock, Chalk, Jay-Walk!!!!
[i] Smiting the Hand that Feeds, Part II – Why There
is an Away-from-the-Farm Movement, Hugh Irish, Colliers, Volume 50, Number 18, January 18, 1913, page 26 (Glance
at the glossary of epithets with which the farmer is cheered on his easeful,
rose-studded way while doing the work that nobody else on erth deigns to do:
Hayseed, Clodhopper, Rube, Jay, Hey-Rube, Farmer John, Country Jake, Rutabaga
Delegate, Alfalfa Member, Turnip Shepherd, Rustic, Rural Swain, Our Friend from
the Back Counties, Whiskerino, Uncle.
[ii] Ascott
R. Hope Moncrieff, A Book About Dominies [(Scottish schoolmaster)]: Being the
Reflections and Recollections of a Member of the Profession, Edinburgh, W. P.
Nimmo, 1871, page 184 (For he is a jay in peacock’s feathers, a grocer’s
shop-boy most likely, aping the folly of superior fools. What a magnificent strut he has . . . .); The Cambria Freeman, Ebensburg,
Pennsylvania, August 18, 1882, page 1, column 6 (A Cuban noble is a
contemptible individual who is generally of humble origin . . . . [T]o oil his vanity, he purchased a title of
the Spanish government, usually count or marquis, and struts about like a jay
in peacock’s feathers.).
