broken figures / the ruling style at present was dazzle

Cover of Jack London's novel (1902)

As we are once again learning at this point in American life, even if something is blatantly false, it can be widely assumed to be true, if it continues to be repeated. Over many decades of researching the history of modern-era camouflage (ship camouflage specifically), I’ve watched as people have increasingly claimed that Americans popularly referred to disruptively-patterned WWI ship camouflage as razzle dazzle.

While it is true that the British called it dazzle or dazzle-painting when they officially adopted that approach in 1917, neither they nor the Americans called it razzle-dazzle. They certainly could have, since the term was in use (in the US) and would have been appropriate, but they chose not to. If anything, the Americans called it baffle painting, in part because they were reluctant to use the term that the British had already chosen. Another proposed American term was jazz painting, but eventually, dazzle won the day.

In earlier posts we’ve talked about the etymology of razzle-dazzle and its relevance to ship camouflage. Two other more recent findings may provide additional help—

First, the term is central to an autobiographical novel, titled The Cruise of the Dazzler, by American writer Jack London (1902). In that novel, the central character named John Barleycorn purchases a sloop named the Dazzler, which is central to the book. At age fifteen, London himself had purchased a comparable boat, called the Razzle Dazzle, with which he harvested oysters to sell to restaurants in the San Francisco Bay. So the term was commonly in use, but far in advance of WWI proposals for wartime ship camouflage.

Second, it may be helpful to quote a passage from a magazine called Clothier and Furnisher (January 1889), which claims that razzle-dazzle was current as American English slang as early as 1886, and suggests that the following passage may be its first use in print—

My confrère, The Chevalier, last month gave a new name to the scarfs of disjointed pattern when he called them the razzle-dazzle. The name was evidently a hit of the most patent character, for in several avenue and Broadway stores the clerks have thrown out a display of broken figures before me and explained that the ruling style at present was the razzle-dazzle, and the word seems to have been equally effective with the public, for when it is quoted by the live salesman, the customer, I am told is at once interested and caught by it.

RELATED LINKS    

Dazzle Camouflage: What is it and how did it work? /  Nature, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Women's Rights, and Camouflage /  Embedded Figures, Art, and Camouflage / Art, Gestalt, and Camouflage /  Optical science meets visual art /  Disruption versus dazzle / Chicanery and conspicuousness /  Under the big top at Sims' circus

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