So in posting that last post about stevedores, and dredging up my small memory about Eric Hoffer, I realized that I had never heard him referred to as a stevedore, but definitely as a longshoreman. I may be wrong, but I think the word longshoreman is more part of our American mythology of labor than stevedore. But why is he called a longshoreman, exactly? I've been trying to piece this one together, thinking that it can't be that hard. The word is in English, after all. But all I can think is what long shore? And does it have anything to do with Long Island?
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Okay. I'm not going to tell you the answer to this one just yet, because it is so incredibly obvious once you know it, that I think you can really get this one on your own. Instead I think I'll just embed the first part of a rare interview with America's most famous longshoreman.
Okay--did you figure it out already? One last chance to guess on the word's origins.
The answer in the comments field.
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From 1811: alongshore+man.
ReplyDeleteNot a long shore man.
An along shore man.
Damn.
He seems to have been an interesting chap, with much to say on a wide variety of subjects.
ReplyDeleteI like that he is very expressive in person while his prose is very precise and can be read as cold.
ReplyDeleteHe had good things to say about the progression from boyhood to manhood. Meaningful work was an important step and if it didn't happen you're left with a state of eternal adolescence.
ReplyDeleteI haven't listened to that interview yet, but he did once write in favor of a mandatory national service program that would put young people to work in fields tha tinclude construction.
ReplyDeleteAdrian, I wonder in a way what meaningful work is for a man in America anymore, though. And although the class divide is not so spelled out as in England,say, the class divide between the college bound and the working classes was very definite in my dad's day. In the interview, Severeid wonders how Hoffer manages that tension, and said that he was given a hard time about being a psuedo-intellectual when he was working on the teams and also trying to be a cub reporter. I remember my dad talking about that on his laboring jobs when he was working summers between college years.
ReplyDeleteI think the disloyalty to class by educational advancement is or at least was a very big deal in America.
Peter, one of my Penny University teachers, and actually briefly one of my professors in college, Page, Smith, was very involved in putting together FDR's Civilian Conservation Corps. All those years later, he still thought it a great thing.
ReplyDeleteThe sound quality is poor, but Hoffer is a character, and fun to watch. I only watched this first segment, but I will probably watch the rest in honor of my dad.
Although on that basis, I should also probably read all of Sandberg's Lincoln and all of the Gulag Archipelago, and my heart gives way a bit at the task.
I've been reading what he has to say about the psychology of mass movements.
ReplyDeleteGood. I will try to read one of his books before too long. They are apparently short and pithy. As Hoffer himself says, his editors pressured him to pad them out a little.
ReplyDeleteUnsuccessfully.
The bits that I've looked at from two of his books seem just what you'd probably expect. He writes about big subjects in matter-of-fact language.
ReplyDeleteI just put about up a post about Eric Hoffer. Did you come across this list of former stevedores in the course of your research?
ReplyDeleteI did see it, and realized I should have amended it to America's most famous longshoreman philosopher. It's a great list.
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ReplyDeleteI got a kick out of the capoeira guy. He probably looked graceful and dangerous flying around the docks.
ReplyDeleteI was impressed by Frank McCourt. Not the bulkiest guy on the docks, I'm thinking.
ReplyDeleteMcCourt was not hale and robust?
ReplyDeleteSlight and wiry. Not to say he couldn't work.
ReplyDeleteI'm now reading what The Ordeal of Change has to say about intellectuals and artists. The chapter is a highlight.
ReplyDeleteI'll have to see if I can find this one. I need to read some Hoffer, anyway.
ReplyDelete