Long before William Hung’s idiosyncratic
performance of Ricky
Martin’s classic, “She Bangs,” mystified millions of music(?) fans, the murky
origins of the idiom, “the Whole Shebang,” mystified “literally” dozens of etymology fans.
Introduction
A common misconception is that
prisoners of war at Andersonville
coined “shebang” during the Civil War to designate their improvised or
inadequate shelters. But historians for
the National Park Service insist that the story is a myth; likely fueled by,
“MacKinlay Kantor’s 1955 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, Andersonville, which uses ‘shebang’ as a universal term for
shelters at Andersonville prison.[i] Although there were soldiers at Andersonville
and other prison camps who did call their shelters “shebangs,”[ii]
documentary evidence suggests that most prisoners at Andersonville generally
used alternate words, like tent, hut, dugout, burrow, lean-to, shanty, or
shelter.[iii]
The word “shebang” (or
“chebang”), however, predates the Civil War, so it could not have been coined
there, in any case. In addition, the
earliest known uses of “shebang” refer to organizations, or groups of people;
not shelters, as it was used later.
These two senses of “shebang” (or “chebang”) may have been influenced by
two separate and distinct words; the
Irish Shebeen (low-class tavern), and
more surprisingly, perhaps the Hebrew Shebang
(seven).
The idiom, “the whole shebang (or
chebang),” appeared in a literal sense as early as 1863, and figuratively by
1865. Since the word “shebang” (or
“chebang”) was sometimes used as onomatopoeia, to suggest the firing of a gun
(like we might use “bang” today), “the whole shebang” may have been influenced
by an earlier idiom, with the same meaning; “the whole shoot” – che bang!
Etymology of Shebang (or Chebang)
Summary
Circumstantial evidence suggests
that this earlier sense may have been derived from the Hebrew word, shebang (seven), by members of a
fraternal order who were familiar with the cabalistic properties of shebang and the number seven, as
understood by Freemasons. The Hebrew
word shebang represents seven,[iv]
the “perfect number.” Shebang and its variant, shabang, denote perfection, sworn oaths,
and “sufficiency or fullness.” Mystical
fraternal orders, like the Masons, revered these cabalistic properties. All of which might, at first blush, seem
unrelated to, “the whole shebang;” but for the fact that the earliest example
of the word that I could find (spelled, “Chebang,” 1854) referred to an Odd
Fellows lodge (the Odd Fellows are a fraternal order much like the Masons[v]). The use of “shebang” (or “chebang”) to
designate a lodge to which the members pledged a solemn oath is consistent with
at least one of the mystical meanings of the Hebrew Shebang, as understood in Freemasonry.
The better known sense of “shebang,”
as a lean-to or improvised shelter (and eventually any building), appears to be
derived from the Irish word, shebeen. The Irish word, shebeen, originally referred to a low-grade ale; shebeen was sold in shebeen houses, which was ultimately shortened to, shebeen, standing alone. Shebeen
houses, or simply, shebeens, were
often located in ramshackle buildings or temporary shelters, like a
“shebang.” But “shebang” was also used
frequently in reference to a tavern, strongly suggestive of a relationship with
the earlier word, shebeen.
The two words appear to have
merged into a single word in English, with multiple shades of inter-related
meaning. “Shebang,” and its alternate
spelling, “chebang,” appeared in print regularly, in all of its various senses,
from as early as 1861. The variant
spellings and variant meanings all survived well into the early 1900s. The various senses of “shebang” (or “chebang”)
were similar enough, that the distinction between and among them was easily
blurred. If a “shebang” (or “chebang”)
is an organization or group of people, they might be housed in a building,
shelter, or “shebang.” If a “shebang”
(or “chebang”) is a low-class tavern, then the tavern might be housed in a
low-class building, shelter, or “shebang.”
If groups of people gather for a social occasion, their “shebang” (or
“chebang”) might meet at a tavern, or “shebang” (or “chebang”) for drinks. Eventually, the word came to be used loosely,
to refer to any group, place, or anything at all.
Definition of Shebang
Merriam-Webster’s
online dictionary tells us:
Definition of
SHEBANG: everything involved in what is under consideration – usually used in
the phrase the whole shebang.
Although the word is now almost
exclusively used as part of the phrase, “the whole shebang,” this was not
always the case. Many of the early
descriptions of the word, and early dictionary definitions, focused on the
sense of “shebang” as a shelter:
Everything
in the way of shelter, in camp parlance, that is not a tent, is a “shebang.”
Mrs. A. H. Hoge, The Boys in Blue or Heroes of the “Rank and
File,” New York, E. B. Treat &
Co., 1867, page 272.
The Colorado dialect, in other respects, is
peculiar. A dwelling-house is invariably
styled “shebang;” and the word, in many cases, is very appropriate.”
Bayard Taylor, Colorado: A Summer Trip, New York, G. P.
Putnam and Son, 1867, page 60.
The fresh idiomatic phrases and
“slang” words, that pour in on the ear of the traveler through our New West,
and especially in its mining districts, will greatly amuse and interest him. .
. . What wealth of new words and new meanings for old ones would Shakespere not
have gathered up in a week’s life among the miners of White Pine for instance?
“You bet” is an emphatic affirmative; . . . “pan out,” borrowed from washing
sands for gold, signifies turning out or amounting to . . . ; a loafer is a
“bummer;” “shebang”
is applied to any sort of shop, house or office . . . .
Samuel Bowles, Our New West. Records of Travel Between the
Mississippi River and the Pacific Ocean, Hartford, Connecticut, Hartford
Publishing Co., 1869, page 506.
Two much discussed terms are shebang and skedaddle[vi].
The former, used even yet by students of Yale College and elsewhere to
designate their rooms, or a theatrical or other performance in a public hall,
has its origin probably in a corruption of the French cabane, a hut, familiar
to the troops that came from Louisiana, and constantly used in the Confederate
camp for the simple huts, which they built with such alacrity and skill for
their winter quarters.
Maximillian Schele De Vere, Americanisms: The English of the New World,
New York, Charles Scribner & Co., 1872, page 284.
Shebang. A strange word that had its origin
during the late civil war. It is applied
alike to a room, a shop, or a hut, a tent, a cabin; an engine-house.
John Russell Bartlett, Dictionary of Americanisms, 4th
Edition, Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1877, page 578.
Shebang. – A word used very much like
“diggings” in English slang, and applied alike to one’s residence; a place of
public meeting; an office for business; or indeed any place where one is permanently,
or even temporarily located.
John S. Farmer, Americanisms – Old and New, a Dictionary of
Words, Phrases and Colloquialisms Peculiar to the United States, British
America, The West Indies, &c., &c., London, Private Printing, 1889,
page 61-62.
But although these early accounts
focus on the well-known sense of “shebang,” as shelter, as widely used during
the Civil War, not all of the early sources use the word in this sense. The earliest attestations used “shebang” (or
“chebang”) to refer to a n organization or group of people, and many early
attestations referred to low-grade taverns, much like the word, shebeen.
