 |
| Billy B. Van as “Patsy Bolivar” in The Errand Boy, Chattanooga News, March 17, 1906, page 13. |
The online etymology dictionary,
etymonline.com, defines a “patsy” (first known use in 1903) as a “fall guy,
victim of deception.”[i] It is said to be of “uncertain origin,
possibly an alteration of Italian pazzo
“madman”, or south Italian dialectal paccio
“fool.”
Although it is possible that these
Italian expressions may have reinforced the meaning with a small segment of the
population, “patsy” is almost certainly derived primarily from a well-known
character in a long-running, much imitated comic sketch or skit about an
innocent boy who gets blamed for everything bad that happens in his classroom. Whenever anyone does something naughty in the
classroom, the children call out his name; something like, “Who put the tack in
the teacher’s chair?” – “Patsy Bolivar,” “Who dipped Jane’s pigtail in the
inkwell?” – “Patsy Bolivar.” It works
well, and the teacher repeatedly punishes the innocent Patsy. But it works too well. When the teacher asks a legitimate question
about history, “Who discovered America?” or “Who was the first President of the
United States?” for example, the class reflexively replies, “Patsy Bolivar,”
and the deception is revealed.
Both the character (1867) and the
idiomatic use of the name as an innocent scapegoat (1872) predate the major
wave of Italian immigration to the United States after 1890. One observer explained the use of the name of
the character to denote political scapegoats in 1887.
Who was the historic personage so frequently alluded to in
political speeches as “Patsy Bolivar.” C. M. C.
Answer – A party of minstrels in Boston, about twenty years
ago, had a performance in which they presented the scene of a country
school. There was a little fellow named
Patsy Bolivar, who sat in the corner, who was inoffensive, quiet and generally
well behaved. The older boys took
occasion to annoy the master in many ways, and when the pedagogue asked, in a
rage, “Who did that?” the boys would answer, “Patsy Bolivar!” Then Patsy was chastised. As soon as that was over, some of the older
boys would throw a wad of paper at the master’s head, when, raging with anger,
he would repeat the query, “Why was that?” Again the answer came, “Patsy
Bolivar!” The phrase, as many phrases
have done, spread beyond the limits of the minstrel performance, and when the
scapegoat was alluded to, it was in the name of “Patsy Bolivar.” The “Patsy Bolivar” in politics must be the
inoffensive person who is always in trouble brought about by mischievous
associates – the one who is always blamed for everything.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, January 2, 1887, page 6.
This early explanation of “Patsy
Bolivar” mistakenly suggests Boston is the original home of the “Patsy Bolivar.”[ii] This explanation has fooled later researchers
who cite the Boston theory as gospel fact.[iii] Ironically, this mistaken, yet likely
innocent, explanation may therefore be considered the “Patsy Bolivar” of all “Patsy
Bolivar” origin stories.
Both “Patsy” and “Bolivar,” standing
alone, were used idiomatically with reference to the same sorts of characters. A few early examples of “Patsy” and “Bolivar”
even made a direct connection between the new, shortened forms and the original
“Patsy Bolivar.”
“I’ve been wearing the fool’s cap without knowing it. Now I understand why they call me ‘Miss
Patsy.’ I’m a regular Patsy Bolivar – I’ve been
everybody’s Patsy, and wasn’t wise to myself. Oh, Mr. Graham, I’m so ashamed!” (1910) [iv]
“Miss Patsy” derives its name from a commonly accepted slang phrase, the innocent victim of repeated blunders, being
a Patsy or a Patsy Bolivar. (1910) [v]
“Why, the Bolivar,” explained
Larkin, “is the most important part in all knockabout acts. He’s the fellow who takes all the kicks in
the pants and the raps on the head – the Patsy Bolivar;
in other words, the fall guy.
Rapping of a fellow over the head will get a bigger laugh than the best
comedy line in the world.” (1915) [vi]
This is the first chapter of a series which will tell the
unfortunate happenings which follow the life of Patsy
Bolivar. “Patsy” has become the synonym
for one in bad luck and poor young Bolivar had more than his share . . .
. (1915) [vii]
 |
| Gertrude Quinlan as “Miss Patsy,” the “Patsy.” |
Washington Herald (Washington
DC), October 2, 1910, page 19.
