What is carpet bagging?
Jen, Hartlepool • Carpet-bagging refers to outsiders moving in to an area to take advantage of a situation which they believe will yield them gain of some nature. It stems from the time after the American Civil War when people migrated to the southern states to appropriate land or property which had been occupied by the Unionist forces, and was up for grabs. The luggage carried by these people was often made of carpet remnants stitched together, being a cheap strong material, hence carpet-bagging, or carpet-baggers. John Kohler, New York • A carpet bag is “an old-fashioned travelling bag made of carpeting” – maybe assaulting someone with such an item qualifies. Alex Houston, Coleshill UK • ‘Carpetbaggers? was a pejorative term referring to northerners who went south by the thousands, carrying their personal goods in luggage fashioned from carpets, after the American Civil War. They went to seek political office (from which most southerners had been barred) or otherwise take advantage o
