roustabouts

After journeying a day and a night, working my way on a river steamer among the "roustabouts," I reached the frontier-like scene of a railroad

Documenting the American South: Southern Experience in 19-th Century America 1911

After a time a negro passed near the cotton-shed — one of the kind called "roustabouts" in that part of the country - people who live in a happy-go-lucky sort of way, dependent from day to day on stray jobs or stray thefts, never losing flesh or vivacity, never appearing otherwise than supremely content with life and their lot.

Dialect Tales 1883

The two-score negro "roustabouts" on the boat were sources of infinite amusement to the passengers.

The Great South; A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland 1875

Each of the steamers has its special stall, into which it swings with grace and precision, to the music of a tolling bell and an occasional hoarse scream from the whistle; and the instant the cables are made fast and the gangways swung down, the "roustabouts" are on board, and busily wheeling the variously branded bales to the spaces allotted them on the wharves.

The Great South; A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland 1875

This army of "roustabouts" is an ebony-breasted, tough-fisted, bullet-headed, toiling, awkward mass; but it does wonders at work.

The Great South; A Record of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland 1875

There were many opportunities for low-level rig workers, known as "roustabouts" and "roughnecks," to work at other drill contracting companies and for senior management to find positions at oil companies.

BusinessWeek.com -- 2009

And, last of all, are the unskilled laborers, the hewers of wood and drawers of water, the ditch-diggers, the men of pick and shovel, the helpers, lumpers, roustabouts.

THE TRAMP 2010

Putting wacko-ness aside, for every 100 GOP roustabouts there's perhaps one individual with integrity.

Scozzafava takes on Palin 2009

As someone who works in wildlife conservation and lives in the heart of North Dakota's oil boom, I don't like to see birds die from wind turbines or because roustabouts on the rig don't feel like throwing a net over the pit.

Oil Companies Could Prevent Bird Deaths 2011

Trained in Los Angeles at the Art Center College of Design (MFA, '90) and the UCLA Writer's Studio, Daniel went on to Seattle to co-found Big Fig Design Group, a multi-disciplinary group of artists, designers and roustabouts who like to make things.

Daniel Flahiff | Inhabitat 2009