play in Peoriaverb · early 20th century
Well attestedVaudeville treated one Illinois city as the test market for the entire country.
Peoria sat on the main Midwestern vaudeville circuits, and an act that survived there was thought safe anywhere. The phrase moved into politics in 1969, when the Nixon aide John Ehrlichman used it about a decision likely to irritate the coasts. Peoria was also a genuine test market in the commercial sense, and consumer goods firms trialed products there for decades.
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