The earliest usage of the noun "date" is in 1896 by George Ade, a columnist for the Chicago Record.[1] Date referred to "public" courtship, when a woman would meet a man publicly rather than privately at a residence or at court. In Ade's 1899 "Fabels in Slang", he used the term "Date Book" to describe a type of ledger system a cashier used to track dates with suitors until she married.[2]