Origina of "Local Boy Makes Good"
September 11, 2007 8:56 AM Subscribe
What is the origin of the phrase "Local Boy Makes Good"? I Googled it and see that it was a Mervyn LeRoy movie from 1931, so it's at least that old.
Addendum: via this Google News search (which searches the Newspaper Archive), the earliest citation is this from the Washington Post in 1908. But as the archive expands, there will no doubt be earlier ones.
posted by beagle at 9:43 AM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]
posted by beagle at 9:43 AM on September 11, 2007 [1 favorite]
beagle - thanks so much for the newspaper archive search. I hadn't seen that before and it rocks.
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:49 AM on September 11, 2007
posted by CunningLinguist at 10:49 AM on September 11, 2007
See headlinese, too. Its use as a movie title indicates that by 1931 it was already considered a cliché to some degree.
"Local ___" is of course a predecessor of the Onion's favorite topic, "Area Man".
posted by dhartung at 5:15 PM on September 11, 2007
"Local ___" is of course a predecessor of the Onion's favorite topic, "Area Man".
posted by dhartung at 5:15 PM on September 11, 2007
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A search through the Newspaper Archive would probably be productive -- although (a) as noted, the phrase was and is a genre indicator and not typically an actual headline, and (b) the Newspaper Archive's holdings are still spotty for many areas and time periods.
posted by beagle at 9:34 AM on September 11, 2007