In addition, although some early references speculated that “shebang”
came from the French word, cabana,
the paper trail points to a different region; Ohio and western Pennsylvania.
Definition of “the Whole Shebang”
“The whole shebang,” is one of a group of
English-language idioms starting with, “the whole - - - ,” all of which mean
more or less the same thing, namely, “everything”: the
whole nine yards, the whole kit and caboodle, the whole ball of wax, the
whole enchilada, the whole shooting match.
Shebang/Chebang – Organization or Group
Hebrew Shebang
- Seven
Several mid-nineteenth century
Masonic texts, religious texts, and other books, discuss the significance of
the Hebrew word, shebang:
Masonic Texts:
Seven. The number seven, among all nations, has been
considered as a sacred number, and in every system of antiquity we find
frequent reference to it. . . . Among
the Hebrews, the etymology of the word shows its sacred import – for, from the
word (shebang) seven, is derived the verb (shebang) to swear, because oaths
were confirmed either by witnesses, or by some victims offered in sacrifice . .
. .
L. Carroll Judson, The Masonic Advocate: Being a Concise
Exposition and Full Defense of Free Masonry, Philadelphia, 1859, page 225.
The radical meaning of
is sufficiency or fullness, and the number seven was thus
denominated, because it was on the seventh day that God completed his work of
creation; and “hence,” says Parkhurst, “seven was both among believers and
heathens the number of sufficiency or completion.”
Albert G. Mackey, New and Improved Edition, A Lexicon of
Freemasonry, Philadelphia, Moss, Brother & Co., 1859, page 438.
Religious Texts:
“Seven”. “Seven was also called the perfect number;
because in that number of days God perfected the work of creation; and the name
of the number … shebang, comes from the verb . . . shebang, to fill, to
satiate; this verb also, in the conjugations Niphil and Hithpahel, signifies to
swear, because an oath is the perfection
of a covenant or a security.
William Goodhugh, Pictorial Dictionary of the Holy Bible,
Volume 2, London, Henry G. Bohn, 1845, page 1225.
Sarah and her husband continued to
dwell in Abimelech’s dominions, some few miles to the south of Gerar; a place
afterwards called Beer-Shebang, or Well of the Oath, from the covenant of peace
there made between the patriarch and the king.
Grace Aguilar, Women of Israel, Volume 1, New York, D.
Appleton & Company, 1853, page 66.
Other Books:
The word ‘sabath’ is from the Hebrew shebang
or yom shaba, meaning the seventh day.
Andrew Jackson Davis, The Magic Staff; an Autobiography of Andrew
Jackson Davis, Fifth Edition, New York, J. S. Brown & Co., 1859, page
330.
My initial inclination was to
dismiss the possible Hebrew influence as unrealistic, or merely a coincidence. The English word “shebang” (or “chebang”),
after all, first came into widespread use during the Civil War; decades before
the significant waves of Jewish emigration to the United States after
1880. But, the earliest use of “shebang”
(or “chebang”), in a sense that seems related to the modern idiom, refers to an
Odd Fellows lodge, so perhaps the Hebrew shebang
entered the language through Masonic-style fraternal organizations. The connection is at least plausible.
Shebang (Chebang)
/ Organization or Group
A humorous story published in western
Pennsylvania, in 1854, tells of a businessman who receives a letter of
introduction for a man named “Sparks,” coming to town to conduct some
business. The letter says that Sparks, who
is coming to town from “the Western Reserve” in northeastern Ohio, is “an Odd
Fellow.”
The joke of the story is that the
recipient misunderstands the letter; he assumes that the visitor is member of
the Odd Fellows when, in reality, he is simply an “odd fellow.”
Upon meeting the stranger, the
recipient of the letter invites the visitor to see their lodge, or “Chebang,”
under the mistaken impression that he is a member of the Order of the Odd
Fellows. The visitor, however, is
actually just an “odd fellow;” he is completely ignorant of Odd Fellows and
their “Chebangs.” In order to keep up a
good front, however, the visitor goes along with the invitation, nodding and pretending
to know what it’s all about.
Through a series of misunderstandings,
the visitor misses his appointment to see the “Chebang,” instead being waylaid
by some local toughs, who show him a false “Chebang,” run him through an
improper initiation ceremony, steal his hat and his wallet, beat him, and leave
him in a dark alley:
Showing
Him the “Chebang!”
Breaking
in an “Odd Fellow.”
‘I had just been to the post
office,’ said our friend Popple, ‘and among other letters of business, was one
from a clerk of a business firm, with whom we now and then did some trade,
informing me that a certain person of Slapjack county, on the Western Reserve, would be down in course
of a few days . . . . The letter in question wound up by saying the
individual’s name was Mr. Jonas Sparks, had money, stood fair; and – was an Odd Fellow!” . . .
[After their initial meeting] ‘First
rate,’ says Sparks, ‘first rate, just my way of doing business, to a T; getting kind o’ late, sort o’ dinner
time; heap o’ runnin round to do. Spose
I send up the wax now, right away, weigh it, I’ll trot around, do up my chores,
and be back again arter dinner.’
‘Very good,’ said Popple, ‘and, by
the way, Sparks, suppose you go to the lodge to-night, and see our Chebang.”
‘Chebang?,
‘Our lodge, got your card with you?’
‘Card?’ says Sparks.
‘Yes, member, aint you?’ replies
Popple.
‘Member?’
‘You understand?’ says Popple . . .
.
‘Now what in sin,’ says Sparks, as
he went on his way, dose that feller Popple mean by lodge and Chebang?
Calculates, I rekon, I’m sort o’green; git out.
I’ll be darned if he don’t find Western Reserve folks as high up in the
figgers as these cute chaps around this settlement are.’ . . .
I found it,’ said Sparks.
‘What?’ says Popple.
‘That Lodge!’
‘Eh? How – where? Have you got your
card?’
‘I bought one.’
‘Ha, ha,’ ejaculated Popple. I guess you’ve been put through!’
‘Well I was,’ says Sparks. ‘I found the
lodge.’
‘Did you, indeed?’
‘Saw the Chebang!’
Raftsman’s Journal (Clearfield, Pennsylvania), July 15, 1854, page
1.
The use of “Chebang” throughout
the article seems consistent with the Masonic understanding of the Hebrew word,
Shebang, as an oath. If the Odd Fellows also understood shebang as an oath, a lodge might use
the word “shebang” (or “chebang”) to identify the lodge to which the members pledged
their oath. It might be a stretch; but
then again, I’m not making this stuff up.
It certainly sounds plausible.
Sadly, there is only one, single
reference that uses “chebang” to designate an Odd Fellows lodge. There are, however, several references from the
just prior to, and during the first years of, the Civil War, in which “shebang”
(or “chebang”) is used in similarly, to refer to an organization or group.