Origins
The character of “Patsy Bolivar”
first appeared on stage as early as 1867.
The earliest reference appeared in the playbill for a performance of
Lloyd & Bideaux’s Minstrels in Hartford, Connecticut. [viii]
FRANKLIN
HALL, BRIDGEPORT, CT.
FOR ONE
NIGHT ONLY.
SATURDAY,
FEB. 2, 1867.
LLOYD
BIDEAUX’S MINSTRELS AND BRASS BAND,
THE MONSTER
ORGANIZATION OF THE AGE.
. . .
FREEDMAN’S COLLEGE.
Prof. Eastman . . . . M. A. Scott
Dunce . . . . Cal. Wagner
Patsy Bolivar . . . . C. Reynolds
Billy Smart . . . . Johnny Booker
Little French Booby . . . . Gustave Bidaux
Lloyd & Bideaux’s Minstrels tour
hit at least Hartford, Connecticut, Buffalo, New York, Detroit, Michigan and
Columbus, Ohio over the next several weeks, presumably bringing the show and
the character to all of those cities and anywhere in between they would have
performed. Two of the same performers, Gustave
Bidaux and Cal. Wagner, brought the same skit, by the same name, to St. Louis,
Missouri the next season, presumably also bringing the character of the same
name with them and to many more places in between over the preceding two
seasons.
Negro Minstrelsy.
. . .
Fred Wilson’s Minstrels, St. Louis, Mo., did a lively
business the past week. Cal. Wagner’s
introduction of his brass band was received with roars of laughter . . . . Gustave Bideaux with the ballads of “The
Beautiful Girl of the South” and “The Little Broken Ring,” the performance
closing with the burlesque of “The Freedman College.”
New York Clipper, May 9, 1868, page 39.
The name of the skit was topical at
the time. February 1867 came less than
two years after the end of the Civil War and assassination of Abraham
Lincoln. There was a movement at the
time to establish schools and colleges for newly freed slaves; those schools
were frequently referred to as “Freedmen’s schools” or “Freedmen’s colleges.”
In Hampton, Virginia, for example, it
was reported that a “large and valuable building in the vicinity of Fortress
Monroe, known during the war as Hampton Hospital, has been purchased by
Northern contribution, and will be used as a freedmen’s college.”[ix] The school is now Hampton University. A similar report from Nashville, Tennessee
noted that a “building west of the Chattanooga Depot, heretofore used as a
military hospital” had been “formally dedicated as a colored High School.” The headline read, “Opening Exercises of the
Fisk Freedmen’s School.” The school is
now Fisk University.
The last name, Bolivar, might also
have been intended as a reference to freedmen, or at least to the type of name
a freed slave might choose as their own last name when given the chance after
emancipation. The South American
statesman Simon Bolivar, who shared the same last name, was widely known as “El
Libertador” – “the Liberator.”
Although some of the humor of the
original production was likely had at the expense of “Freedmen” specifically,
or Black people generally, much of the humor was universal enough to translate
well to non-black face entertainment as well.
As early as 1868, the character named
Patsy Bolivar appeared onstage in San Francisco, California in a production
entitled “The Fat Boy.”
 |
San Francisco Chronicle, April 20, 1868, page 1.
|
The plot is not described, but it may
have been based on a portion of Dickens’, The
Pickwick Papers, an American adaptation of which had recently been
published as a chapter, “The Fat Boy,” in an American compilation of Dickens’ writings
about children, “Child-Pictures from Dickens,”[x]
which was put on sale in Northern California[xi]
a few months before Johnny Mack staged his production of “The Fat Boy” in April
of 1868.
Skits featuring “Patsy Bolivar” in
school continued to spread under one name or another for decades, with a
teacher, a dunce, a classroom full of students and the name of the main
character, “Patsy Bolivar,” the constant threads. In 1871, for example, a troupe calling itself
the California Minstrels performed a skit called “High School” Hawaii, with the
familiar characters of the Schoolmaster, Dunce, Patsy Bolivar and other school
boys.
Two years later in 1873, another
group billing itself as the California Minstrels (although with no apparent
overlap of cast) toured Australia with a more simply named skit, “School,” in
its repertoire. M. Ainsley Scott (who
had played the Professor in the earliest known version of “Freedmen’s College”
in 1867) played the role of Patsy Bolivar.
