17 April 1912 photo of newsboys wearing knickerbocker trousers, Washington, DC. Sepia-toned photograph of newsboys, the youngest being only nine years old, holding copies of an extra edition of the Washington Post after midnight. The photo was taken to show the exploitation of child labor.
29 March 2021
Why is the NBA basketball team called the New York Knicks? And how come knickers in American English refers to golfing attire but to women’s underwear in British English? This nickname for New York and New Yorkers and the articles of clothing all have their origins in the writings of Washington Irving, (Cf. Gotham) and arise in the context of colonialism, at first Dutch and later English.
In 1809, writer and satirist Irving published A History of New-York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty under the pseudonym Diedrich Knickerbocker, a Dutch name paying homage to the first Europeans to settle in the region. Despite the title, the book is not a serious work of history but humorous fiction. The book was a bestseller and widely quoted and referred to, and as a result the name Knickerbocker became firmly attached to New York.
It also spawned the name the Knickerbocker Group or Knickerbocker School, referring to a group of early nineteenth-century writers that included Irving, James Fenimore Cooper and William Cullen Bryant, among others. It was not an organized group, but rather a label for early nineteenth-century American writers with a penchant for parody and satire. An early use of the phrase Knickerbocker School can be found in the pages of the 23 August 1813 New-York Columbian newspaper, in a review of the poem The Lay of the Scottish Fiddle. The poem is an 1813 satire of Walter Scott’s writing by James Kirke Paulding, a friend of and collaborator with Irving.
LAY OF THE SCOTTISH FIDDLE.
Laugh and be fat. All who believe it to be well to laugh and cry in these disastrous days, will agree (as far as [may?] be judged from half an hour’s perusal) that the book which appears under the above quoted title, being also “A Tale of Havre-de-Grace,” reciting the thrice renowned feats of admiral Cockburn, is one of the rarest and most exquisite literary and sentimental treats the present times have produced. All the sterling or genuine American wit of the Knickerbocker school is displayed in the poems and notes.
And soon Knickerbocker became a generic term for the original Dutch settlers in New York. From the New-York Courier of 18 May 1815:
The corporation of the city have for several years past, by opening streets and in other ways, very much to the general satisfaction, succeeded in repairing the errors which our Knickerbocker ancestors committed in the original plan of the city. What freak was it then, which produced a desire to cramp us at the Battery?
And quickly after that, the word started being used to refer to contemporary New Yorkers. From the New-York Columbian with a dateline of 28 February 1818:
And who can say the fate of the grand Convention scheme might not have been averted, had a certain epoch in our political history occurred in Albany a few hours earlier! I mean the arrival of the Great Plenipotentiary of the General Committee, the Philadelphia major (in this city, I fear minor) at the metropolis of the Knickerbockers yesterday evening, after the decision on the conventional bill, and the House had adjourned! Alas, for one day’s delay!
In November 1820, the New York newspapers were filled with stories about a boat race between the New-York, sponsored by a group called the Knickerbocker Club, and the American Star. From the New-York Columbian of 2 November 1820 in anticipation of the race:
A boat race we understand is brewing between the Knickerbocker club and their competition, to take place on day next week, to try the speed of boats to be built by Baptist and Chambers; and $800 a side already made up on the match.
And the results of the race, as reported by the New-York Gazette & General Advertiser on 13 November 1820:
About the time the boats passed the Old-slip, the New-York was ahead, and continued to lead the way until she reached the stake-boat opposite the Castle on Governor’s Island—having beat the American Star about twenty yards.—As soon as the race was determined in favor of the New-York, (of the real Knickerbocker stamp,) a band of music that was stationed on the plat-form of the flag-staff, struck up an appropriate air, and Mr. De Clew, the keeper of all alive to the victory, threw up numerous sky-rockets as an expression of his joy on the occasion; and the concourse assembled on the Battery, made the air ring with their repeated and almost incessant huzzas.
And I cannot fail to include this example of Knickerbocker referring to the city from the National Advocate of 30 August 1823. I apologize for the length, but it is a classic example of the fare available in nineteenth-century American newspapers. It’s a fun read, but feel free to skip all after the use of Knickerbocker, which is in the first few lines:
Mr. Editor.—I am a miserable little old gentleman, who has nobody to hear his complaints but yourself. I have been, man and boy, sixty-six years, an inhabitant of this good old city, and call to mind, with many heavy sighs, our old quiet Knickerbocker fashions, which are superceded by frivolity, noise, and extravagance. In my time, our nights were tranquil, and our sleep sound; we went to bed early, and rose early; but at present I am kept awake by catterwauling [sic] under my window, which is called serenading. As soon as the clock struck ten, I used to see my fires and lights extinguished, but now there’s no getting my daughters Peggy and Poppet to retire at the proper season. They go to their rooms, it is true, undress, throw on their night clothes, tie a becoming night cap and ruffles on their heads, and thus loosely attired, they seat themselves by the window until 12 o’clock. Then when the moon shines bright, and the streets are silent and deserted, comes tripping along a dandy kind of a gentleman, and leans on the iron grating, throws up his eyes to the moon, and begins to sing a song, the last stanza of which ran thus:
“O lift but a moment the sash with
Thy hand, and kiss but that hand
To me, my dear Mary.”Up goes the window, sure enough; the Venetian blinds are thrown open, and shakings of handkerchiefs, nodding of heads and other pantomime tricks take place. By and bye [sic] comes two flutes and a guitar, and many love-sick ballads are played. Anon, three gentlemen make their appearance, and sing “Oh Lady Fair,” my Peggy and Poppet still at the window. In the morning they make their appearance at the breakfast table, their eyes heavy, their cheeks pale, and the natural and refreshing sleep disturbed.
