carpetbagger

carpetbagger
/kahr"pit bag'euhr/, n.
1. U.S. Hist. a Northerner who went to the South after the Civil War and became active in Republican politics, esp. so as to profiteer from the unsettled social and political conditions of the area during Reconstruction.
2. any opportunistic or exploitive outsider: Our bus company has served this town for years, but now the new one run by carpetbaggers from the city is stealing our business.
[1865-70, Amer.; CARPETBAG + -ER1; so called because they came South carrying their belongings in carpetbags]

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Epithet used during the Reconstruction period (1865–77) to describe a Northerner in the South seeking private gain.

The word referred to an unwelcome outsider arriving with nothing more than his belongings packed in a satchel or carpetbag. Many carpetbaggers were involved in corrupt financial schemes, but others helped rebuild the economy in the South and participated in educational and social reform.

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▪ United States history
 during the Reconstruction period (1865–77) following the American Civil War, any Northern politician or financial adventurer accused of going South to use the newly enfranchised freedmen as a means of obtaining office or profit. The epithet originally referred to an unwelcome stranger coming, with no more property than he could carry in a satchel (carpetbag), to exploit or dominate a region against the wishes of some or all of its inhabitants. Although carpetbaggers often supported the corrupt financial schemes that helped to bring the Reconstruction governments into ill repute, many of them were genuinely concerned with the freedom and education of black citizens.

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Universalium. 2010.

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  • Carpetbagger — Car pet*bag ger, n. An adventurer; a term of contempt for a Northern man seeking private gain or political advancement in the southern part of the United States after the Civil War (1865). [U. S.] [1913 Webster] …   The Collaborative International Dictionary of English

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