The new title appears to be borrowed
from Tom Robertson’s more famous play from the legitimate stage, School, which debuted at the Prince of
Wales Theatre in London in 1869. That
version of “School” was a modern retelling of Cinderella which took place at a
girls’ school; “School,” in turn, was an English adaptation of a recent German
play, Aschenbroedel, a modern
retelling of the German version of Cinderella,
Aschenputtel. Decades later, in a
reverse-everything-old-is-new-again moment, a character named “Patsy Bolivar”
appeared in a burlesque satire (Dr. Swine-Tax)
of a later musical adaptation of School
called Dr. Syntax, which was itself a
remake of an earlier musical adaptation of School
called Cinderella in School, making
modern criticism of Hollywood’s penchant for remakes, reboots and sequels seem
tame in comparison.
In the days before film, radio, videotape
and electronic storage and reproduction of popular entertainment, popular skits
and plays were circulated by licensed touring groups, imitators, remakes and
rewrites of the same material. By some
quirk of fate, the character’s name was so popular or familiar that “Patsy
Bolivar” (sometimes Boliver or Bolliver) survived through all of the successive
reboots, remakes and updates, through dozens of shows with different titles and
different antagonists. The school
setting, the general identity of the teacher and dunce, and a few comic
touchstones remained the same, but nearly everything else changed in the
various productions of the variously-named, “Freedmen’s School” (1867), “The
Fat Boy” (1868), “The Boarding School” (1873), “The Old School District” (1876),
“A Gentleman’s Seminary” (Australia, 1878), “An Ethiopian Farce in One Act”
(1880), “School for Scandal” (1884), “The Country School” (1885), “The Spellin’
Skewl, or Friday Afternoon at Deestrick No. 4” (1891), “Deestrick Skule”
(1895), “A Child of nature, or Patsy Bolivar’s Woes” (1895), “Dr. Swine Tax”
(1896), “Deestrick 4” (1897), “The District School No. 3” (an all-female cast,
1901) and presumably many other other-named skits performed at various times
and places.
Other forms of pre-radio and pre-film
entertainment included home and amateur “theatricals.” Several publishing companies, including the Ames
Publishing Company of Clyde, Ohio published simplified versions of professional
plays for the home market. Ames
published at least two scripts of alternate versions of the “Patsy Bolivar”
skit for the home market, School, an
Ethiopian Farce in Once Act, by Newton Field, published in 1880 (said to be
based on a script performed professionally in 1878) and The Spellin’ Skewl – or – Friday Afternoon at Deestrick No. 4 (an
original burlesque in one scene) by Bert Richards, apparently published in
about 1890.
School
includes all of the standard situations and humor, and even lets Patsy turn the
tables on his tormentors, in one scene switching places with the Dunce so that
when he is unjustly blamed, the Dunce sitting in his seat might be punished by
mistake. Only the synopsis for The Spellin’ Skewl survives, in an
advertisement the play in the back of another script. There’s a kiss, a
teeter-totter, some “Hokey Pokey,” a pin on the teacher’s chair, spit-wads, and
a whistle during class – nothing out of the ordinary.
Beginning in 1898, Vaudeville performer
Billy B. Van breathed new life into the character of “Patsy Bolivar,” adding it
to his popular act just before the turn of the century, at about the same time
the slang word “patsy” (standing alone) is believed to have entered the lexicon. Van performed as Patsy in his own “Bohemian
Burlesquers” troupe as early as 1898, and later brought the character with him
to a touring company of Beauty’s Apple
in 1889 and 1900, and to The Devil’s
Daughter company in 1901.
In 1901, Billy Van introduced a new
song with a title that encapsulated the theme of all “Patsy Bolivar” comedies
and could have reinforced the use of “Patsy, standing alone.”
Van’s “Everything Falls on Patsy.”
Billy B. Van sang a new song at the Court Street Theatre last
evening, entitled “Everything Falls on Patsy,” and he was forced to repeat it
six times. Then he apologized because he
did not know any more verses. The song
struck a popular chord, and after both performances yesterday the air was heard
on the streets leading from the theatre.
