Is there a formal name for those statues, usually about two to four feet high, of a servant holding a lamp, that used to be found on the driveways of suburban homes ? I’m trying to find pictures of them, but I can’t think of the generic term.
“Lawn jockeys” is what I’ve always heard.
The best part is where they used to be black-faced and they get painted white to avoid offending anyone.
Our neighbor used to have one that came with the house, built in 1957.
Occupant 1: It was fully detailed, with black skin.
Occupant 2: They found it embarrassing, so they painted the skin white. It looked stupid.
Occupant 3: They painted the whole thing white, clothes and all.
Occupant 4: They removed it and put it in the garage, leaving the dangerous wiring exposed.
Occupant 5: They put in a cheap lamp.
Occupant 6: They restored it to the state as Occupant 2.
Current Occupant: They put in a very nice lighting system that goes all the way down the driveway. I think the guy got scrapped, but it may still be in the garage. We’ll see what happens if they ever move.
“Lawn jockeys” is the common term. When I was growing up in the early 60s, they were sold with both Black and White versions.
I think they were originally holding iron rings, to which one tied a horse.
Here, you can buy them from concrete yard ornament purveyors. They are dressed as jockeys, which if you squint isn’t particularly insulting around here because of the prevalence of horse farms.
Wiki has interesting info, including the mention of the Flannery O’Connor short story and references to the Underground Railroad.
Agreed. Born in NJ, 1973, and never heard them called anything else.
Joe
It’s plum amazin’ what tidbits you can pick up hangin’ around here.
I could not BELIEVE that up in Pittsburgh it’s still socially acceptable to have a lawn jockey. I saw SEVERAL still in blackface! The first one I saw I just pointed out the car window and gibbered at my mom - I’d lost my English. Seriously, if you had one of those on your lawn down here your house would be set on fire. And you’d deserve it.
I decided to check if you can even buy those anymore. Indeed, you can. What amazed me was that variation in price. The two prices that popped up the most were $24.95 and $299.95. Are we talking the difference between plastic and cast iron here?
Probably fiberglass or resin.
My ex-husband had one given to him by a friend as some kind of joke. It sat in our living room for about a year, until one day I accidentally smashed it with a hammer. I mean, vacuum cleaner! Accidentally smashed it with the vacuum cleaner!
So, it probably wasn’t cast iron.
No, concrete. It was surprisingly hard, all I managed to do was chip it when I had expected it to shatter.
So of course you had to vacuum up that one chip and a little dust, which caused another little chip, which had to be vacuumed, etc. etc.? Sweet!
Sucking Up a Lawn Jocky Bit by Bit would be such an awesome band name.
Depends on what style you have, they have many different versions throught the years. The traditional ones are cast iron, black and have a ring for hitching horses to these are called jockey boy or jockey hitching post. Other names that I have found are lawn jockey or lawn coachman. Interesting thing about these quaint pieces of history is that they also had an important part in the underground railroad. If the coast was clear at a safe house a bright colored cloth would be tied to the arm or the lantern (which came in place of the ring later) would be lit.
Originally these were made of cast iron and were depicted as black boys, known as jockey boy statues or jockey hitching posts. They came with a ring not a lantern, those came in later as the hitching posts were no longer needed. They have various names which also include jockey statue, lawn jockey and lawn coachman, they later started to be made of cement or concrete.Interesting fact I found about these quaint pieces of history is that they had a part in the underground railroad. Safe houses would either tie a bright colored cloth to the arm or light the lantern if the coast was clear, if neither sign was present the slaves would move on to the next safe house. People should not be appauled or embarrassed to display these treasures black or white, with a history like that I would think it would make the races proud to have them. I have one that is actually much different from those I found while researching and I haven’t been able to find him. He has the jockey hat and the extended arm for holding a ring or lantern, he has knee boots and a knee length coat and an ascot. Does anyone have picks of this version?
I must’ve grown up in an uncommonly politically correct area, because when I was a kid in the 1960s, the only ones of these I saw were white. Not originally black lawn jockeys epainted to be wite, but made-from-the-get-go white lawn jockeys, without any stereotypical “black” features. I didn’t see a “black” lawn jockey until I was in college and National Lampoon ran a cover of an urban setting with an ostentatiously white lawn jockey. At first, I didn’t get the joke. Then I looked into it:
http://www.marksverylarge.com/issues/7304.html
The 21 Club in New York is decorated with Lawn Jockeys. Note that they seem to be the white versions:
Here are some of those offending lawn jockeys:
http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-701&va=black+Lawn+Jockey
Wikipedia article on them, with pix of both kinds:
And as noted in the Wiki article, the jockeys in front of the club are painted in actual racing silk colors.
My mom had one when I was growing up, the black kind. It was concrete, and the paint gradually faded until it was more of an amorphous grey blob. I think she threw it away a decade or so ago, but as a child I remember it being brightly painted red and green clothing and a coal black face. Of course my mom was born in the south in 1912, so things were a tad different.