piker: a lazy good-for-nothing; a small-timer

Pikers, also called Pikes, were the 1849 Gold Rush equivalents of 1930s Okies. A piker was literally someone from Pike County, Missouri. Large numbers of Pike County residents rushed to California to seek their fortunes, including "Sweet Betsy from Pike," immortalized in the 1870s folk ballad. As with Okie, the meaning of piker expanded to include anyone from Missouri, then any poor migrant from the rural Midwest. Finally, piker referred to anyone poor and shiftless. By the turn of the twentieth century, the word could also refer to a small-time speculator or low-stakes gambler, or a cheapskate generally.