A “man Friday” is an assistant who does all kinds of work. The term is from the character of “Friday” in Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe.
“Girl Friday” has been cited in print since at least 1929 and “gal Friday” since at least 1937. Syndicated newspaper columnist Walter Winchell (1897-1972) mentioned his “Girl/Gal Friday” many times in 1930s columns. The “girl Friday” term was well known before the feature film titled His Girl Friday (1940).
Wikipedia: Friday (fictional character)
Friday is one of the main characters of Daniel Defoe’s 1719 novel Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe names the man, with whom he cannot at first communicate, Friday because they first meet on that day. The character is the source of the expression “Man Friday”, used to describe a male personal assistant or servant, especially one who is particularly competent or loyal. Current usage also includes “Girl Friday”.
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Idiom
The term Man Friday has become an idiom, still in mainstream usage[citation needed], to describe an especially faithful servant or one’s best servant or right-hand man. The female equivalent is Girl Friday. The title of the movie His Girl Friday alludes to it and may have popularised it.
Wikipedia: His Girl Friday
His Girl Friday is a 1940 American screwball comedy film directed by Howard Hawks, from an adaptation by Charles Lederer, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur of the play The Front Page by Hecht and MacArthur. The major change in this version, introduced by Hawks, is that the role of Hildy Johnson is a woman.
The film stars Cary Grant as Walter Burns and Rosalind Russell as Hildy Johnson and features Ralph Bellamy as Bruce Baldwin.
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
girl Friday
noun
: a woman who does many different jobs in an office : a female office assistant
Origin of GIRL FRIDAY
girl + Friday (as in man Friday)
First Known Use: 1940
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
gal Friday
noun
Definition of GAL FRIDAY
: girl friday
First Known Use of GAL FRIDAY
1958
(Oxford English Dictionary)
girl Friday, n.
Etymology: < girl n. +
Friday, the name of Robinson Crusoe’s servant in Defoe’s novel
1928 Ogden (Utah) Standard-Examiner 28 Jan. 2/1 A former East side girl Friday became a member of a Sardinian noble family that traces its descent back to the Crusades.
1940 Time 10 June 66/3 Irna is assisted in her work by two secretaries and a pair of literary Girl Fridays.
1958 Woman 5 July 19/1 What’s it like to be Girl Friday to a Very Important Person?
28 January 1929, Macon (GA) Telegraph, “In My Opinion” by Coleman Hill, pg. 4, col. 5:
In addition to the Well of Loneliness prosecution and the trial of producers and actors in the play, My Girl Friday, three other cases now wait their day in New York courts.
IBDB (Internet Broadway Database)
My Girl Friday
Play
Description:A play in three acts
Setting:Stage, Frolic Theatre; John Hartwell’s summer home
Written by: William A. Grew
# Production Dates Type & Version Theatre
#1 Feb 12, 1929 - Sep 1929 Play, Original Theatre Republic, New York, NY
7 February 1932, Nevada State Journal (Reno, NV), “Walter Winchell On Broadway,” pg. 4, cols. 3-5:
A Columnist’s Sec’y Jots Down a Few Notes
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—Your Girl Friday.
5 November 1932, Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch, “Walter Winchell On Broadway,” pg. 8, cols. 2-3:
Things He’d Like to See.
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Walter Winchell’s Girl Friday any Sunday afternoon.
23 April 1937, Seattle (WA) Daily Times, “Bernie-Winchell Film Grand Fun” by Richard E. Hays, pg. 15, col. 2:
Eddie’s cousin, Patsy, who is Winchell’s gal Friday, gets Eddie a job as a guide in Radio City.
28 August 1939, Greensboro (NC) Record, “Tea Time Topics” by Nell Craig, pg. 5, col. 3:
When the Greensboro high school graduating of 1915 held a reunion Saturday evening, the show was completely stolen, as my gal Friday tells me, by the one unmarried member, bachelor and well known Greensboro lawyer.
23 December 1939, Evening World-Herald (Omaha, NE), “Walter Winchell On Broadway,” pg. 11, col. 8:
Memos of a Columnist’s Girl Friday
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—Your Gal Friday.
New York (NY) Times
Rose Bigman, 87, Winchell Secretary, Dies
By ROBERT McG. THOMAS Jr.
Published: April 27, 1997
Rose Bigman, Walter Winchell’s formidable ‘‘girl Friday’’ who worked seven days a week shielding the columnist from his enemies, fending off his friends and serving him with slavish devotion for more than three decades, died on Wednesday at the Village Nursing Home in Manhattan. She was 87 and had lived in Greenwich Village.
OCLC WorldCat record
Departments - NEWS YOU CAN USE - My Girl (and Guy) Friday - Temp workers get a morale and motivation boost by showing their other talents on a music CD—Plus How To, Reality Check, Trend Watch, News Flash, Top Ten, and Training Alert. That’ s a lot of news you can use!
Publisher: Alexandria, VA : American Society for Training and Development, c1991-2001.
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: Training & development. 53, no. 2, (1999): 10
Database: ArticleFirst
OCLC WorldCat record
Everyone’s Gal Friday: Tending to the School Secretary
Author: C Cimino
Publisher: [Washington, National Catholic Educational Association]
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: Momentum. 41, no. 2, (2010): 52-55
Database: ArticleFirst
TAPinto.net
Central Jersey’s Original “Girl Friday” Celebrates 108 in Edison
By MARIA PRATO
April 18, 2015 at 5:00 AM
EDISON, NJ – She’s not the last of a breed of go-getter female professionals, but she was undoubtedly one of the first.
Anne Johnson, an original “Girl Friday,” will mark her 108th birthday April 21 at Roosevelt Care Center in Edison.
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That era’s working female secretaries, who decades later would be coined “Girl Fridays,” were coveted for their reliable nature and ability to handle a wide range of office duties.