Definition:
: a nonresident who meddles in politics
About the Word:
It has long been assumed that the word carpetbagger arose in the aftermath of the Civil War, or at the very end of it, as a means of describing Northerners who moved South in order to avail themselves of political opportunities in the defeated states. However, recent evidence suggests that the word was in use before that. A book from 1863 (when the war was still in full swing) contains an advertisement for blackface minstrel routines, one of which is "Bones as a Carpet Bagger". Given that there is no explanation provided in the text as to what a carpetbagger was, it seems likely that the word was in use and widely understood already.
Example:
"... the administration was under foreign control — 'Carpet-Baggers' in the estimation of the native population." — Lady Edmund Hornby, Constantinople during the Crimean War, 1863
