jour printer

English

Etymology

jour +‎ printer

Noun

jour printer (plural jour printers)

1. (US, historical, 19th century) A journeyman printer — referring to both a man's profession and his status within his trade or company.
   • 1894, Henry Clay Vedder, American Writers Of To-Day, p. 126; passage refers to Mark Twain's youth in the 1830s United States

     When the lad had acquired enough skill to call himself a journeyman printer he set out to see the world, and his native State thenceforth saw little of him. Those were the halcyon days of the "jour" printer; the world was all before him where to choose. He set out, with no kit of tools to carry, and with certainty of employment almost anywhere he might go, or of assistance from his fellows in the craft, thanks to a sort of free-masonry that prevailed everywhere among them. He might work his passage all around the continent and see life in all its phases, as no man of any other trade or profession could.

   • 1855, Walt Whitman, Song of Myself, stanza 15:

     The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, / He turns his quid of tobacco while his eyes blurr with the manuscript; […]