What does grease monkey mean?

Answer 1

In the early phases of the Industrial Revolution, machinery was often large, crude, and dangerous. Child labor was also quite common, and employed at usurious wages to perform difficult and dangerous tasks. One of the tasks bestowed upon these children (predominantly males) was that of climbing along the beams, catwalks, and difficult to reach portions of factory-sized machines. Their purpose was to perform minor repairs and to grease the gears. Their scampering about the machines resembled the behavior of monkeys climbing about. Their primary purpose was to grease the machines; hence, they were commonly called grease monkeys. They were readily identified by the grease streaked and soaked clothing they wore. So when anyone wearing grease streaked and soaked clothing, it was presumed that they worked as a grease monkey. It was a derogatory and denigrating term.

When automobiles made their appearance on the industrial scene, the term was already well entrenched in American society. Those who did the mechanical repairs, greased the autmobiles, and wore the evidence of their labors on their clothing were also called grease monkeys.