“Strip poker” was invented (or at
least popularized) by reports of Yale University freshmen playing the game in
1904. Appropriately enough, a Yale
researcher’s discovery of the earliest known example of “strip poker” in print
(from Los Angeles in 1906) prompted the discovery of its origins two years
earlier at Yale.
In October 2019, Fred Shapiro, a Yale
Librarian and leading contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary,[i]
posted a message on the American Dialect Society’s e-mail discussion list
(ADS-L) with what is believed to be the earliest example of “strip poker” in
print, from Los Angeles in 1906.
The chorus girls of one of the last comic-opera companies
which visited Los Angeles introduced the young bloods to a new fascinating game called “strip poker.” The introductory game took place in one of
the private rooms of the Bisbee Inn.
The cards are held by the young men. The girls sit by to watch. At the end of every hand, all the girls whose
young men have lost, proceed to remove the one article of wearing apparel.
The game continues until – well, for a long time.
Los Angeles Times, February 16, 1906, page 17.
Surprisingly, perhaps, the game was
not indigenous to Southern California and had no relationship to Hollywood
“starlets,” moguls or casting agents, as the Hollywood film industry was not
yet in existence. The game was an import
and the first local game took place at the Bisbee Inn, a “notorious”[ii]
saloon in downtown Los Angeles that billed itself as the “Headquarters for
Arizona folks.”[iii]
A few years later, the Bisbee Inn
changed owners and its name. When the
new owners brought in additional investors for the renamed St. George Hotel,
they neglected to tell them about the building’s seedy history and reputation,
which became an issue in a lawsuit.[iv] Today, a building bearing the same name (the
St. George Hotel) sits at the same address (115 E. Third Street).[v] No word on whether strip poker is still
played there.
Although “strip poker,” by that name,
may have been new in Los Angeles in 1906, it was not the first time someone had
played cards with clothing as the stakes.
Shortly after Fred Shapiro posted the
earliest example of “strip poker,” Garson O’Toole, the “Sherlock Holmes of quotation sleuths,”[vi]
shared some references to the ADS-L, of an apparent precursor, a gambling card
game called “strip tunk,” played by “co-eds” and high school students in
Kalamazoo, Michigan two years earlier.
Kalamazoo co-eds are devoting their spare moments to “strip tunk” – a game similar to poker, with the main
feature a gradual taking off of clothing by the loser of each hand. The game is also played in local high school
circles, and has reached such prevalence that school authorities are planning a
campaign against it. . . .
In “strip tunk” the loser of each hand divests herself of one
article of clothing. After several hours
the party usually resembles a garden of Eden social event. At a recent party of which “strip tunk” was a
feature the finish turned on the last articles divested – one participant
wearing a union suit, the other separate garments, the union suit wearer losing
by one point.
The True Northerner (Paw Paw, Michigan), May 6, 1904, page 6.
But once again, the co-eds of
Kalamazoo were not the first people to play cards for clothes. Garson O’Toole’s contribution led another researcher (you're welcome) to discover that just a few weeks earlier, newspapers across
the country had carried stories about gambling for garments at Yale
University. The New York Sun gave the game by the more innocent-sounding name of
“pajama poker,” but the game was the same as what would later be called “strip poker.”
PAJAMA POKER
AT YALE.
Freshmen Who
Lose Must Leave Their Clothes With the Winners.
New Haven, Conn., April 4. – It was learned to-day why many
Yale students during recent weeks have mysteriously dashed out of Pierson Hall[vii]
dormitory at all hours of the night with hardly enough clothing on to cover
their limbs and disappear in a nearby building where they room.
Some of the freshmen who room in Pierson Hall have adopted a
new penalty for those who lose in the poker games that are played by the
freshmen. Instead of playing for money
they stake their clothes, putting so much value on each garment. The game ends only when the first freshman
has put up everything but his stockings.
There is a pajama outfit in the room that he dons and then he goes home,
leaving every stitch of his clothing behind.
Next day he comes back after the clothes.
The Sun (New
York), April 5, 1904, page 12.
 |
| Buffalo Evening News, April 5, 1904, page 1. |
 |
| Buffalo Times, April 5, 1904, page 10. |
In the following days, weeks and
months, similar headlines and stories appeared in dozens of newspapers in no
fewer than fourteen (of 45) states, one territory (Arizona) and the District of
Columbia. The Kalamazoo co-eds, who made
their own headlines a few weeks later, may have been inspired by the notoriety
of the Yale “Freshies.”
Not to be outdone by the young
students out East, the “society ladies” of Ottawa, Kansas were playing “strip
euchre” a few months later.
The society ladies of Ottawa are enthusiastically playing a
new game called strip-euchre. The player
takes off a stickpin, collar or other article of apparel every time she
loses. It is doubtless all right if not
carried too far.