In pre-war Cincinnati, Ohio, the
City Council was a “chebang”:
Mr. Hirst (Deputy Sheriff, as well
as member,) here arose, and said that he had heard the President [Torrance[vii]}
say that he was boss of this “chebang;” he had now to announce that he held
in his hand a paper that made him boss of the “chebang,” and he accordingly produced a writ
of mandamus, from the Supreme Court, commanding the Council to accept the bonds
of Mr. Bellows, as Sealer of Weights and Measures, or appear in Court at
Columbus to answer a charge of contempt.
Cincinnati Daily Press (Ohio), March 28, 1861, page 3, column
7.
During the war, several accounts
of wartime service by soldiers of the 2nd Ohio
Cavalry and the 105th
Ohio Infantry used the word “chebang” or “shebang” to refer to their units. In July, 1862, for example, a soldier
complained about the intemperate behavior of a Kansas Colonel who had been put
in charge of their “chebang”:
Fort
Scott, Kansas, July 26th, 1862.
. . . This inebriate, Weer [(a “Kansas politician, and notorious scoundrel”)],
(he does not deserve the title of colonel) is placed in command. . . . He now
proposes to have a gay and festive drunk, hence he is habitually drunk. One day he details five hundred men for
picket, another day he details a thousand, according as the whim takes him. If the Brigade or Regimental commanders make a
report or enter any complaints, he pays not the slightest attention to them,
cursing all officers alike, telling them to go to h---l, that he runs the “chebang” himself.”
Cleveland Morning Leader, August 5, 1862, page 2.
Several months later, the
“chebang” pulled up stakes, and moved to a new location:
From
the 2d Ohio Cavalry – Arrival of the New Colonel – Orders to Return to Ohio –
Great Rejoicing.
Humbolt,
Kansas, Oct. 16, 1862.
. . . All the available force of
Fort Scott having been sent into Missouri, including about 150 of the 2d, and
reports being well substantiated that they were having a “brush” with the
“Butternuts,” a rumor came that the Indians were committing depredations upon
the whites of Iola and Humbolt.
Subsequently an “order” came for every well man of the Ohio regiment to
be ready to march either in wagons or mounted, within three hours, the result
of which order was, seventy-five men in wagons, and twenty-five on skeleton
horses, in all one hundred men, were able to go. With Captain Stanhope and Lieutenants Deming
and Barnitz in charge, this
“Shebang” left the Fort on the 3d,
for Iola, Kansas, and arrived there on the 4th, at sunset.
The Cleveland Morning Leader, October 29, 1862, page 2, column
3.
In 1863, a soldier of the 105th
Ohio Infantry complained about a slacker from their “shebang” who had published
misleading accounts of their service:
A
Bogus Soldier Shown Up.
Some time since, one Joel S. Bailey,
of Hubbard, who volunteered last summer for a big bounty in the 105th Regiment, wrote a letter home, which was
published with a flourish of trumpets in the Warren Constitution. . . .
I have a few words to say in regard
to Joel Bailey, as I hear he has been writing some statements for home
circulation, that are not true. He is no
man t all, and is completely played
out of our “shebang.” He has not been with us through any of our
hardships, and has had nothing to do but remain at Nashville and lie on the
rest of the boys who are fighting the battles.
Western Reserve Chronicle (Warren, Ohio), April 29, 1863, page 2,
column 2.
As the war wore on, the word was
no longer confined to units from Ohio. In
1863, a mobile Army hospital received orders to move the entire unit to another
location; James Bryan, MD (who had earlier served as the “President of the
Medico-Chirurgical College of Philadelphia”), described the maneuver as moving,
“the whole ‘chebang’”:
On the second of June we received
orders from the commander of the post, Col. Geo. E. Bryant, of the 12th
Wisconsin Vols., to remove the whole hospital up to Young’s Point or Milliken’s
Bend. On the third the
whole “chebang” was
removed on board the “Forest Queen,” and started for Young’s Point.
James Bryan, M.D., A Short Account of The “Mary Ann” Hospital,
Grand Gulf, Miss., American Medical Times, Volume 7, July 4, 1863, page 4.
In Ohio, in 1866, a
tounge-in-cheek, hypothetical, intrusive revenue service (the IRS on steroids)
was called a “Chebang”:
Elmira and me has concocted a
revenue scheme which can’t help but work. . . . The officers of the bureau to
consist of a Commissioner, two provost marshals, and one small Quartermaster,
all to rank as Major Generals, and to own the district embraced within the
jurisdiction of the bureau, and to run the Chebang and carry the
elections. I think this would place the
government on “stable foundations.”
Urbana Union (Urbana, Ohio), August 8, 1866, page 1.
In each of these cases, the
“shebang” (or “chebang”) was an organization or group of people; a city
council, infantry unit, cavalry unit, or hospital; consistent with the apparent
use of “chebang” in 1854, to refer to an Odd Fellows lodge, at least in western
Pennsylvania and Ohio.
Was Shebang
(Chebang) a Localism?
Interestingly, all of the
earliest uses of “shebang” (or “chebang”), used in the sense of a group or
organization, all come from a region encompassing western Pennsylvania and
Ohio. The earliest use, with respect to
the Odd Fellows lodge, was from Clearfield, Pennsylvania, and one of the
characters came from the Western Reserve, which is located in northeastern
Ohio, and includes Cleveland. The
pre-war Cincinnati City Council reference was from southern Ohio. The letters about the 2nd Ohio Cavalry and the 105th Ohio
Infantry appeared in the Cleveland
Morning Leader and the Western
Reserve Chronicle (Warren, Ohio), respectively; both in northeastern Ohio.
The one exception, among the
early uses of “shebang” (or “chebang”) in the sense of an organization or
group, is the report of moving an entire Army hospital. But even the author of that report had
Pennsylvania connections, albeit, not from western Pennsylvania. Before the war, Dr. James M. Bryan had been
the editor of the Philadelphia Medical and Surgical Journal. He had also spent time on the faculty of
medical schools in Philadelphia, Castleton, Vermont, and Geneva, New York. But he was also writing in July of 1863, more
than two years into the war. He may have
been influenced by the spread of the word throughout the army. Hey may also have been influenced by the
other sense of the word, “shebang” (or “chebang”) as shelter or hut; in moving
the hospital, presumably, he was also moving their tents:
This institution was organized by
the introduction of patients from the field after the battles at Grand Gulf,
Port Gibson, and the vicinity, from the first to the fifteenth of May,
1863. It was almost entirely a field
hospital, located on the slope of a prominent bluff occupied as a peach
orchard. The buildings consisted of a
central dwelling and several outhouses, formerly used as kitchens and quarters
for the negroes. . . . The population of
the institution during my administration was from eight hundred to one thousand
persons; the nurses were partly enlisted men, and partly female contrabands
[(freed slaves)].
James Bryan, M.D., A Short Account of The “Mary Ann” Hospital,
Grand Gulf, Miss., American Medical Times, Volume 7, July 4, 1863, page 4.