Now, Mr. Advocate, this is very cruel. My girls were once simple, healthy, and cheerful; they are not flighty and fashionable; they do not sing 15 or 20 verses of Psalms; as they used to do, or the old ballad of “’Twas when the seas were roaring.” or “Robin Gray;” but its “Love has Eyes,” “Eveleen’s Bower,” or Gilfert’s air, “I left thee where I found thee Love,” and they set up nightly to hear these serenades; these sappers and miners of health. I was very near committing a faux pas in my rage a few nights ago. I intended to souse something on the heads and over the instruments of these gallants, which would not have been very genteel altogether, but my daughters protested against attempting to drive away their kind disturbers of sleep, so I got an old play, and learnt part of a song, determined to affront them; and when they appeared the ensuing night, I popp’d my white night cap out of the garret window and began—
“What vagabonds are those I hear
Fiddling, fifing, routing, squalling;
Fly, scurvy minstrels, fly.”Instead of flying, these cat gut scrapers set up a loud laugh, and if I had had a blunderbuss, I would have given it to them like Monsieur Morbleu in Tonson—“O, I am all over shots wis de peas.”
DENNIS DISMAL.
But Knickerbocker was not just confined to New York City itself. This example from the New-York Spectator of 1 July 1823 uses it to refer to Ulster County, New York, which is on the banks of the Hudson River some one hundred miles to the north of the city:
We have received an angry note from somebody who signs himself “A Friend to Liberty and Independence,” which has been elicited by our paragraph of yesterday, in relation to the Booths usually erected around the Park for the Fourth of July. He does not deny that those tents are the places of rioting, debauchery and drunkenness; but he says such scenes have not been painful to the sober and discreet portion of our citizens, as “they are too liberal minded to raise the objections mentioned on that great day.” (Indeed!) Such objections, he continues, “may do very well for Old Connecticut, or some of its emigrants.” The writer boasts of being a native of New-York, and gives us, (as he supposes) sundry other hits about “Old Connecticut,” which would doubtless have been spared, had he known the fact, that the person to whom he alludes, is a native of the good old Knickerbocker country of Ulster. Our Correspondent, however, need not have told us that he was not an emigrant from Connecticut. The free schools of that state would have taught him to write better English hand he does.—As to the proposition about the Booths, we find all the papers, and every respectable man we have seen, in favor of it; and we trust the Mayor will not disappoint the public expectation upon the subject.
In 1833, Charles Fenno Hoffman started publishing The Knickerbocker: or, New-York Monthly Magazine. The next year he was succeeded by Lewis Gaylord Clark, who would remain the editor for decades. The magazine was enormously successful and had a nationwide circulation. You can think of it as the nineteenth-century equivalent of today’s New Yorker, and it indelibly associated Knickerbocker with New York. (More on the magazine and its influence on men’s and boys’ fashion in a bit.)
And to cement the definition of Knickerbocker as a New Yorker, there is this from the Atlas of 1 December 1850:
The business capacity and the enterprise of the genuine Yankee are beyond the comprehension of the Southern Creole and the New York Knickerbocker.
That’s how Knickerbocker came to refer to New York, but what about the clothing?
Oddly, the name for the articles of clothing originated in Britain. The earliest reference to short trousers tied at the knee as knickerbockers appears in the Standard of London on 14 September 1858:
His shooting jacket always seemed too tight in the arm-holes,—his wide-awake, as if it had figured the preceding day in Melton’s window; and he was as little at his ease in Knickerbockers or in hobnailed shoes, as Corbet in straps and varnished boots; he walked about his farm with a fastidious, pick-my-way air, which would have afforded a good study to Leech.
And the following letter by Francis Charteris, a.k.a. Lord Elcho, titled “How to Dress Volunteers,” appears in the Times on 23 May 1859. Charteris is referring to the establishment of the London Scottish Rifles Volunteers, which would be under the command of Charteris:
The suggestion I have to make is, that the volunteers should not wear trousers. In making it, I do not, however, propose to leave them without a substitute for this most important and necessary article of clothing, but I would recommend as a substitute what are commonly known as “nickerbockers,” i.e., long loose breeches which are generally worn without braces, and buckled or buttoned round the waist and knee, and which are now in almost universal use among the sportsmen and deerstalkers of the Highlands of Scotland, who have to undergo great fatigue, and to whom the utmost freedom of limb is essential. It is from having had 11 years’ experience of the great advantages of this description of dress that I am induced to urge its adoption, as I am confident it is the only fitting dress for a foot soldier, whose efficiency it would greatly increase. Trousers have no doubt their advantages,—they are easily put on, and it does not much matter what shape a man’s leges are when thus encased; but, to a sportsman who has once experienced the ease and freedom of “nickerbockers” or the kilt, they are simply intolerable.
