Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a peasant, a rustic.

1944

D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 12: All the time I’m rolling it in my conk that he’s a Lane from Spokane, or at most, a Home from Rome.

2. an unsophisticated person.

1933		C. Himes ‘Prison Mass’ in Coll. Stories (1990) 163: He expected to take a tumble now and then as long as he was in the racket of clipping ‘lains’.
1944		D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive 89: A Lane is too smart for himself, in most instances, but is usually capable of being handled successfully by a marter ‘Skull’.
1946		Mezzrow & Wolfe Really the Blues 66: The waiters ganged up around the bar to talk about the laines they clipped.
a.1956		‘The Junkie’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 101: Now you know I was gone when them lanes caught on.
1960		I. Freeman Out of the Burning (1961) 194: Who cares what those lanes think?
1961		C. Himes Pinktoes (1989) 46: In Harlem idiom a square is a lain, a doe, a John, a mark – in other parlance a fool.
a.1962		‘Konky Mohair’ in D. Wepman et al. Life (1976) 105: He knew his fortune was surely made / If he didn’t do business with lanes.

3. a new inmate in a prison [their lack of knowledge of prison life].

1940		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 27 July 20: ‘They might think you’re a Lane trying to escape’.
1994		C. Major Juba to Jive.

4. a male.

1944

Cab Calloway New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 257: lane (n.): a male, usually a nonprofessional.