Earlier Toddle-Towns
Chicago,
known as “that Toddling Town” or “Toddle Town” in the early 1920s, was not the
first “Toddle Town.” There are at least
three references to “Toddletown” or “Toddle Town,” one from England and two
from the United States, between 1850 and 1915.
Whereas Chicago was called “Toddle Town” primarily for its close
association with the popular dance-craze, “the
Toddle” (see my earlier post, Why
Chicago was a “Toddling Town”), “Toddle” meant something different with respect
to the three earlier “Toddle Towns.”
“Toddletown” referred to provincial villages in the 1850s and 1870s, and “Toddle Town” likely referred to small children – toddlers – in 1914.
The Music Trades, Volume 61, Number 21, May 21, 1921, page 45. |
The
few-and-far between examples of the expression in print may suggest that the similarity is mere coincidence. On the other hand,
the three examples, spaced over several decades, may suggest that the
expression may have been idiomatic, if not overly common. If it were idiomatic, then the use of “Toddle
Town” in reference to Chicago may have been understood, at least by some, as a
double-meaning allusion to the city; the city of “the Toddle” dance, and a
provincial or young city.
Toddle
The word,
“Toddle,” meaning “to run or walk with short, unsteady steps,” dates to about
1600. An earlier sense of the word,
meaning “to toy, play,” dates to about 1500.
The origin is unknown, but may be related to “totter.”[i]
For some
unknown reason, the word, “toddle,” enjoyed a period of popularity in the
1820s:
THE
CHAPTER OF TODDLING.
Tune. – ‘The Grinder.’
WORDS, like fashions, have
each had their day,
‘Bang up,’ ‘that’s the go,’ ‘Tippy,’
‘Twaddle;’
‘Keep it up,’ ‘Go it
boys,’ ‘Dash away,’
But now they must give up to toddle.
Terri heigho, heigho,
Tho’ wise ones their heads
may be noddling,
The word that is not all the go,
Go wherever you will, sir,
is toddling.
. . .
Buonaparte,
as great as may be,
With victory so loaded his noddle,
That he swore he’d drive us in the sea,
But Wellington’s
forc’e him to toddle.
Terri heigho, heigho, &c.
Now, my song, sirs, I’ll
bring to an end,
By telling
what runs in my noddle;
That while I have you for my friend,
Contented
thro’ life I shall toddle.
The Gallimaufry, London, J. Smith, 1828.
Little Toddletown
“Little Toddletown” was the name of a sleepy,
provincial hamlet in a comic story published in 1853.[ii] It is the kind of story in which a journalist
is named “Penfeather,” a priest is named “Genuflex,” a socialist reformer is
named “Soshalish Gash,” and a landowner is named “Squire Graspland.” It seems safe to presume that the author
intended for the town’s name to be similarly suggestive.
Bentleys Miscellany, Volume 33, 1853, page 549. |
The story
revolves around a journalist who is lured away from London, to work for a
start-up, politically centrist newspaper in “Little Toddletown.” He winds up embroiled in a violent political
struggle between the “Greens” and the “Blues,” which prompts him to give up the
writer’s life to try his luck in the Australian gold fields.
Toddletown
In the comic
story, “Paste,” published in 1873,[iii]
“Toddletown” again refers to an out-of-the-way provincial town. Mr. Johnson, a “provincial tailor,” makes a
small fortune supplying uniforms to the Union during the American Civil War,
and sells his business before the prices fell, realizing a handsome
profit.
Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine (Philadelphia), volume 87, Number 517, July 1873, page 63. |
Drunk with their new riches, his
wife talks him in to selling their home and their “old-fashioned furniture and
shabby clothes” in “Toddletown,” and to move to New York City where they might
live in a manner suited to their new-found wealth. Through a series of misadventures, the
new-moneyed Mrs. Johnson (now going by the more high-class name of Mrs.
Jeanfils) is swindled by imposter-nobles, and loses a big chunk of their money investing
in a fabulous gem that turns out, in the end, to be nothing but “Paste.” She learns her lesson, and they move back to
“Toddletown” where they live happily ever after.
Toddletown Trails
In 1914,
Judd Mortimer Lewis, “[t]he best known of all Texas newspaper poets,”[iv]
published a collection of poems entitled, Toddle-Town
Trails. One observer called the
book, “about the sweetest little book of child-poems you have ever read.”[v] Although I have not read the book, the
following description of Lewis’ favorite subject matter suggests that it may be
an allusion to young children; toddlers:
He writes principally
about babies, and pretty young girls . . . . He sings so many songs about
babies, in fact, that he might be called the laureate of babyhood. It is his own hearthstone and his own baby
daughters that have furnished him most of his themes in this poetic realm of
babyhood.
Leonidas
Warren Payne, A Survey of Texas
Literature, New York, Rand, McNally & Company, 1928, page 53.
Leonidas Warren Payne, A Survey of Texas Literature, New York, Rand, McNally & Company, 1928, page 53. |
That Toddling Town
In 1922 Fred
Fisher immortalized Chicago as “that Toddling Town” when he wrote Chicago (that
“Toddling Town”). At the time,
“toddling” would likely have been understood, primarily, as a reference to the
dance “the Toddle,” a dance closely associated with Chicago (see my earlier
post, Why
Chicago was a “Toddling Town”). It
is possible, however, that it may also have been intended, or understood by
some, as having a double meaning, as either a provincial town or young city, or
both.
You be the
judge.
[ii] “Love
and Literature, and How they Drove Paul Penfeather, Author and Journalist, to
the “Diggings,” Bentley’s Miscellany (London), volume 33, 1853, page 546.
[iii] Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine
(Philadelphia), Volume 87, Number 517, July 1873, page 63.
[iv]
Leonidas Warren Payne, A Survey of Texas
Literature, New York, Rand, McNally & Company, 1928, page 53.
[v] The Houston Post, October 18, 1914.
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