This is an evergreen tweet, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Follow along as I do half-assed Internet searches to explore its history. Along the way we'll meet a celebrity con artist, a union-busting trade organization, & 19th Century Inception! https://twitter.com/garbage_hime/status/1338721373405974528

One thing to consider when you see an old-timey list like this is that a lot of them are either entirely fake or taken way out of context. Not this one. Here it is, entitled "The Graduation of Theft" and attributed to "Ex." But let's keep digging. https://www.newspapers.com/image/?clipping_id=24449539&fcfToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJmcmVlLXZpZXctaWQiOjY2OTk0MjM1LCJpYXQiOjE2MDgwNTYyNTUsImV4cCI6MTYwODE0MjY1NX0.6VrJWSuADFyzcWO-n3wr6juayT8jJ5LlmBNTSa-Aekg

The earliest instance of it I've found is available through the Library of Congress's Chronicling America project, in the Rock Island Daily Argus, 11 May 1887. No attribution and titled The Gamut of Theft.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn92053945/1887-05-11/ed-1/seq-2/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+society+Stealing+War&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=0&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

Continuing on, we find The Gamut of Theft four days later in the Omaha Bee, this time attributed to the Washington Post: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn99021999/1887-05-15/ed-1/seq-11/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+society+Stealing+War&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=1&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

And three days later it's The Gamut of Crime in The Morning News of Savannah, Georgia. Again, it's attributed to the Washington Post, but now includes a paragraph of commentary in case the message goes over your head. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86063034/1887-05-18/ed-1/seq-4/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+society+stealing+war&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=2&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

The next day it's The Gamut of Theft in the Wood County Reporter, still attributed to the Washington Post and with a typesetting error: "Total debravity" https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85033078/1887-05-19/ed-1/seq-6/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+Society+Stealing+War&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=3&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

By June it's made the jump to The Annals of Hygiene, published by the Pennsylvania State Board of Health and Vital Statistics. They call it "A Glossary of Deepening Villainy" and put it between "Grease in the Pipes" and "Measure Your Child's Chest." https://books.google.com/books?id=fdYrAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA240&lpg=RA1-PA240&dq=%22the+washington+post%22+%22ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&source=bl&ots=0b8NSlBxqZ&sig=ACfU3U20uEBMaIaTM-T2T9357DhS4NEhjA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiijs23ttDtAhWXGc0KHXnwAO8Q6AEwAXoECAIQAg#v=onepage&q=%22the%20washington%20post%22%20%22ham%22%20%22war%20on%20society%22&f=false

It's back a few months later in the Tombstone Epitaph in Arizona, now gussied up as "Take Your Choice" and attributed to "a man confined in the county jail". Whatever moves copy, I guess.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn95060905/1887-09-03/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+Society+Stealing+War&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=4&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

Before meme generators, before you had to *manually* caption cat pictures, and even before you had to copy funny pictures on the office risograph, you had these chunks of text that floated from one newspaper to another. That alone is pretty cool, but there's still more.

Our story resumes in the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine in September, 1891. For some reason, they've opted to reformat the list into a paragraph, and also observe that a genius can in fact wind up in jail if they steal a million from rich people. https://books.google.com/books?id=rXAtAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA778&lpg=PA778&dq=%22the+washington+post%22+%22ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&source=bl&ots=R1m8H1V2hL&sig=ACfU3U1Wvbno4VC_flcv8a_FvIe-UDbWtA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiijs23ttDtAhWXGc0KHXnwAO8Q6AEwA3oECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=%22the%20washington%20post%22%20%22ham%22%20%22war%20on%20society%22&f=false

Our last stop before years of silence is Henderson, NC's The Gold Leaf, 1892. It was probably published other times between 1887 and 1892, but let's be honest, I haven't put a lot of work into this. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn91068402/1892-01-14/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+society+stealing+war&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=5&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

Like the Locomotive Firemen's Magazine, The Gold Leaf opted to change the formatting somewhat. They kept it as a list, at least, but put words back in to replace the ditto marks. But wait there's more! Prices have dropped! Stealing used to be $50, and now it's $25.

Theft is the new stealing at $50. This change has bumped total depravity off the list altogether. We should expect some serious changes after five years of bouncing from newspaper to newspaper. At least an all-out war on society is still only one ham.

So far most of the papers we've seen say this came from the Washington Post. I've tried searching the archives of the Washington Post in ProQuest (poorly), and the only instance I could find is from 1900. It's in the "For the Scrapbook" section, so maybe it's a reprint?