In any case, the alternate sense
of “shebang,” as shelter, tavern, or building, had already taken root elsewhere;
and the two senses may already have begun to merge.
Shebeen/Shebang – Tavern/Shelter
Shebeen
Shebeen was originally an Irish term for low-grade ale. In 1781, one observer noted that Spaniards of
the Biscay region were as affected by Chacoli
as the Irish were by Shebeen:
The manners of the Biscayners, and
the ancient Irish, are so similar on many occasions, as to encourage the notion
of the Irish being descended from them. . . .
In both countries the common people are passionate, easily provoked if
their family is slighted, or their descent called in question. The Chacoli of Biscay, or the Shebeen
of Ireland*, makes them
equally frantic.
Dillon’s Travels Through Spain, The Monthly Review, Volume 64, 1781,
page 47.
The word appears to have been
relatively unfamiliar at the time, as the editor wished that the author had
explained the terms:
*Mr. Dillon, or Mr. Bowles, - for we
know not which of them is now speaking – should have explained these two terms,
for the benefit of such of their Readers as are not Irishmen or Biscayners.
Dillon’s Travels Through Spain, The Monthly Review, Volume 64, 1781,
page 47.
In 1788, King George III’s Irish
revenue laws specifically addressed the sale of shebeen:
AD 1788. Chapter 34, XXVIII.
And be it further enacted, That all
ale called shebeen,
which shall be seized by any officer of his Majesty’s revenue, for any offence
against any of the revenue laws of this kingdom, shall and may be sold at any
time after the seizure thereof, and if the same shall be claimed by the owner
thereof, and such ale shall be adjudged not subject to seizure, the claimant
shall be paid for such ale so much money as the produce arising from such ale
amounted to, provided a proper permit be produced for the malt of which such
ale was made.
The Statutes at Large, passed in the Parliaments Held in Ireland, Dublin,
1791, Volume 14 (1787-1789), pages 675-676.
Eventually, shebeen (or, less commonly, sheban)
was applied to the place where shebeen
was sold, often a low-grade building:
A Shebeen
house is a mean
cabin or hut, many of which are to be seen at convenient distances on the
public roads of Ireland – the inhabitants deal in bad spirits, tobacco and ale,
which they contrive to vend without paying duty
John Williams, The eccentricities of John Edwin, comedian,
collected from his manuscripts, and enriched with several hundred original
anecdotes. Arranged and digested by Anthony Pasquin, esq. [pseud.], London, J.
Strahan, 1791, page 69.
The word was also known, and
used, in the United States, frequently in stories that related to Ireland or
Irish characters, but not exclusively:
This course Mr. Lacie at last found
himself compelled to adopt, and a few years saw “Maguire’s farm-house”
transformed into “Huey’s sheban,” from which source he contrived to
derive a rude livelihood.
Tyrone Power, The Lost Heir and The Prediction, Volume
2, New York, 1830, page 121.
“Wurra now,” cried Thaddy, “that same it is,
don’t ye saa, lucky heart,” pointing to a little shebeen, over which, on a rough board, was
chalked, in tolerably fair characters, R Finnigan. “Now I’ll git at it,” continued Thaddy,
“entirely;” and, stepping up to the door, he gave a smart rap with his
shillala. [(The same show was later described as “dram shop”.)]
Lucius M. Sargent, Temperance Tales, Volume 3, Boston,
Whipple and Damrell, 1837, page 64.
How Tim Carroll Did the Devil
A certain wight –
Tim Carroll hight –
Was absolute master, “by grace
divine,”
O’er a mud-walled shebeen
And a jug of poteen,
And a ragged caubeen,
And a bin-full of “prates,”
undoubtedly fine . . . .
Yale Literary Magazine,
volume 15, 1850.
The term “shebeen” was also
applied (from time to time) to similar shops in the United States:
Pacing up and down the hut with a
kind of stealthy cat-like pace, was an individual, whose unprepossessing
exterior was in good keeping with the rest of this Texian shebeen
house.
Vermont Phoenix (Brattleboro), February 26, 1846, page 1.
“Shebeen” or “shebeen house” were
still in occasional use in the United States after the Civil War:
A short distance from the old roof
tree stood a grocery, or what was better known as a “Shebeen,” where the young men of a similar
age to the subject of this sketch spent much of the day and nearly all of the
night in innocent amusements, drinking potheen and cracking skulls.
Memphis Daily Appeal, September 12, 1869, page 4.
Losses By Fire.
The
Shebeen House, or
Hunter’s Point Saloon. Loss, $5,000.
The Sun (New York), February 3, 1872, page 1.
Shebang –
Tavern
In 1862, a report of the United
States Commissioner of Indian Affairs described “shebangs” in terms similar to the
earlier use of shebeen, suggesting
that the two words may be related. The
word appears to be well-known out west, in the region where the report was
written, but not necessarily well-known in Washington, as the term is
explained, and set off in quotation marks:
Office Nez Perce Indian Agency,
Lapwai, W.T., June 30, 1862.
. . . In the month of October, of
last year, a town site was laid off on the reservation on Snake river, at the
confluence of the Clearwater, which is now known as “Lewiston;”
and despite my calling public attention to the laws forbidding it, a small but
active town has rapidly sprung up, numbering, perhaps, two hundred tenements of
various descriptions, with a population approximating 1,200 white persons.
Along all the roads on the
reservation to all the mines, at the crossing of every stream or fresh-water
spring, and near the principal Indian villages, an inn or “shebang” is established, ostensibly for the
entertainment of travelers, but almost universally used as a den for supplying
liquor to Indians.”
Report of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Page 423. G10.
An article from 1869 suggests
that the word may have already been in use for many years (although it is
impossible to say whether the writer was using modern words to describe
something historical; or using words from the period in which the story took
place):
Thirty years ago, Council Bluffs,
now a city of many thousand inhabitants, was comprised of half a dozen log
houses, a blacksmith’s forge, and a chebang, or whiskey house, dignified with the title of
tavern, where a half dime would purchase as much of the raw fluid as any strong
man would swallow, or a dime would give him the addition of corn bread and a
shake down of straw, for it was always presumable that the guests at this hotel
brought their own bedclothes, in the shape of a good Mackinaw blanket.
The Weekly North Carolina Standard (Raleigh), August 11, 1869, page
4.
Shebang – Shelter/Lean-To/Building
A common element in many of the shebeen-as-tavern references is that the
shebeen is generally ramshackle; “a
mean cabin or hut,” “unprepossessing,” “mud-walled,” “a rough board.” This sense was incorporated into the use of
“shebang” (or “chebang”) to refer to crude or temporary shelters during the
Civil War:
Beside the hospitals, I also go
occasionally on long tours through the camps, talking with the men,
&c. Sometimes at night among the
groups around the fires, in their shebang enclosures of bushes. I soon get acquainted anywhere in camp, with
officers or men, and am always well used.