There are some very good songs in “The Devil’s Daughter,” but the new
one has them all beaten.
Buffalo Commercial (Buffalo, New York), July 23, 1901, page 8.
Van left The Devil’s Daughter the following year and continued performing as
“Patsy” on his own or with other companies.
But The Devil’s Daughter kept
the character in its act as well, by plugging a performer named Clarence Wilbur
into the role. There seems to have been
some dispute or professional jealousy about ownership of the character, as The Devil’s Daughter billed its version
of “Patsy Bolivar” as “Copyrighted.”
 |
New York Clipper, March 22, 1902, page 88.
|
For his part, Billy B. Van kept
“Patsy Bolivar” in his act for the rest of the decade in a series of different
skits. Many of those sketches carried
the names “Patsy” or “Bolivar,” alone or in combination, in conjunction with a
word or two descriptive of the new situation, for example, “Bolivar’s Busy
Day,” “Patsy’s Debut,” “Patsy in Politics”[xii]
and “Patsy Bolivar’s Vacation.”[xiii]
The repeated use of the names separately
may have reinforced or accelerated the transition of the idiom from the
original “Patsy Bolivar” to “Patsy,” standing alone.
In 1906, Billy B. Van’s “Patsy” helped
popularize another popular slang expression of the day, “23-Skidoo!” “23” and “skidoo” were both slang expressions
in their own right, both meaning “get lost!” They were frequently used together for comedic
emphasis.
Van did not coin “23”, which had already
been a well known slang term for several years, likely derived from the final
scene of Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two
Cities, in which the knitting women count-off Sydney Carton as the
twenty-third person killed at the guillotine that morning.
Nor does Billy B. Van appear to have
coined the expression, “Skidoo” or its use in close conjunction with “23.” “Skidoo” appeared in print at least two years
before it appeared in association with his act.
Both words were even used together on stage in George M. Cohan’s Yankee Doodle Dandy and The Rogers
Brothers’ Vaudeville act as early as 1904. For more detail on the early use of “23” and
“Skidoo,” see my earlier post, Skedaddle,
Skidoodle, Skidoo – the Vanishing History and Etymology of Twenty-three Skidoo!
Nevertheless, the lyrics of a song
entitled “Skidoo (For You),” written by Jimmie Barry in 1906, credits Billy B.
Van with coining the expression, “Skidoo.”[xiv]
I suppose you’ve heard of the latest word
In the English language
It was coined by a fellow named Billy Ban
To use upon the stage.
It made a hit and has gone the rounds,
You hear it ev’ry day,
And when you’re least expecting it,
You’ll hear some body say.
Chorus:
“SKIDOO” “SKIDOO”
You hear it every
where,
“SKIDOO” “SKIDOO”
It seems to be in the air . . . .
It’s not clear whether Jimmie Barry was
mistaken about who coined “Skidoo,” or if Billy B. Van actually did coin it two
years before any known written evidence of his use of the word appeared in
print. In any case, Barry’s belieft that
Billy B. Van coined the word at least suggests Van’s leading role in
popularizing the expression.
But Billy Van may have actually coined
the familiar form, “23-Skidoo!” The
earliest known example of that expression is as the title of a song in an
advertisement for Billy B. Van’s production of “The Errand Boy,” in which Van
appeared as “Patsy Bolivar.”
 |
| Chattanooga Daily Times (Chattanooga, Tennessee), March 18, 1906, page 26. |
 |
New York Clipper, Volume 4, Number 9, April 21, 1906,
page 258.
|
The gallery gods waxed enthusiastic last night over his
“Skidoo” song, and after patiently singing a half dozen verses, the comedian
and chorus chanted the song plaintively in the direction of the galleries. With the “Skidoo, skidoo, 23 for you,” the
gods subsided.
Pittsburgh Press, April 17, 1906, page 3.
Billy B. Van also sang a song called
“Skidoo” (perhaps the same song) in his next production, “Patsy in Politics.”
 |
Indianapolis Star, April 14, 1907, page 17.[xv]
|
The musical end of the show is well taken care of. There are some good melodies and they are
sung with fine effect. To make them more
attractive a bevy of young women sing the choruses and go through dances which
please the audience. Some of the songs
that took extra well were “Love is a Wonderful Thing,” “Back Again to Old
Broadway,” “Jolly Little Johnnies at the Old Stage Door, “Bolivar Cadets,”
“Skidoo,” “Nancy,” “Holding Hands” and “Take Me Back to Paree.”
