The internet is filled with things. Here is one of them.
What does "shoddy" have to do with antisemitism?2025 Jan 29
The Online Etymology Dictionary provides a decent overview of how the word shoddy evolved from a factory term meaning "cloth made of woolen waste and old rags" (perhaps related to shed) to its modern definition "having a delusive appearance of high quality." The material was originally used for padding, but then developed into a "commercial cheat" fabric for making cheap clothes, notoriously used in the manufacture of "army and navy cloths in and blankets" for the Union in the US Civil War. "The citizen-soldier's experience with it in the war, and the fortunes made on it by contractors, thrust the word into sudden prominence," the dictionary summarizes without mentioning any Jewish connection.
They then expand on this by providing this longer quote of a passage from Henry Morford, "The Days of Shoddy: A Novel of the Great Rebellion in 1861," published in Philadelphia in 1863:
The Days of Shoddy, as the reader will readily anticipate, are the opening months of the present war, at which time the opprobrious name first came into general use as a designation for swindling and humbug of every character; and nothing more need be said to indicate the scope of this novel.
But unfortunately that's not the whole story, as I've discovered reading author Steven R. Weisman in his 2018 book The Chosen Wars: How Judaism Became an American Religion. On page 148 in the chapter Anti-Semitism in the North and South he writes:
On the Union side, anti-Jewish prejudice flared over the role of Jews in businesses that profited from the war, often featured in news stories and cartoons depicting Jews as avaricious, disloyal, and greedy. These focused especially on poorly made uniforms made from shredded or discarded fiber known as “shoddy.” Shoddy became an anti-Semitic slur, so widespread was the assumption that it was Jews who produced such goods. “In the media, the theme of ‘shoddy,’ the purported manipulation of financial institutions, the alleged subversive complicity with the Confederacy, the supposed exploitation of military personnel by Jewish camp followers, and the claims of foreign intervention against the interest of the North continued unabated to plague the image of Jews,” the historians Gary L. Bunker and John J. Appel write.
The Online Etymology Dictionary provides a decent overview of how the word shoddy evolved from a factory term meaning "cloth made of woolen waste and old rags" (perhaps related to shed) to its modern definition "having a delusive appearance of high quality." The material was originally used for padding, but then developed into a "commercial cheat" fabric for making cheap clothes, notoriously used in the manufacture of "army and navy cloths in and blankets" for the Union in the US Civil War. "The citizen-soldier's experience with it in the war, and the fortunes made on it by contractors, thrust the word into sudden prominence," the dictionary summarizes without mentioning any Jewish connection.
They then expand on this by providing this longer quote of a passage from Henry Morford, "The Days of Shoddy: A Novel of the Great Rebellion in 1861," published in Philadelphia in 1863: But unfortunately that's not the whole story, as I've discovered reading author Steven R. Weisman in his 2018 book The Chosen Wars: How Judaism Became an American Religion. On page 148 in the chapter Anti-Semitism in the North and South he writes: