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.