Boston Globe,
October 16, 1906, page 6.
Billy B. Van performed as “Patsy
Bolivar” for so long that years later he would later be mistakenly remembered
as the one who “originated” the character.[xvi] But all good things come to an end, and for
some not soon enough. In 1910, despite
his long-time success with the character, Billy B. Van “promised” to put Patsy
on the shelf.
Billy B. Van has promised to shelve “Patsy Bolivar” forever.
Evening Star
(Washington DC), February 20, 1910, page 23.
Hollywood took up the story five
years later, in the form of a fourteen-chapter serial produced by the Lubin
film studios, one of the earliest serials put on film. Episode one, “Patsy at School,” followed the
familiar plot.
Patsy Bolivar is always in hard luck, and everything he
attempts invariably goes wrong. When the careless housemaid substitutes salt
for sugar in the sugar bowl, Patsy is thrashed for it by an over-severe parent.
When she leaves something on the floor for the master of the house to stumble
over he is beaten for that. He has an evil genius, or hoodoo, known as Sykesy,
who, finding it an easy matter to commit all kinds of offenses and have the
blame thrown on Patsy, works his nefarious power without stint.
Moving Picture World, Volume 22, Number 13, December 26, 1914, page 1873. [xvii]
The remaining thirteen episodes followed
Patsy to college and early adulthood, where he was continually put-upon and
abused by his main tormentor, Sykesy, and misunderstood by his family and loved
ones.
 |
The Moving Picture World, Volume 23, Number 3, January 16, 1915, page 390.
|
But in the end, Patsy married his
sweetheart on a yacht as Sykesy fell in the water.
 |
The Moving Picture World, March 27, 1915, page 1948.
|
Despite his ultimate triumph on screen, the name “Patsy Bolivar” was synonymous with a scapegoat or fall
guy from shortly after its debut in “Freedmen’s College” in 1867.
Idiomatic “Patsy Bolivars”
Beginning at least as early as 1872, criminals,
great and small, routinely gave their name as “Patsey Bolivar” to shift the
blame from their guilty selves onto an innocent, fictional alias. The dodge might not keep you out of jail, but
it could keep your name clean.
In some cases either the court or the
reporters didn’t seem to be in on the joke.
In 1872, for example, when Judge Flippin oversaw the case of the “State
vs. Patsy Bolivar, larceny,” in his courtroom in Memphis, there was no
suggestion that the name was false, amusing or otherwise noteworthy.
In 1875, one court apparently
accepted the name while a reporter caught on to the scam.
There was a big grist this forenoon before the Mayor, but as
many of the prisoners were allowed to register such fictitious names as Patsy
Bolivar, Saucy Sal, etc, a recapitulation would be unfair to the few that were
genuine.
Indianapolis News, June 28, 1875, page 1.
In 1879, a Memphis newspaper had
spotted the trend, comparing it to the viral (for its day) “Tom Collins hoax” of
a few years earlier. The use of “Patsy”
standing alone at the end of the paragraph suggests how the word “Patsy” might
easily evolve from “Patsy Bolivar.”
Little Rock Gazette 16: “Patsy Bolivar is wanted in this
city. The name of Patsy Bolivar is a
kind of Tom Collins cognomen. Patsy is
some times a typographical pedestrian and writes for Rowell’s Newspaper
Reporter. Sometimes he is some one else,
harvests grain in the North and picks cotton in the South. He is English, German, American, Irish and
colored. This time he is an American,
and robbed a man of fifteen dollars at the depot. The man is a stranger. An affidavit was swore out at Justice Howe’s
court, and officers are now looking for Patsy.”
The Daily Memphis Avalanche, September 25, 1879, page 2.
The “Tom Collins hoax” was a
practical joke believed to have been first pulled by the Mayor of New York City
and an Alderman, in which a false name shifts the blame for bad behavior onto
an innocent third party. It was, in
essence, a more innocent and less dangerous form of what is called “SWAT-ting”
today (the practice of making false reports to the police with the intent of
having a SWAT team to an innocent dupe’s house). But instead of getting the cops involved, the
practical joker goads his victim into picking a fight with the innocent
third-party.