Illustration by George Cruikshank from an 1836 edition of Diedrich Knickerbocker’s (Washington Irving’s) A History of New York. Image of a man enraged that all the men around him are smoking pipes; all the men are in knee breeches.
The association of knickerbockers with this style of trousers, typically worn by sportsmen and young boys, comes from one, or both, of two sources, both illustrations appearing in published works. An edition of Irving’s History of New York was published in Britain in 1836 featuring illustrations by George Cruikshank, and these drawings showed the Dutchmen of New York (New Amsterdam) wearing knee breeches of the fashion of the past. The book was as widely read in Britain as it was in the United States. If the name for the style of trousers originated in Britain, this book is the likely source.
I have not found any earlier citations of knickerbockers meaning trousers from the United States, but if some are found (more and more old works become digitized and readily available to researchers all the time), the source for those would likely be the aforementioned Knickerbocker magazine. Starting in 1836, the cover of that magazine featured the image of a man in old-style knee breeches, and continued to do so for decades, so much so that the image was as indelibly linked to Knickerbocker in the minds of Americans as the word was to New York.
The clipping knickerbockers to knickers was in place by the 1870s. The earliest use I have found is from the Times of India on 30 April 1872, but it undoubtedly was in use in Britain before this. Despite how frocks and knickers may sound to the present-day ear, the two children referred to are boys:
He, the gentle one of the Indian Statesman, has viewed Mr. White’s Painting of the Installation ceremony at Calcutta in December 1869, and writes:—“Perhaps the most attractive part of the picture is the two little pages, in their pretty frocks and knickers, as like as life.”
The drawing of a man in knee breeches in a book-lined study and holding a pen and a pipe that graced the cover of the Knickerbocker Magazine for decades, starting in the 1830s.
And there is this referring to sporting attire from the Irish Times of 11 May 1876 in reference to an exhibition game of lacrosse played in Belfast between a team of Iroquois and a team of white Canadians. Despite the fact that those wearing the knickers are North American, the word itself appears to be Anglo-Irish:
The Indians were attired in Indian-playing costume—namely, red and white striped guernseys and knickers with white hose. They displayed a variety of ornaments; their faces were streaked with several colours, and on their headdresses they all showed, to a greater or lesser extent, brilliant beads and fluttering feathers. Some of them were rather small in stature, and the only one who exceeds average height is Karioniare (the captain of the team), and we understand the only one amongst them who can speak English. His costume was somewhat different than the others, but this is perhaps to be accounted for by the position he occupied. He wore scarlet knickers, had a more diffuse display of ornaments, and wore on his head a mass of feathers almost equal in proportion to the bearskin of the guardsman. The attire of the Canadians consisted of a white guernsey, grey tweed knickers, and dark brown hose.
But by 1876 knickers was also starting to be used to refer to women’s underpants. From an advertisement in the Manchester Guardian of 15 January 1876:
FLANNEL UNDERCLOTHING AND DRESSING GOWNS.
In White or Scarlet Flannel, Embroidered Colours.
Flannel Petticoat Bodices, 23in. to 32in. 2s. 6d. to 4s. 6d.
Singlets—Plain, 2s. 9½d.; Embroidered Silk, 4s. 6d., 5s. 9d. to 7s. 9d.
Plain and Twill Flannel Knickers, 2s. 11½ d., 3s. 6d., 4s. 11d. to 7s. 11d.0
Eventually, the use referring to women’s underpants drove the male fashion sense out of use in Britain, but knickers is still used in North American English as a clipping of knickerbocker trousers.
Sources:
“Boat Race.” New-York Gazette & General Advertiser, 13 November 1820, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Charteris, Francis (Lord Elcho). “How to Dress Volunteers.” The Times (London), 23 May 1859, 12. Gale Primary Sources: The Times Digital Archive.
Classified Ad. Manchester Guardian, 15 January 1876, 1. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
“Down with the Yankee.” The Atlas (New York), 1 December 1850, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Lacrosse in Ireland.” The Irish Times, 11 May 1876, 5. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
“Lay of the Scottish Fiddle.” New-York Columbian, 23 August 1813, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“Literature.” The Standard (London), 14 September 1858, 9. Gale Primary Sources: British Library Newspapers.
National Advocate (New York), 30 August 1823, 1. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
New-York Columbian (dateline 28 February 1818), 4 March 1818, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
———, 2 November 1820, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
New-York Courier, 18 May 1815, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
New-York Spectator, 1 July 1823, 2. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. knickerbocker, n., knickers, n. (and int.).
Times of India, 30 April 1872, 3. ProQuest Historical Newspapers.
Image credits: 1) Lewis Wickes Hines, 1912. Library of Congress: National Child Labor Committee Collection. Public domain image. 2) Cover image from The Knickerbocker Magazine, July 1836. Public domain image. 3) George Cruikshank, 1836. Public domain image.