Nah. It's formatted like in The Gold Leaf, w/o ditto marks, but $50 is still stealing and $25 is total depravity. Also, it's untitled. The Washington Post, which may have printed the first version, lifted this one from somewhere else. We've got Inception! https://makeagif.com/gif/inception-2010-opening-the-safe-scene-GeOZ_I

Then, it seems (based on a lazy search), we've got thirteen years of silence. We next hear from our list in The Carpenter, which is a trade journal for woodworkers. This pretty well matches the Washington Post version from 1900, but has its own intro. https://books.google.com/books?id=opmsBb4sUTgC&pg=RA3-PA20&lpg=RA3-PA20&dq=%22the+washington+post%22+%22ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&source=bl&ots=fVNGWDd0UA&sig=ACfU3U05CFDXIWqNzy19UlZQ28NcpLCvYw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiijs23ttDtAhWXGc0KHXnwAO8Q6AEwAnoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=%22the%20washington%20post%22%20%22ham%22%20%22war%20on%20society%22&f=false

The list reappears two years later in The Columbian of Bloomsbury, PA, on 12 January 1905. It looks a little different, but then again, it's about to have its eighteenth birthday. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83032011/1905-01-12/ed-1/seq-7/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+society+Stealing+War&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=6&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

It has a new title, Theory of Theft: You Must Steal a Million Dollars to Be in Genius Class. The list is no longer different euphemisms for theft. Instead, it grades from cleverness into con artistry, but still thankfully still ends with a ham's worth of war on society.

Really, apart from a million being genius and a ham being war on society, everything about the list has changed. It also has a new intro featuring a new character, Mrs. Chadwick. Who is that, and how did she get caught up in this?

Meet Cassie Chadwick, one of several aliases for celebrity con artist Elizabeth Bigley. Shortly before The Columbian published this new list, she had been arrested for a massive bank fraud scheme. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-high-priestess-of-fraudulent-finance-45/

Keep in mind that, at this point, women weren't generally allowed to have bank accounts. But it turns out that bankers are more than willing to waive that rule and in fact loan large amounts of money to anyone claiming to be Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter.

She was found guilty in March of 1905, and although she had to give back a lot of the money, the trial had made her a celebrity. Andrew Carnegie himself showed up at one point! She used her new status to get her prison cell fitted out luxuriously.

Despite that, her health went downhill quickly, and she died in prison in 1907.

While Cassie Chadwick was using her status as the woman who had pretended to be Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter to get preferential treatment, other newspapers had taken up this new version of the list. It also moved beyond just newspapers. Again.

Before we look at where else it has spread to, let's see what the The Jimplecute of Jefferson, TX said about it. Their intro admits that the list is "now going the rounds of the papers." This was a real eye-opener for me.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86089977/1905-06-24/ed-1/seq-6/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+society+Stealing+war&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=7&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

Attribution on these things is often sketchy if it happens at all, and I'd always figured the people who submitted or published them assumed nobody would notice they'd lifted some content from a paper published two years ago in another state. Not so!

Two days later the Palestine Herald of Palestine, TX duplicated The Jimplecute's version exactly. Of all the ones to duplicate exactly, they of course picked the one that was clear about how the article was being duplicated. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn86090383/1905-06-26/ed-1/seq-6/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+society+Stealing+war&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=8&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

The Carolina Watchman of Salisbury, NC shows how much of a meme this thing became: between a notice about the Elk Fraternity and other local news we get just "Stealing a ham - war on society." No context. They had one free line, so why not.
https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026488/1905-12-06/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1789&sort=date&rows=20&words=ham+ham%E2%80%94war+society+Stealing+war&searchType=basic&sequence=0&index=10&state=&date2=1963&proxtext=%22stealing+a+ham%22+%22war+on+society%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

The Chadwick-inspired version of list trundles on in the newspapers until at least 1910, generally now attributed to Exchange instead of the Washington Post. However, like the original version of the list, this new one is also popular in trade journals.