A joke, said to have been started by Mayor Havemeyer and
Alderman John J. Morris, has caused much merriment to the occupants of nearly
every saloon, club house, and hotel in the city during the past ten days. . . .
The Tom Collins hoax is worked in this manner: A joker meets
a friend and accosts him with “Have you seen Tom Collins?”
“No; who the deuce is Tom Collins?”
Well, I don’t know much about him; but he says he knows all
about you, and is telling terrible lies and scandals, showing up your life in
the most outrageous manner.”
“Where can I find the scoundrel?”
“He generally hang out at - - - - ‘s saloon,” replies the
joker (naming some place where he is known and apt to find confederates). “Suppose we go for him.”
“All right,” replies the victim, boiling with rage.
On reaching the saloon the joker inquires of the bartender,
in a voice loud enough to be heard by persons near, “Have you seen Tom
Collins?”
“Yes, there he is,” answers a confederate, generally pointing
to the meekest looking stranger in the room.
Then follows this scene, copied from one which actually occurred in a
popular lager beer saloon near the City Hall yesterday afternoon:
Victim (with fire in his eyes, walking up to stranger) – What
do you mean, sir, traducint my character and lying about me to my friends?
Stranger – You are mistaken, sir; I have said nothing about
you.
Victim (egged on by his friends) – You lie, you scoundrel; at
the same time making a pass for the stranger.
Then the party break out in a roar of laughter, and declare
that nothing but a round of drinks at the victim’s expense will wash out the
insult to the stranger.
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, May 13, 1874, page 2 (reprinted from The New York Sun).
In addition to acting as a convenient
alias for criminals or others wishing to hide their real identities, “Patsy
Bolivar” was regularly used idiomatically to refer to anyone unfairly blamed
for something or the other.
The citizens of Oswego, Kansas, for
example, felt that their image was unfairly tarnished by areas newspapers
referring to a certain criminal ring as the “Oswego Ring,” because members of
the crime ring actually came from and operated in several other local
communities.
“OSWEGO RING”
We earnestly protest against the indiscriminate use of the
opprobrium “Oswego ring,” as used in the resolutions, published elsewhere. . .
. It is no more an “Oswego ring” than it is a “Columbus ring,” a “Montana ring”
or a “Chetopa ring.” . . . . [I]t is uncharitable scandal to pronounce our town
the Patsy Boliver of the district.
Oswego Independent (Oswego, Kansas), April 4, 1874, page 5.
The “Patsy Bolivar” delegates
have returned from the Convention, and are now explaining to the sovereigns why
this or that man was not selected as a Congressman.
Public Ledger
(Memphis, Tennessee), September 10, 1874, page 3.
Judge Field is the “Patsy Bolivar” of the California
Democracy.
Los Angeles Times, May 23, 1885, page 3.
“Patsy Bolivar” still appeared in
print, on occasion (instead of just “Patsy”) as late as 1942.
But Mr. Jingle is quite sure that when Yankee Doodle gets
agoing he’s going to town – Hitler’s town, and, no matter what Stalin now
thinks, the fellow’s who’ll do the fighting will insist that the boys who kept
the Jerries so busy this Summer won’t be made the Patsy
Bolliver of the peace.
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 11, 1942, page 16.
Real-Life Patsy Bolivars
Despite the generally negative
connotations of being a “Patsy Bolivar,” several actual people proudly assumed
the name as their own or as a nickname, and not as a criminal alias. Every example I’ve run across dates to a time
after the earliest known reference to the character of “Patsy Bolivar” was
developed, so they may have been in imitation of or inspired by the
character.
Two early examples however, both from
variety theaters in Memphis, Tennessee, are close enough in time to the earliest
mentions of the character, that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that
a real-live “Patsy Bolivar” could have inspired the character in some way that
is lost to history.
Varieties Theater.
. . . We are pleased to learn that Mr. Solomon
Cramher (who is a nephew to Brigham Young), now on his way to Salt Lake, has
laid over, and will appear in his great
contortion act, assisted by Signor Patsy Boliver.
