The term carpetbagger used exclusively as a pejorative term originated from the carpet bags a form of cheap luggage made from carpet fabric which many of these newcomers carried.
What is a carpetbagger slang.
They were called carpetbaggers to imply that they were such poor transient characters that they merely moved south carrying all their possessions in a carpet bag.
Countable noun if you call someone a carpetbagger you disapprove of them because they are trying to become a politician in an area which is not their home simply because they think they are more likely to succeed there.
Carpetbagger definition is a northerner in the south after the american civil war usually seeking private gain under the reconstruction governments.
The term came to be associated with opportunism and exploitation by outsiders.
A northerner who went to the south after the civil war and became active in republican politics especially so as to profiteer from the unsettled social and political conditions of the area during reconstruction.