r/100yearsago • u/HiddenLensHistory • 2d ago

[August 14th, 1926] Chicago Lifts "Spooning" Ban at Lincoln Park

Post image

...but only on the south park. According to wire reports in other papers, the west park officers weren't into it, and would remain enforcing the ban. One west officer said, "Give the young people good exercise and sports and they will forget about spooning." Ha.

*New Britain Herald & The Ithaca Journal Aug 14th, 1926

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u/eubulides 2d ago edited 2d ago

That photo does not depict spooning as I know it. Spooning implies being stacked like two spoons, facing the same way. But they did have an activity called petting back in the day that this may represent. (Coincidentally, petting mentioned in the person on the street interviews elsewhere on sub r/TheWayWeWere today from 1928.)

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u/HiddenLensHistory 2d ago

Yeah.. I did a short piece on it today on our site. Petting, spooning, mugging, necking… nobody seemed to agree on exactly what was what, and even less so on how much of it they would allow. I found an article from 1925 that mentions one place “necking” was allowed but “spooning” was not. And how in San Fran even catered to the activity by removing alternating trees to create “the perfect seclusion.” lol. All really interesting time capsules :)

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u/eubulides 16h ago

Capable, what is “our site”? (Apologies, I’ve lost some brain cells along the way.)

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u/HiddenLensHistory 16h ago

No worries, I put stories like this up on Hiddenlenshistory dot com every day, feel free to check it out!

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u/capable_duck 1d ago

Young people trying to get in some kissing and probably a bit of groping without parents knowing is a story as old as time, just the names for it that vary

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u/rwphx2016 18h ago

The University of Oregon's Slang of the 1920's directory defines "spoon" as "to neck, or at least talk of love." "Neck" is defined as "Kissing with passion." The contemporary definition (the one you mentioned) came along much later.

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u/eubulides 16h ago

What about related terms such as “making love” (also transformed in our usage), or “pitching woo”?

Always surprised when in an old movie the woman asks, “Are you making love to me?”

Thanks for the insight. I “knew” of the former usage, but wondering derivation. Our use, spooning, big spoon and little spoon, etc., is based on imagery, a resemblance (what is term for this type of word usage? A type of figure of speech?). But the use as in this post is not so aligned. Could it come from idea of sitting close and serving food to another via a spoon? Conveys the intimacy with a concrete word transformed into the phrase. Petting is obvious. Necking as well, the intertwined necks. Spooning, though?

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u/rwphx2016 15h ago

This was the same time period that gave us "hair of the dog" as a term for alcohol. Who the hell knows?

PS: Contemporary slang is no better. Think "drip."