Public Ledger
(Memphis), September 17, 1869, page 3.
Variety Halls.
. . . Broom’s Varieties, Memphis Tennessee., is reported to
be doing well. Our Correspondent says: -
“Hen Mason takes the stage management on the 12th, as Charley White
and Charley Broom have formed a company and partnership and start on a tour. .
. . The party consists of H. A. Kincade
and sons, Kate Clair, Sig. Frances, Billy Diamond, D. Donaldson, Paul Snyder,
Prof. Williams, W. B. Fish, Patsy Bolivar and
Charley O. White.”
New York Clipper, January 22, 1870, page 335.
Later examples, further removed in
time and place, seem more likely than not to have been based on the character;
a newspaper owner in St. Louis in 1879, for example, or an Irish comedian, one
of the “Two Rollicking Hibernians,” in Scotland in 1880. [xviii]
In 1890, a transient railroad tramp
named “Patsy Bolivar” battled it out with “Sailor Kid” in a contest to be
crowned “King of the Tramps.” At a
convention of tramps at the Nanticoke Pennsylvania coal breaker, it was decided
that the two of them would race to make the quickest trip from New York to San
Francisco and back, via New Orleans.
“Sailor Kid” won the race by
disguising himself as an American Indian to take advantage of the law giving
them free passage on any train crossing the western prairies. “With feathers in his hair, paint on his face
and a blanket over his shoulders, [“Sailor Kid”] sped westward on the platform
of a lightning express,” while “’Patsy Bolivar’ ‘plugged along’ slowly in
freight cars.”[xix]
In 1879, a professional baseball
player in Buffalo (then in the National League) was given the nickname “Patsy
Bolivar” because he also worked in the theater as treasurer of the Jubilee
Singers of Philadelphia, and had played the role of “Patsy Bolivar” in an
off-season production of “School.”[xx]
The name apparently did not stick. His
more common nick name was “Chick,” and there were no other references to him by
that name despite having a long, successful career in the major leagues before
and after playing in Buffalo.
But by far the best-known,
non-theatrical “Patsy Bolivar” of the day was a professional baseball player
and manager named Oliver “Patsy Bolivar” Tebeau (more commonly referred to as
“Patsy” Tebeau), who spent nearly a decade and a half in the major leagues;
briefly as a third-baseman for the Chicago White Sox (now the Cubs) and for
more than a decade with the Cleveland Spiders (primarily as manager), followed
by two years as manager of the St. Louis Cardinals.
Tebeau’s successor as manager of the
Cardinals, Patrick “Patsy” Donovan, came by the name more naturally, and was
generally referred to merely as “Patsy.”
One reporter, however, referred to him as “Patsy Bolivar” on at least
one occasion, either by force of habit left over from Tebeau or just as a
one-off joke.
It is not entirely clear how or why Oliver
Tebeau took the name “Patsy Bolivar.” The
fact that it rhymes (more or less) with his first name may have helped, and perhaps
he was the kind of player or manager who took abuse from umpires or other
teams. A cryptic comment in a short poem
about him printed in one of his home town newspapers (he grew up in the Kerry
Patch neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri) hints at a different reason, but
without enough detail to decipher the identity of the “famous Patsy Bolivar”
from whom he earned his name.
They say you came from ‘Kerry Patch,’
And, though your
name is Oliver,
You earned your nickname when you downed
The famous Patsy
Bolivar.
St. Louis boasts some clever lads;
You’ll find them
where you chance to go,
But when it comes to playing third
Our man is Oliver
Tebeau.”
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, September 30, 1887, page 8.
Oliver Tebeau’s own nickname is not
the only nickname he is known for.
“Patsy Bolivar” Tebeau twice managed teams at the moment they were given
new nicknames that still survive in major league baseball today, the “Cleveland
Indians”[xxi]
(although a National League predecessor of today’s American league Indians) and
the “St. Louis Cardinals.”[xxii]
Anyone who doesn’t like
One of those two names –
Knows to whom to give the blame –
Rightly
or wrongly, yes or no,
– “Patsy Bolivar” Tebeau.
 |
| Oskaloosa Independent (Oskaloosa, Kansas), February 18, 1898, page 6. |
[ii] The
earliest association this researcher has found connecting the sketch or the
name to Boston is from 1876.
[iii]
The explanation was later adopted in full as the definition of “Patsy Bolivar”
in Henry Frederic Redall’s alternate encyclopedia, Fact, Fancy, and Fable, a New Handbook for Ready Reference on Subjects
Commonly Omitted from Cyclopaedias (Chicago, A. C. McClurg & Company,
1892). Some sources, including Wikipedia (as of November 2019), cite
Redall’s work in support of the Boston origin story.
[iv]
“Miss Patsy,” Sewell Collins, The Green
Book Album, Volume III, Number 5, May 1910, page 949 (novelized from the
acting version of the play by Arthur F. Greene).
[v] Times-Tribune (Scranton, Pennsylvania),
August 26, 1910, page 4 (advertisement for upcoming performance of the stage
play, “Miss Patsy.”
[vi]
“The Bolivar,” Bozeman Bulger, The
Saturday Evening Post, Volume 188, Number 4, November 27, 1915, page 14.
[vii] Moving Picture World, Volume 23, Number
1, January 2, 1915, page 90. “Patsy in School” (December 1914) was the first of
a fourteen-chapter serial by the Lubin film studio.
[viii]
“Clipper Varieties. Comprising Ballads, Songs and Dances, Comic Songs, Old
Bills, etc.,” New York Clipper,
August 14, 1875, page 156 (from an old playbill for Lloyd & Bideaux’s
Minstrels in 1867). The accuracy of the
date and location of the performance listed in the 1875 reprint of the 1867
playbill are verified in a contemporary newspaper notice of the same
performance. Hartford Courant, February 2, 1867, page 5. The accurace of the personnel listed in the
1875 reprint are verified by advertisements for the same troupe to appear in
another town a few weeks later. Buffalo Evening Post, February 5, 1867,
page 2.
[ix] Daily Phoenix (Columbia, South
Carolina), January 12, 1866, page 2.
[x] Child-Pictures from Dickens, Boston,
Ticknor and Fields, 1868.
[xi] Sacramento Daily Union, January 31,
1868, page 6 (“Roman & Co. send us an elegant book, published by Ticknor
& Fields, of Boston, which contains selected chapters from Dickens’ Works
under the title of ‘Child Pictures from Dickens.’ . . . The selections are
‘Little Nell,’ ‘The Marchioness,’ ‘Paul and Florence,’ ‘The Fat Boy,’ ‘Tiny
Tim,’ ‘Smike’ and ‘Oliver Twist.’”).
[xii] Chattanooga News (Chattanooga,
Tennessee, March 17, 1906, page 13.
[xiii]
Pittsburgh Press, December 2, 1906,
page 33.
[xiv]
“Skidoo-For You,” Words and Music by Jimmie Barry, Golden Gate Music Co., 1906,
Empire Music Co., Boston, Massachusetts, Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries &
University Museums, The Lester S. Levy Sheet Music Collection.
[xv]
This image of Billy B. Van as “Patsy Bolivar,” with the exaggerated Eton
collar, neckerchief and goofy expression, is strikingly similar to images of
James T. Powers in an 1895 production of “The New Boy,” the role associated
with the advertising image believed to be the ultimate inspiration of Mad Magazine’s iconic mascot, Alfred E.
Neuman. See, my earlier posts, “The
Real Alfred E.” and “More
Real Alfred E.”
[xvi] Pittsburgh Press, January 2, 1910, page
27 ([Billy B. Van] is best known to the theater-going public as the creator of
the character of “Patsy Bolivar.”).
[xviii]
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, December 30,
1879, page 4 (“About 10 o’clock Mr. Patsy Bolivar, a well known journalist, who
had buried several newspapers as far back as 1840, made an effort to take
possession of the Globe-Democrat
office under a Spanish claim, which, he says, was issued to him by Don Miguel
Francesca in 1796.”); Aberdeen Journal, June 24, 1880, page 1 (“Cook’s Royal
Circus. To-night. The two Rollicking
Hibernians, Mickey M’Guffin and Patsy Bolliver.).
[xix] Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, Montana),
October 20, 1890, page 6.
[xx] St. Louis Globe-Democrat, February 16,
1879, page 9.
No comments:
Post a Comment