Sometimes I go down on picket with the regiments I know best.
Walt Whitman, letter from
Fredericksburgh, Dec. 22-31 [1862], (in, John Burroughs, Notes on Walt Whitman, as Poet and Person, Second Edition, New
York, J. S. Redfield, 1871, page 89.
In describing the Union
occupation of Chattanooga:
[T]he men have not been unmindful of their
comforts, and have appropriated brick as well as lumber, and constructed for
themselves very comfortable “chebangs” from the demolished dwellings of
the chivalry.
The Indiana State Sentinel, November 9, 1863, page 2, column 3.
Southerners staying in Northern
prison camps slept in numbered “chebangs”:
I found that the political prisoners
had been removed from their first locality; and were now occupying “Chebang”
No. 26.
Isaac W. K. Handy, United States Bonds; or Duress by Federal
Authority: a Journal of Current Events During an Imprisonment of Fifteen
Months, at Fort Delaware, Baltimore, Turnbull Brothers, 1874, page 424.
Northerners in Southern prison
camps also slept in “shebangs”:
On the last Thursday of November,
1864, three of us sat in a shebang in the prison stockade at Florence, S.
C. Shebang was the prison word for a
dwelling constructed in this way. An
excavation about seven feet in length, six feet in breadth, and two feet in
depth was made. The earth taken out was
banked up perpendicularly on the edge of the excavation inside; outside the
surface was sloped.
Democratic Northwest (Napoleon, Ohio), December 25, 1884, Holiday
Supplement, page 10, column 3.
“Shebang” was also used to refer
to larger tents or enclosures:
From Co. C, 150th
Regiment. Co. C, Barracks 150 Regt., O.N.G., Fort Bunker Hill, Near Washington,
D. C., May 27
. . . We have a great time getting
our letters when the mail arrives. Capt.
DeForest usually brings our letters to our barracks, or sometimes to our dining
hall, and reads off the names of the fortunate recipients of favors from home,
who are cheered, one after another, as their names are read off, the unlucky
ones being obliged to “wait and watch” a little longer. The next mail fortunately turns the mourning
entirely around to the other side of the “chebang.”
Cleveland Morning Leader, May 31, 1864, page 4 column 5.
The word, “shebang,” was also
frequently used to refer to a building housing a business, or to the business,
itself, similar to “shebeen,” but not restricted, necessarily, to saloons. In Kansas, for example (where the 2nd
Ohio 2d Cavalry served), a bakery could be a shebang:
The advertisement of the Eastern
Baker, at Lawrence – Wm. M. Hazeltine, proprietor – will be found in The News, if you will look sharp for it;
and you had better hunt it up, for you will be sure to want something to eat
when you go to Lawrence, and Hazeltine’s is the place to get it. . . . It is
worth about 37 ½ cents to get acquainted with the good-natured Hazeltine, and
if his shebang
don’t bring the smile to a hungry man’s face, and cause his mouth to water, we are no judge of the genus homo.
The Emporia (Kansas) News,
December 20, 1862, page 3, column 1.
Some unnamed sort of business of
interest to stock raisers was a “shebang”:
We see by the bills that Mark Patty
has taken up his residence half of each week in town, and is
running a “shebang,” or rather,
a he-bang.
He has something of great interest to stock raisers. Go and see him.
The Emporia News (Kansas), May 23, 1863, page 3, column 1.
Back in Ohio, a newspaper office was
a “chebang”:
But alas! For his editorial on
“dits” and “tit bits.” Grant’s boys took possession of his “chebang” before the wall-paper edition was
circulated, and one of the Yanks worked off the Citizen with the following
highly satisfactory conclusion to its editorial department:
Gallipolis Journal (Gallipolis, Ohio), September 3, 1863, page 1,
column 4.
In Memphis, Tennessee, while under
Union occupation, well-to-do citizenry could buy exemptions from having to
perform militia duty; a practice that some believed to be crooked. One officer who “sold” such exemptions was
forced to close up shop – his “shop” was a chebang:
Assistant Adjutant-Gen. Cohen opened
shop in this line several weeks ago; but, in consequence of his neglect to pay
his license in advance – or, perhaps, for some other reason – his “chebang” was
closed by order of the provost marshal.
Memphis Daily Appeal, May 5, 1864, page 1.
In 1865, students from Yale
University who had travelled west during their military service in the Civil
War, mocked the speech patterns of Hoosiers from “Injunoppolis”:
Here is the way they talk in that
benighted neighborhood. “I hav saw where
you was going at,” and “I have went where you couldn’t git to go.” “I never
seen” any man have “such a right smart git,” as “me and him did.” “That there man there, what owns this shebang,” “wounded his watch up,” “Onct or
twict,” “just like I do mine,” &c.
Here is the way they drill. “Keep
your feet a movin, redy to do as ye did yistday, -git.” “From four strings into two – git.” “turn
around sideways, and go off in a crosswise direction – git.”
Yale Literary Magazine, Volume 30, Number 4, February 1865, pages
152-153.
In 1866, a team of Sicilian
counterfeiters in Mobile, Alabama were said to run a “chebang”:
[T]he disgraceful den on St. Francis
street, known as the Headquarters Restaurant, was under the protection of the
Commanding General . . . . This, of
course, was “as good a thing” as could be desired by the counterfeiters. David Palazza, a big fist among them, being a
half owner of the “chebang.”
The Daily Clarion (Meridian, Mississippi), February 11, 1866, page
1.
In several of these examples, it
is ambiguous as to whether “shebang” (or “chebang”) refers to the building in
which the business is operated, or refers to the business, generally, as an
organization or group, as seemed to be the case with the Odd Fellows “chebang,”
the Cincinnati City Council, and military units. In the end, it may not really matter; the two
senses appear to have merged into one. A
“shebang” could be a shebeen house, a
lean-to shelter, a building, a company, a military unit, or a counterfeiting
ring.
Eventually, a “shebang” could be
anything at all, including a pack-mule[viii],
a canoe[ix],
a high school[x], a
general store in an abandoned mining town[xi],
or Marshall Fields’ department store:
Let this boy learn how to stand on
his own legs, knock around among rough men, eating pork and beans and listening
to smutty stories and rollicking hi-yi songs, thrown into the guardhouse if he
gets drunk or shoots off his mouth, scrubbing his accoutrements, making his bed
on the ground or on stone and wooden floors of barracks, washing his own shirt,
battling against vermin that lay eggs under the armpits of all who get into
active service – let this young Marshall Field III go up against this game
without special favors from commissioned officers and non-coms – and then he
may come back to State street, take things in his own hands and run the vast
Marshall Field shebang all by himself.
Carl Sandburg, Will Marshall Field III Enlist?, The Day
Book, April 17, 1917, page 12.
 |
| The Evening Star (Washington DC), August 26, 1906, page 56. |
The Whole Shebang/Chebang
 |
| Cleveland Daily Leader, July 4, 1866. |
The phrase, “the whole shebang,”
has been in use, figuratively, since at least 1865:
I wrote you some time since of a
disturbance that occurred at Lauderdale Springs [Mississippi], in which a train
of cars was attacked by the negro soldiers.
