''B'hoy'' and ''g'hal'' (meant to evoke an Irish pronunciation of ''boy'' and ''gal'', respectively) were the prevailing
slang
Slang is vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in spoken conversation but avoided in formal writing. It also sometimes refers to the language generally exclusive to the members of particular in-gro ...
words used to describe the young men and women of the rough-and-tumble
working class culture
Working-class culture is a range of cultures created by or popular among working-class people. The cultures can be contrasted with high culture and folk culture, and are often equated with popular culture and low culture (the counterpart of high ...
of
Lower Manhattan
Lower Manhattan (also known as Downtown Manhattan or Downtown New York) is the southernmost part of Manhattan, the central borough for business, culture, and government in New York City, which is the most populated city in the United States with ...
in the late 1840s and into the period of the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. They spoke a slang, with phrases such as "hi-hi", "lam him", and "cheese it".
Etymology
The word b'hoy was first used in 1846. In the United States it was a
colloquialism
Colloquialism (), also called colloquial language, everyday language or general parlance, is the style (sociolinguistics), linguistic style used for casual (informal) communication. It is the most common functional style of speech, the idiom norm ...
for "spirited lad" and "young spark". The word originates from the Irish pronunciation of boy.
Theatrical examples
The prototypical artistic representation of a b'hoy came in 1848, when
Frank Chanfrau played the character Mose the Fireboy in Benjamin A. Baker's ''A Glance at New York''. Mose is a pugilistic
Irish
Irish may refer to:
Common meanings
* Someone or something of, from, or related to:
** Ireland, an island situated off the north-western coast of continental Europe
***Éire, Irish language name for the isle
** Northern Ireland, a constituent unit ...
volunteer fireman.
T. Allston Brown gives this description:
He stood there in his red shirt, with his fire coat thrown over his arm, the stovepipe hat — better known as a "plug" — drawn down over one eye, his trousers tucked into his boots, a stump of a cigar pointing up from his lips to his eye, the soap locks plastered flat on his temples, and his jaw protruded into a half-beastly, half-human expression of contemptuous ferocity.
Details varied with each production; some b'hoys were named Sykesy or Syksey, others were butcher's apprentices. Haswell gives a slightly different description of the archetype:
a high beaver hat, with the nap divided and brushed in opposite directions, the hair on the back of his head clipped close, while in front the temple locks were curled and greased (hence, the well-known term of 'soap-locks' to the wearer of them), a smooth face, a gaudy silk neckcloth, black frockcoat, full pantaloons, turned up at the bottom over heavy boots designed for service in slaughter houses and at fires; and when thus equipped, with his girl hanging on his arm, it would have been very injudicious to offer him any obstruction or to utter an offensive remark.
His girlfriend Lize was the prototypical g'hal, dressed in cheap finery and singing songs from her favorite
minstrel show
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist theatrical entertainment developed in the early 19th century.
Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people spe ...
s.
[Lott 83-84.]
Mose plays became an enormous hit in New York and other large cities, and theaters were filled with b'hoys and g'hals clamoring to see Chanfrau and other actors perform Bowery b'hoy characters. William Northall even complained that at the
Olympic Theatre
The Olympic Theatre, sometimes known as the Royal Olympic Theatre, was a 19th-century London theatre, opened in 1806 and located at the junction of Drury Lane, Wych Street and Newcastle Street. The theatre specialised in comedies throughout m ...
,
See also
*
Bowery Boys (gang)
The Bowery Boys (vernacular Bowery Bhoys) were a nativist, anti-Catholic, and anti-Irish criminal gang based in the Bowery neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City in the early-mid-19th century. In contrast with the Irish immigrant tenement of t ...
*
Bowery B'hoy
*
Mose Humphrey Mose Humphrey was a member of Fire Company 40 in New York City in the 19th century, and the inspiration for the folk hero character "Mose the Fireboy".
The character of Mose first appeared on Broadway in Benjamin A. Baker's ''A Glance at New York ...
Notes
References
* Allen, Robert C. (1991). ''Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture''. University of North Carolina Press.
* Brown, T. Allston (1903). ''A History of the New York Stage: From the First Performance in 1732 to 1901''. Dodd, Mead & Company.
* Cliff, Nigel (2007). ''The Shakespeare Riots: Revenge, Drama, and Death in Nineteenth-Century America.'' Random House.
* Lawrence, Vera Brodsky (1988). ''Strong on Music: The New York Music Scene in the Days of George Templeton Strong. Volume I: Resonances, 1838-1849.'' University of Chicago Press.
* Lott, Eric (1993). ''Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class''. New York: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN, 0-19-507832-2.
*Sante, Luc (2003). ''Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York''. Farrar, Straus, & Giroux.
* Wilmeth, Don B., and Bigsby, C. W. E. (1998). ''The Cambridge History of American Theatre: Beginnings to 1870''. New York: Cambridge University Press.
*Foster, George G. (1850). "New York by Gas-Light", No. 12, "Mose & Lize". University of Chicago Press, 1990.
Cultural history of New York City
Irish-American culture
Irish-American culture in New York City
History of subcultures