jour printer

noun

A short form of "journeyman printer" referring to both a mans profession and his status within his trade or company; used in 19th century American English.

1894: 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 halycon 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. — , [ American Writers Of To-Day], 1894, p. 126, passage refers to s youth in the 1830s United States