It seems that a disturbance occurred between the negro soldiers and the
resident negroes at that place. The
negroes, fleeing to the cars, were pursued by the negro soldiers, who, in their
fury, committed the assault complained of.
It will be gratifying to your
readers to hear that the officers commanding these troops have been arrested,
the negroes themselves put under guard, and the whole “shebang” are to go before a court-martial.
Daily Ohio Statesman(Columbus, Ohio), December 15, 1865, page 2.
A Holiday. – No more papers until
Thursday evening! Fourth of July is claimed as a holiday by printers as well as
other people, and the whole “chebang,” from the “Great Mogul” to the
youngest and poorest “devil,” are off to “celebrate.”
Cleveland Daily Leader (Ohio), July 4, 1866, Morning Edition, page
4.
In May 1866, a mob of white
people rampaged through Memphis in what has become known as the Memphis Riots
and Massacre of 1866. Over the course of three days, more than forty Black
people were murdered, more than seventy injured, more than one-hundred robbed, and
several raped, by rampaging Whites. They
also burned about ninety homes, four churches and twelve schools.
 |
| Memphis Riot of 1866; Harpers Weekly, May 26, 1866. |
The official government report of
the melee includes several examples of the word, “shebang;” applied to a
“whiskey shop” and a “grocery.” When a
rioter threatened to burn down someone’s home, he threatened to burn, “the
whole shebang”:
He came into my house and dropped
his knife. Then he came again and asked
where his knife was. I did not know anything
about his knife. He told me if I did not
tell him where his knife was he would burn up the whole
“shebang.”
Mr. E. B. Washburne, Memphis Riots and Massacres, Report, from
the Select Committee on the Memphis Riots, July 25, 1866.
The phrase, “the whole shebang,”
appeared in Tennessee several more times in the ensuing years:
- Lou Harris, a strapping black
wench, went to the house of a gentleman, who, she declared, was in debt to her;
and, on his refusing to settle immediately, she threatened to “clean
out the whole shebang.” Before sailing in, however, she sounded a war
whoop, which brought the police down on her and she was locked up.
Memphis Daily Appeal (Tennessee), March 13, 1869, page 3.
A free-love colony has purchased
land near Kalamazoo, Mich., and are going into business there. The Kalamazoologists of the city want to move
out and let the free-lovers run the whole shebang.
The Home Journal (Winchester, Tennessee), May 19, 1870, page 1.
“The whole shebang” was also used
in western Pennsylvania:
A four horse team, a band wagon, a
band and a doctor or two appeared here last week and drove around town in
gorgeous style, selling “Kunkel’s Pain Slayer” on the Public Square and
discoursing sweet music and comic songs for several evenings. The employees, however, finally sued the
“Pain Slayer” for wages due, and ere long seven executions were in the hands of
officers and the whole “shebang” levied upon, and it will be sold on
Wednesday if no appropriation comes to hand in the meantime. It gives me great pain to thus chronicle the
death of the great Pain Slayer.
The Cambria Freeman (Ebensburg, Pennsylvania), August 4, 1870, page
3.
The phrase, “the whole shebang,”
appeared in a New York newspaper in 1872, but in an article about a speech
given in Columbus, Ohio. The speaker, George Francis Train,
was a railroad and shipping magnate from Boston, and may have been pandering to
the Ohio crowd, for a laugh. He was
speaking about the practice of giving complimentary railroad passes to local
power brokers:
Everybody and everything is
deadheaded in the age of the Dents. The
other day the palace car from here had five passengers. I paid, as I always do, never accepting a
complementary [applause], but the other four had passes. “Who is that man?” I asked the conductor. “He is the editor of the Podmunk Stink Pot, and the other with a fur cap, he is our
Representative, “Who is that small man with a squint in his eye?” “He is our
ex-member of Congress.” [Laughter.] “And
that man with him?” “He is our local Judge.” [Laughter.] So you see I paid for the
whole shebang. [Loud
laughter.] And that represents the whole
country. How can you get justice when
pulpit, press, legislators, and judges are deadheaded?
The Sun (New York), March 12, 1872, page 2.
The article about deadheading was
picked up by other papers, and appeared at least in Ohio and West
Virginia. Throughout the 1870s, the
phrase “the whole shebang” appeared with increasing frequency, often in the
context of politics, but not exclusively.
In 1876, a campaign poem
supporting Rutherford B. Hayes’ candidacy for President of the United States
appeared in numerous newspapers ranging from New York to Nebraska. Coincidentally (or not?), Hayes haled from
Cincinnati and was then the Governor of Ohio:
The man the Democrats to daze,
To send them on their devious ways
And fill their souls with wild
amaze,
Their buildings shake, their towers
raze,
And put their whole shebang ablaze,
At the end of the coming election
days,
Is – well, we’ll call him President
Hayes.
– N. Y. Graphic.
Nebraska Advertiser (Brownville, Nebraska), June 29, 1876, page 4.
The Whole Shoot
Before “the whole shebang” came
into being, the idiom, “the whole shoot,” expressed the same meaning. I was not able to find very many examples of
the earlier idiom; perhaps it was considered too informal or back-woodsy, to be
picked up by newspaper editors; or perhaps it was overshadowed by “the whole
shebang,” as it emerged during the following decade. I cannot claim to have proven any connection,
but the similarity in sound and meaning suggest that the earlier idiom could
have had some influence on the development, or at least the widespread
acceptance of the newer idiom:
I reckon I know too much about
painting, stranger, to be sucked in as easy as you think for. Fifty dollars! Why daddy only giv two dollars
for paint to paint our big wagin, and it was the clure red, and thar war anough
left to paint more ner the whole shoot of your picters. . . . Fayetteville (Ark.) Independent.
The Jackson Standard (Jackson, Ohio), February 2, 1854, page 1.[xii]
After
reading the imbecile stuff, we cannot express our opinion of “Bing. Trigg, alias Brick Toppe,” better than by
quoting the language we once heard a blasphemous old codger use, when speaking
of a set with whom he was at the outs.
Said he: “The whole shoot of them are d—d fools, except Mike; and
he’s a G—d d—d fool!”
The White Cloud Kansas
Chief (White Cloud, Kansas), September 27, 1860, page 2.
The
Bell-ringers and Breckites voted for the Douglas candidate for Supreme Judge,
and the
whole shoot of them are
beaten nearly 20,000 votes. – Set down Ohio at 40,000 to 50,000 for Old Abe.
The White Cloud Kansas
Chief (White Cloud, Kansas), October 18, 1860, page 2.
“Well, I recollect,” replied our friend, “that
we corralled the whole shoot of them d—d sudden, and the only pity is, we didn’t set fire
to the house and burn up the whole shoot of them!”