Check out the Railway Carmen's Journal (for the people who work on railway cars, not somebody called "Railway" Carmen) from February, 1905. It cites the Peoria Star as its source. https://books.google.com/books?id=1Xo9JKFUmSkC&pg=PA295&lpg=PA295&dq=%22ham%22+%22war+on+society%22+%22genius%22&source=bl&ots=oufHtaDZaT&sig=ACfU3U2PZqzw9uqv7c4aJ64twqvXLT5nkw&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOmv-cxtDtAhUDCs0KHTf6DnoQ6AEwAXoECAIQAg#v=onepage&q=%22ham%22%20%22war%20on%20society%22%20%22genius%22&f=false

How about The Mixer & Server, a trade journal for the Hotel and Restaurant Employees International Alliance, in March of 1905? They've got a full intro, including Mrs. Chadwick, the Peoria Star, and some commentary. https://books.google.com/books?id=7Y-fAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA3-PA26&lpg=RA3-PA26&dq=%22ham%22+%22war+on+society%22+%22genius%22&source=bl&ots=Pv9xRX1UHJ&sig=ACfU3U3kQpl6JExLRgDqirEKEDcSu-UxSQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOmv-cxtDtAhUDCs0KHTf6DnoQ6AEwA3oECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=%22ham%22%20%22war%20on%20society%22%20%22genius%22&f=false

Or in June of 1906, in The Bridgemen's Magazine, published by the International Association of Bridge and Structural Iron Workers. Again, they cite the Peoria Star. https://books.google.com/books?id=un2cAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA11-PA7&lpg=RA11-PA7&dq=%22war+on+society%22+%22ham%22+%22peoria+star%22&source=bl&ots=Sr4PYrliep&sig=ACfU3U2cnUs7bfdVSXbzS0u6iW-vTgC1hQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiv75SEi9HtAhVTa80KHYi2DFEQ6AEwAHoECAQQAg#v=onepage&q=%22war%20on%20society%22%20%22ham%22%20%22peoria%20star%22&f=false

Here it is in the Locomotive Engineer's Journal in 1922, with no attribution at all. https://books.google.com/books?id=XfvmAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA960&lpg=PA960&dq=%22ham%22+%22war+on+society%22+%22genius%22&source=bl&ots=WcTeLf12Co&sig=ACfU3U3Ald10hp1IVHVMuA46M8xH-TjhAA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjOmv-cxtDtAhUDCs0KHTf6DnoQ6AEwAnoECAEQAg#v=onepage&q=%22ham%22%20%22war%20on%20society%22%20%22genius%22&f=false

Our long-lived list even makes it into a 1907 book about how the world is going wrong and what to do about it called Gillette's Social Redemption.
https://archive.org/details/gillettessocialr00seveuoft/page/290/mode/2up?q=war+on+society

One instance really stands out to me, though, and that is in The Open Shop in February of 1906. They quote the Peoria Star using actual quotation marks (a first!) and then have commentary afterwards. https://books.google.com/books?id=gWQ2AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA73&lpg=PA73&dq=%22mrs+chadwick%22+stealing+a+ham&source=bl&ots=-8gZnxzCMS&sig=ACfU3U0V4IXVpxZNqQejIiQYAWEZDkyAbQ&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjYkq-etNDtAhUtB50JHVpMDoUQ6AEwAHoECAMQAg#v=onepage&q=%22mrs%20chadwick%22%20stealing%20a%20ham&f=false

They point out that a Peoria banker who was caught performing "dishonest acts" got in trouble rather than being proclaimed a genius. It's almost as though they don't know the list is satire, or perhaps their society doesn't have satire.

Then I looked at other stuff printed in the journal. It's pretty mean-spirited, even for the kind of short pieces that normally got printed in newspapers and magazines in the early 1900s. Who publishes The Open Shop? It sort of has trade journal vibes, but not quite.

The Open Shop was published by The National Metal Trades Association. One of its key principles was "To secure and preserve equitable conditions in the workshops of members for the protection of both employer and employees." Huh.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1012121?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents

Turns out it was formed by big corporations to control unions, or to fight them if needed. No wonder The Open Shop is the only publication I've found to get even a little bit upset by this list.

Sources for the above tweet:

https://www.dol.gov/general/aboutdol/history/chapter4

https://publishing.cdlib.org/ucpressebooks/view?docId=ft9t1nb603&chunk.id=d0e1739&toc.id=d0e1515&brand=ucpress

Anyway, why did I write all this? First, even a little list can have a big history. Second, what we have is a meme from the 1880s that was reborn in 1905 and rides again on 2020 Twitter. If that isn't cool, what is?

I really want people to make this a meme template. Start with "$1 million: Genius!", end with "Steal a ham: war on society!", and put whatever else you want in the middle. Why not use this template cut from The Fulton County News in McConnellsburg, PA, 1910.

Stealing a ham - war on society!