Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. one who plays the tourist in impoverished areas, looking for ‘atmosphere’ and ‘characters’, but secure in the knowledge that one’s real life is elsewhere, thus fem. slummeress.

1884		Sporting Times 20 Sept. 2/2: Not only [...] a gentleman and an agriculturalist, but evidently a philanthropic slummer.
1888		J. Runciman Chequers 3: The clergyman, the district visitor, the professional slummer – all the people who ‘patronise’.
1894		G.A. Sala London up to Date 2: The writer who is ambitious to become an efficient ‘slummer’ must look as carefully to his training [...] as though he were a pugilist.
1905		H. Green Actors’ Boarding House (1906) 195: It was lively, and smelly, and seemed tough enough to satisfy the most exacting slummer. [Ibid.] 197: Breathlessly, the slummers and slummeresses observed him as he put his pipe to his lips.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 15 Dec. 39/2: […] The slummers were willin’ to pay big money for to observe John Choinyman in his native stink, makin’ a fool av himself surrounded be th’ evidences av his depraved an’ hathen habuts.
1912		James Weldon Johnson Autobiog. of an Ex-Coloured Man (1927) 116: Among the other white ‘slummers’ there came into the ‘Club’ one night a clean-cut, slender, but athletic-looking man.
1916		O.O. McIntyre New York Day By Day 13 June [synd. col.] It was night on the Bowery. [...] Now and then a purring limousine filled with gay parties of slummers raced through the street.
1922		Appleton Post-Crescent (WI) 11 May 13/4: Flapper Dictionary slummers – Girls who go to studio parties.
1929		S. Ornitz Haunch Paunch and Jowl 140: The slummers paid high prices gladly.
1933		‘George Orwell’ Down and Out in Complete Works I (1986) 183: They did not offer the smallest rudeness to the slummers; they just ignored them.
1941		B. Schulberg What Makes Sammy Run? (1992) 235: Crying out his bitterness at this arrogant slummer.
1967		M. Williams Jazz Masters 106: A new club, the Cotton Club, located in Harlem but largely designed for white ‘slummers’.
1978		L. Kramer Faggots 213: Filled with slummers and celebrities and socialities, now that gaydom in this city is so chic.

2. (Aus.) a gang member, a larrikin n. (1)

1890

Dead Bird (Sydney) 11 Oct. 5/2: The two ‘traps’ [...] asked to be admitted to the ranks of the bold beauties, and this is how they were received and initiated in the right honorable order of Sydney slummers.

3. an inferior person.

1957

H. Ellison ‘Ship-Shape Pay-off’ in Deadly Streets (1983) 175: She was pretty careful who she handed it out to [...] not a slummer like me.