The White Cloud Kansas Chief (White Cloud, Kansas), January 16,
1862, page 2.
Onomatopoeia
From time to time, the word,
“chebang” or “che-bang,” was used as onomatopoeia to represent the sound of a
gun firing:
Now, our women folks was under the
captin’s charge every one on ‘em. They
didn’t’ know any of the men aboard, ans stuck up their noses so mighty high at
us, that I was dreadful afeard some on ‘em would tumble over backards; but when
the hurricane come on, goodness sakes! How they huddled in amongst us, and sot
up so close; and when the ship creen’d over, they’d give leetle squeaks, and
catch hold of our arms, and maybe round our necks, or anywhere handy; and when
the staysail went all to bits, with chebang! Like a cannon, there was a young heifer, and not
a bad lookin’ one either, jumped right at me, and got her arms round me, and
hung on like grim death, and begged me to save her.
Philip Paxton, Piney Woods Tavern; or, Sam Slick in Texas,
Philadelphia, T. B. Peterson & Brothers, 1858, page 112.
Poetry.
(From the Logan Gazette.)
Old Ben Wade.
. . .
Then Old Ben Wade,
like a “giant grim” said
“Who dares crook a finger at me – at me?”
And he brandished
his sword, and “che-bang!”
went
his gun,
And “pop!” went his pistols three.
Then this bragging
Old Blade of Vallangigham said
“A very vile trator is he – is he!”
And he brandished
his sword, while “che-bang!
Went
his gun.
And “pop!” went his pistols three.
. . .
The Spirit of Democracy, June 4, 1862, page 1.
Happened dis-away. I ‘uz a’sett’n’ here kinder dozin’ in de
dark, en che-bang! Goes a gun, right out dah.
Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson, and Those Extraordinary Twins, The Century
Illustrated, Volume 47, Number 4, February 1894, page 780.
“Che-Bang” was also the name of a
character in a humorous (?) story about a very ugly and very fat Chinese
princess who falls in love with a very short and very ugly Laplander. The two want to be together, but her father
has promised her to the old, unappealing Chow-Chow. She eats rat poison and dies; he hangs
himself in prison:[xiii]
There’s
a legend in China, that beneath the moon’s bright sheen,
Ever
fondly linked together, may in summer-time be seen,
Still
wand’ring ‘mid the tea-plants, in the province of Ko-Whang,
The
little Lapland tinker and his spirit-bride Che-Bang.
The Cincinnati Commercial (Ohio), April 16, 1853, page 2.
But even in this story,
“Che-Bang,” may have been intended as an allusion to the noise of an
explosion. A footnote asserts that “Cho
Che Bang” was Chinese for “touch and go off.”
The Whole Jing-Bang?
Stephen Goranson, writing on the
American Dialect Society e-mail discussion list, noted that the expression, “the
whole jing-bang,” dates to at least 1838:
Howandiver, when all’s done, it’s a
shame, so it is, that he’s not a bishop this blessed day and hour; for next to
the Goiant ov Saint Garlath’s, he’s out and out the cleverest fellow of the
whole jing-bang.
Father Tom and the Pope; or a
Night at the Vatican, Blackwood’s Edinburgh
Magazine, Volume 43, Number 271, May 1838, page 619.
The dictionary, A Dialect of Banffshire (London, 1866),
defined the word, “jingbang,” as “the whole number.” An article on the dialect of Ulster, in the Ulster Journal of Archaeology (Vol. 11, No.
4, 1905), suggested that “jing-bang,” meaning the whole lot, was derived from
an old English word, jing, meaning a
gang or a pack.
If “jing-bang” was a common slang
term among Scottish or Irish immigrants in the United States, it may well have
been a model for the expression, “the whole shebang,” or at least have
influenced the acceptance or popularity of the phrase. The “whole jing-bang,” the
“whole shoot,” and the obvious literal (onomatopoeia) meaning of the “whole shebang,” may each
have played a role in making the “whole shebang” memorable enough to earn its place in the public consciousness, and survive for more than a century and a half.
One Last Possibility – or Red Herring?
In 1905, miners in Cornwall made
very small shelters to protect candles carried in the damp, wet conditions
inside the mines; they called the shelters, “shebangs”:
Shebang – A mining term; a kind of
candlestick; see below.
A small piece of wood having [two
sloping pieces] . . . of metal projecting on it. A candle is fastened below and so protected
from dropping water when it is being carried about in wet places
underground. A loop permits of the she-bang
being hung on a button
of the miner’s coat.
Joseph Wright, English Dialect Dictionary, Volume 5.
R-S, Oxford, Horace Hart at the University Press, 1905.
The late date of publication
cautions against drawing too strong a conclusion. Perhaps the Cornish miners borrowed the word
from the American “shebang;” there is no reason that they couldn’t have. Unsuccessful miners returning from the American
West could have imported the term. Or,
if the term was an old, well-worn term, perhaps Cornish miners brought the term
into the United States years earlier. We
may never know. In any case, it is an
intriguing loose end.
Conclusion
The English word, “shebang,”
seems to be clearly related to the Irish word, Shebeen. It may also have
been influenced by the Hebrew word, Shebang
(seven), by way of Odd Fellows lodges, at least in Western Pennsylvania or Ohio. In its early days, “shebang” had several distinct
meanings, tavern, shelter, or organization, which later merged into a more
amorphous sense of any building, place, business, or organization; or anything,
really. The phrase, “the whole shebang,”
appeared in a literal sense by 1863, and figuratively by 1865. An earlier idiom, “the whole shoot,” could have
influenced the development or wide acceptance of the idiomatic sense of, “the
whole shebang;” the idioms have the same meaning, similar sounds, and “chebang”
was known to be used as onomatopoeia to represent the sound of an explosion or shooting
of a gun. Maybe that’s a stretch – but
it seems possible, if not plausible.
_______________________________
Addendum: September 24, 2015
The words “chebang” or “shebang” were used used in show business circles (at least in Baltimore, Maryland) from as early as 1859, and continuing through the early days of the Civil War. There are at least four examples of use in the show business newspaper, The Yankee Clipper; all of the examples appear in a section of theatrical news from Baltimore. The earliest names the writer; "Sam Lathrop, stump orator and clown." Depending on the context, the words appear to refer to either a group of people - a troupe of performers - and/or the place where they perform.
An item from 1859 describes a newly formed “minstrel” troupe as, “a pretty strong ‘chebang.’” A troupe of performers is like a fraternal organization - perhaps the word was borrowed from the Hebrew, Shebang, via the Odd Fellows or Masons.
_______________________________
Addendum: September 24, 2015
The words “chebang” or “shebang” were used used in show business circles (at least in Baltimore, Maryland) from as early as 1859, and continuing through the early days of the Civil War. There are at least four examples of use in the show business newspaper, The Yankee Clipper; all of the examples appear in a section of theatrical news from Baltimore. The earliest names the writer; "Sam Lathrop, stump orator and clown." Depending on the context, the words appear to refer to either a group of people - a troupe of performers - and/or the place where they perform.