Ottawa Daily Republic (Ottawa, Kansas), August 17, 1904, page 6.
It is impossible to say how
widespread the game in subsequent years.
But it appears to still have been considered novel in 1906 when the
chorus girls of the comic-opera introduced “strip poker” at the Bisbee Inn in
Los Angeles.
By 1923, “strip poker” had become
ubiquitous enough that a reporter noted, “of course everybody has heard about
‘strip poker.’” But it took a bunch of
Ziegfeld “Follies” chorus girls to introduce the game of “strip golf.”[viii]
And for anyone who didn’t run across
the game in their own lives, numerous divorce actions and one widely reported
wrongful dismissal action kept “strip poker” in the headlines throughout the
1920s; it was, after all, the “Jazz Age” – the “Roaring ‘20s.”
 |
| Los Angeles Times, April 11, 1925, page 22. |
Claire Deerfield, a former ballet
dancer and young wife of an industrial dyeing magnate, claimed she visited the
home of a wealthy broker at 2 a.m. to feed his dog. She also admitted that, “on another occasion
she fed the kitty in strip poker game, losing shoes, belt, blouse . . . and
string of beads.”[ix] She was found innocent, despite the admission
– “nothin’ to see here.”
 |
| New York Daily News, February 8, 1929, page 3. |
In other cases, results were
mixed.
 |
| San Francisco Examiner, March 28, 1925, page 15. |
 |
| Montana Standard (Butte, Montana), March 14, 1929, page 10. |
A widely reported wrongful termination
case presented a twist. Two young women
were fired from their jobs as teachers in Kansas for playing “strip poker,” but
stripping wasn’t the problem; the case hung on the strictly legal question of
whether “strip poker” constituted gambling.[x]
 |
| Windsor Star (Windsor, Ontario), June 8, 1927, page 1. |
Everything came full-circle nearly a
century later, when a Yale researcher’s discovery of the earliest example of
“strip poker” in print prompted others to uncover the game’s origins at Yale.
Just one more thing for Yalies to be
proud of . . . even more so than another Yale brush with Ziegfeld Follies
chorus girls fame, when they won the pogo-stick races in Ziegfeld’s Midnight Frolics to make up for losing the big game to
Harvard earlier in the week. See my
earlier piece, “Hopping Stilts and Chorus Girls - a
History and Etymology of "Pogo" Sticks”.
“Yale just had to win something last week. It was the final heat in the ‘Ziegfeld
Midnight Frolic’s’ pogo race. If one’s
life insurance is paid up and there’s plenty of liniment in the pantry, we
suggest this as a breakfast teaser.” New York Tribune, November 27, 1921,
page 45.
Chorus Girl, Geneva Mitchell in her
Yale “Y” sweater - The Morning Tulsa
Daily World, March 26, 1922.
[i] Fred
Shapiro is Associate (Library) Director for Collections and Access and Lecturer
in Legal Research at Yale Law School. He is also the editor of the Yale
Book of Quotations and the Oxford Dictionary of American Legal
Quotations, as well as many other books, and has been recognized as the
leading contributor to the Oxford English Dictionary. He holds a J.D. from
Harvard University, an M.S.L.S. from the Catholic University of America, and an
S.B. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. https://law.yale.edu/fred-r-shapiro
[ii] Los Angeles Times, July 8, 1906, page
13.
[iii] Los Angeles Times, September 5, 1905,
page 3.
[iv]
“What’s In a Name? Much to These Investors,” Los Angeles Times, May 9, 1912, part II, page 2.
[vi] Garson
O’Toole is the author of Hemingway Never
Said That and The Quote Investigator
website (https://quoteinvestigator.com/)
From a
review of his book: “Garson O’Toole is the Sherlock Holmes of quotation
sleuths, and Hemingway Never Said That
provides an intriguing, behind-the-scenes look into his case files. A
thoroughly enjoyable book on its own, and an essential reference work for those
who take their quotations seriously.” —Dr. Mardy Grothe, author of Metaphors Be With You.
[vii]
The Pierson Hall dormitory is distinct from what is now Pierson College. Pierson Hall, located on York Street between
Chapel and Elm where the western edge of Memorial
Quadrangle now stands, opened in 1896 and closed in 1917. Report of the President of Yale University
for the Academic Year 1902-1903, pages 84-86. In 1904, it housed almost exclusively
freshmen. Pierson College, located a
block away on the other side of York, opened in 1933.
[viii]
San Francisco Examiner, May 6, 1923,
“The American Weekly” supplement, page 3.
[ix] New York Daily News, January 19, 1929,
page 1.
[x]
The distinction is reminiscent of the old joke about Baptists who refuse to
have sex standing up because it might lead to dancing.
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