In the United States, a water boy or water girl (sometimes spelled waterboy or watergirl) was someone who worked in the field, providing water to

farm workers A farmworker, farmhand or agricultural worker is someone employed for labor in agriculture. In labor law, the term "farmworker" is sometimes used more narrowly, applying only to a hired worker involved in agricultural production, including harv ...

in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Today, the name is given to those who work on the sidelines at sports events to provide water for athletes. The phrase has also been used to describe diminutive figures who serve another team or person in the business and political worlds, in a slightly derogatory manner (ex. "Bill is the CEO's water boy"). The position has a long history in athletics. In the

1869 New Jersey vs. Rutgers football game The 1869 Princeton vs. Rutgers football game was played between Princeton and Rutgers on November 6, 1869. The rules governing play were based on the London Football Association's 1863 rules that disallowed carrying or throwing the ball.

, one of the earliest

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

games, an unnamed water boy is documented giving aid to a

Rutgers Rutgers University (; RU), officially Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, is a public land-grant research university consisting of four campuses in New Jersey. Chartered in 1766, Rutgers was originally called Queen's College, and w ...

player. Among notable people who served as water boys is President

Herbert Hoover Herbert Clark Hoover (August 10, 1874 – October 20, 1964) was an American politician who served as the 31st president of the United States from 1929 to 1933 and a member of the Republican Party, holding office during the onset of the Gr ...

, who was the Stanford Cardinal football's first water boy.

History

Although the term in modern American usage is now associated with sports, traditionally a water boy was a boy employed in farming or industry to provide water for farm workers or machinery. On

cotton plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

s, just as in modern manual harvesting or picking, the water carrier was in constant demand. This is documented in the folk song Waterboy "Water boy, where are you hidin'?" which is only the best known of many folk and plantation water-call songs. Early agricultural machinery also needed a water boy to supply water for cooling. The introduction of steam threshing engines required large amounts of water to produce steam, and steam threshing engine teams would employ water boys to go from farm to farm with the engine team. This probably was behind the name "boy" on Waterloo Boy tractors from 1896, later products of Deere and Company, as Waterloo Gasoline engines had recently introduced water pumps to replace the traditional farm water boy. The railroads also employed water boys. In India the water boy, ''pani-wallah'' or ''bhisti'', was an occupation. The title character in Gunga Din (poem 1892, film 1939) is a water boy.Ken Dancyger ''The Director's Idea: The Path to Great Directing'' 2012 "The waterboy, Gunga Din (Sam Jaffe), wants to be a soldier. His transformation from waterboy to posthumous military hero gives the film its emotional arc. "

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Water Boy Sports occupations and roles Agricultural occupations Railway occupations

Boy A boy is a young male human. The term is commonly used for a child or an adolescent. When a male human reaches adulthood, he is described as a man. Definition, etymology, and use According to the ''Merriam-Webster Dictionary'', a boy is ...

History

See also

References