An item from 1859 describes a newly formed “minstrel” troupe as, “a pretty strong ‘chebang.’” A troupe of performers is like a fraternal organization - perhaps the word was borrowed from the Hebrew, Shebang, via the Odd Fellows or Masons.
“Old”
Pete Morris seems to have taken a new lease of life by joining a new company,
occupying Girard Minstrel Hall, St. Louis.
A. McDonald is proprietor, T. M. Gessler manager, Frank Lyneh stage
manager, and Frank Forster musical director.
Pete has for associates Tommy Pell, Charley Coriell, J. Wood, M. Lutz,
J. Derniker, J. Smith, etc. A pretty
strong “chebang.” Pete carries on no
opposition to Edward Everett, but stops at Everett House.
New York Clipper,
August 6, 1859, page 127. Other sources
describe Pete Morris as a “comic vocalist” and Tommy Pell as an “elegant clog
dancer.” It is also possible, I suppose, that the writer meant to refer to the entire
Girard Minstrel Hall as a strong "chebang," in which case the word may have been borrowed from the Irish, shebeen.
The later examples appear to refer to the place of performance; beer is available - perhaps the name was borrowed from the Irish, shebeen:
The later examples appear to refer to the place of performance; beer is available - perhaps the name was borrowed from the Irish, shebeen:
The
Museum, whose bright laurels faded when Henry C. Jarrett resigned his claim to
the shop, opened a few nights ago to a tremendous and, what might be termed, to
a heterogeneous audience . . . . . Percival’s Pagoda is the title of the
Shebang, and lager and segars are the order of the night. The company at this place is excellent. Garry Demott is with the company, getting up
light farces.
The New York Clipper,
September 29, 1860, page 191. [In Baltimore]
At
the Pagoda, Baltimore, a sensation is being created by a female vocalist, who
appears nightly, thickly veiled. The
bills set forth that she sang for months in New Orleans, always appearing veiled. An inquisitive chap in Baltimore, however,
solved the problem, as to who she was, by gaining admission to the stage, when
she was found to be an old attaché of the Shebang.
New York Clipper,
December 1, 1860, page 263.
The Pagoda,
Baltimore, has suffered another collapse.
It opened on the 8th, and shut pan on the 15th. .
. . The company attached to the Holliday
[Street Theater] will open the Shebang in a few days.
New York Clipper,
June 29, 1861, page 87.
These four examples do not appear to offer any new clues to the origin of the word, but they do show earlier and more widespread use than previously known.
_______________________________
Addendum: January 28,2016.
The word “shebang” was also used in California as early as early 1860.
_______________________________
Addendum: January 28,2016.
The word “shebang” was also used in California as early as early 1860.
In a report of a house fire destroying an old home:
If the story is true, and too much valuable "plunder" was not burned up in the house, we are half inclined to congratulate the newly-married pair, (Mr. and Mrs. K.) upon the event, especially the better half of the firm, for it will bring about the building of an enlarged and improved domicil upon the ruins of the old farm house. Sorry, however, that the old "shebang" could not have been removed at a cheaper rate.
Marysville Daily Appeal, February 6, 1860.
Marysville Daily Appeal, March 19, 1860.
It is possible, I suppose, that the writer for the Marysville Daily Appeal learned the word from the reports out of Baltimore published in the New York Clipper (see above, Addendum, September 24, 2015). We know that they read the Clipper; on July 15, 1861, the Marysville Daily Appeal published a reprint of the New York Clipper article of June 29, 1861, about the reopening of the Pagoda "shebang" in Baltimore.
In any case, this shows how telegraphic mass-communication would have
made it possible for the word to spread quickly throughout the United
States, regardless of its point of origin.
"Shebang" was also used in the theatrical business in California. In a nostalgic look back at Old Sacramento:
Those were the times that tried mens gum boots, you bet! We entertain a lurking remembrance of decorations in oleaginous pigments in the Pixley & Smith temple of Thespis - the old shebang of a theatre, built by Bill Smith - now William Wilson Lawton - and Seymour Pixley.
[i]
National Park Service, Myth:
Prisoners at Andersonville Called Their Shelters ‘Shebangs.’
[ii]
Charles C. Nott, Sketches in Prison Camps,
1865; Warren Lee Goss, The Soldier’s
Story of His Captivity at Andersonville, Belle Isle, and other Rebel Prisons,
1867; J. H. Duganne, Camps and Prisons:
Twenty Months in the Department of the Gulf, 1865; Gilbert E. Sabre, Nineteen Months a Prisoner of War, 1865;
A. M. Keiley, In Vinculis: or, The
Prisoner of War, Being the Experience of a Rebel in Two Federal Pens, 1866.
[iii] National
Park Service, Myth: Prisoners at Andersonville Called Their Shelters
‘Shebangs.’
[iv] I
am not a Hebrew scholar, and do not claim to know how the word is actually
understood in Hebrew. My comments about
the Hebrew word, shebang, are limited
to how the word was characterized by several English-language books from the
mid-nineteenth century.
[v]
Wor. Bro. Mark A. Tabbert 33, Masonic Papers, The Odd Fellows, first published December 2003
on “The Northern Light”, Scottish Rite Freemasonry, Northern Masonic
Jurisdiction, USA.
[vi]
See my earlier post, The
Blue; the Grey; and the Runaway – a History and Etymology of “Skedaddle”.
[vii]
“John F. Torrence was president of the City Council in 1860 and in 1861 Samuel
B. Hirst presided for a short time.” Charles Theodore Greve, Centennial History of Cincinnati and
RepresentativeCitizens, Volume 1, Chicago, Biographical Publishing Company,
1904, page 962.
[viii]
Henry White, The Cowboys of the Briny
Deep, St. Louis Republic, July 26, 1903, Magazine Section, page 46.
[ix] Evening Star (Washington DC), August 26,
1906, page 56 (Uncle Geo. Washington
Bings comic strip).
[x] The Bemidji Daily Pioneer (Minnesota),
January 5, 1912, page 3.
[xi] Honest Joe, The Evening Star (Washington
DC), November 22, 1914, page 6.
[xii]
The same story also appeared in other newspapers and magazines with a national
audience: Southern Sentinel
(Plaquemine Parish of Iberville, Louisiana), July 22, 1854, page 1; Yankee Notions, Volume 5, Number 7, July
1856, page 216; The Country Gentleman,
Volume 3, Number 10, March 9, 1854, page 164.
[xiii]
The story is very similar to the purported Chinese legend of ill-fated lovers,
Li Chi and Chang, whose story is illustrated on the traditional Blue Willow,
china plate pattern; which, coincidentally, may have influenced the name of
the, “Blue Plate Special.” See my post, Washington’s
Willowware, Men’s Clubs and Dining Cars – the Delicious History and Etymology
of “Blue Plate Specials.”
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