“Shiftless” was not a new word. Chronicling his southern tour in the 1850s, Frederick Law Olmsted had used it to categorize slothful slaveowners and slaves alike. It was a favorite word among New Englanders in describing bad farmers, and was a common reproach toward tavernkeepers and other immoral characters who congregated in dens with lowly laborers. By Theodore Roosevelt’s time it was the word of choice in legislation that punished deserting husbands; “shiftlessness” was a major symptom in the eugenicist’s diagnosis of the degenerate. And it was of course second nature to vagrants and
...more
