<P> The word was used to refer to Easterners and referred to a man with "store bought clothes". The word was used by cowboys to unfavorably refer to the city dwellers . </P> <P> A variation of this was a "well - dressed man who is unfamiliar with life outside a large city ." In The Home and Farm Manual (1883), author Jonathan Periam used the term "dude" several times to denote an ill - bred and ignorant, but ostentatious, man from the city . </P> <P> The implication of an individual who is unfamiliar with the demands of life outside of urban settings gave rise to the definition of dude as a city slicker, or "an Easterner in the (United States) West". Thus "dude" was used to describe the wealthy men of the expansion of the United States during the 19th century by ranch - and - homestead - bound settlers of the American Old West . This use is reflected in the dude ranch, a guest ranch catering to urbanites seeking more rural experiences . Dude ranches began to appear in the American West in the early 20th century, for wealthy Easterners who came to experience the "cowboy life ." The implicit contrast is with those persons accustomed to a given frontier, agricultural, mining, or other rural setting . This usage of "dude" was still in use in the 1950s in America, as a word for a tourist--of either gender--who attempts to dress like the local culture but fails . An inverse of these uses of "dude" would be the term "redneck," a contemporary American colloquialism referring to poor farmers and uneducated persons, which itself became pejorative, and is also still in use . </P> <P> The term was also used as a job description, such as "bush hook dude" as a position on a railroad in the 1880s . For an example, see the Stampede Tunnel . </P>

Where did the term dude ranch come from
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