TheQuartering [2/9.2021]
I wish people would bother to do a simple google search once in a while. Cracker Barrel is great.
In February 2021, an interesting “fact” about the U.S. restaurant chain Cracker Barrel started to circulate on social media. The viral post claimed that “cracker” was a slang term for whip and that the phrase “cracker barrel” originally referred to a barrel of whips that were sold at country stores:
The meme reads: “Cracker was a slang term for whip. That’s why blacks called whites crackers, from the crack of the whip. A cracker barrel is a barrel that held the whips for sale at the country store. You see the whip going from the R to the K? Racism in your face!!”
There is a grain of truth to the claims made in this meme. The pejorative term “cracker” can be traced back in part to a shortening of the term “whip-cracker.” However, “cracker barrel” does not refer to a barrel of whips. Rather, this is a very literal term that refers to actual barrels of crackers that were common at stores in the late 1800s.
Here’s how Lexico.com explained the origins of “cracker barrel”:
“Late 19th century with reference to the barrels of soda crackers once found in country stores, around which informal discussions would take place between customers.”
We scanned old newspaper articles from the late 1800s and early 1900s and found several references to stores selling or purchasing soda crackers by the barrel. Here’s an advertisement from 1913 for “Sunshine L-W Soda Crackers” that told customers to pass on by the “dusty, handled” crackers in the store’s barrel and purchase a box of fresh crackers.
