The Surprising History of Christmas Gifts (HTW Classic)
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Dec 25, 2024
Dive into the surprising origins of Christmas gift-giving, tracing its evolution from 19th-century traditions to modern consumerism. Discover how labor reformers sparked a movement encouraging early holiday shopping for better working conditions. Hear about the Society for the Prevention of Useless Giving, which championed heartfelt gifts over obligatory presents. Explore the darker sides of commercialization, child labor, and the ongoing tensions between sentimentality and consumerism during the festive season.
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insights INSIGHT
Christmas Not Always Big
Christmas was not always a big deal in the US.
Early Americans, especially in New England, didn't widely celebrate it due to religious and cultural reasons.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Christmas Outlawed
Celebrating Christmas was illegal in Massachusetts for about two decades during the colonial period.
Punishments included fines for skipping work, feasting, or parading related to Christmas.
insights INSIGHT
Shifting Christmas Indoors
Mid-19th century elites sought to shift Christmas celebrations indoors and make them family-centric.
This was partly a response to rowdy public celebrations like wassailing, which they saw as a threat.
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Childrens Magazines and the Construction of Gentility
Paul Ringel
The battle for Christmas
Stephen Nissenbaum
In this book, Stephen Nissenbaum charts the transformation of Christmas from its origins in ancient agricultural cycles and its early forms as a season of excess and public revelry, to its modern incarnation as a child-centered, domestic celebration. The book details how early Christmas celebrations involved drinking, parties, and social inversion, and how these were suppressed by Puritans and later transformed by New York's elite, including figures like Clement Clarke Moore and Washington Irving. Nissenbaum also explores the commercialization of Christmas and its impact on American culture and social hierarchy[1][3][4].
Christmas Eve, 1913. For months, newspapers have been trumpeting an urgent message: Do your Christmas shopping early. It would be easy to assume this was the work of greedy department stores and slick ad companies. But it wasn’t – at least not at first. It started as the rallying cry of a labor reformer who was striving to improve the lives of retail workers. Ever since, Americans have been wrestling over the values at the heart of holiday shopping. But even the most earnest efforts at reform have backfired, time and again. How did Christmas gifts become a thing in the first place? And what were some of the spirited attempts to make the holiday shopping season merry for all?
Special thanks to our guests: Jennifer Le Zotte, professor of history and material culture at the University of North Carolina - Wilmington; Ellen Litwicki, professor emerita at the State University of New York at Fredonia; and Paul Ringel, professor of history at High Point University and author of Commercializing Childhood.
This episode originally aired on December 19th, 2022.
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