Part 3 (1/2)

CHAPTER 4 4.

Affection's Gift: Toward a History of Christmas Presents Toward a History of Christmas Presents ”Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents.”-Opening line of Little Women (1868) Little Women (1868)

A COMMERCIAL C CHRISTMAS.

MAKING CHRISTMAS an indoor family affair meant enmes.h.i.+ng it in the commercial marketplace. As long as the Christmas gift exchange was still a matter of wa.s.sailing from peasants to landlords, from poor folk to rich ones, the gifts themselves most often took the form of food and drink-the landlord's best food and drink, served within his house. Such gifts were not ”presents” in the modern sense of being purchased in the commercial market. Oftentimes, indeed, they were manufactured within the household itself, and from grains cultivated by the same peasants who were now receiving them back in the form of ”cakes and ale.” an indoor family affair meant enmes.h.i.+ng it in the commercial marketplace. As long as the Christmas gift exchange was still a matter of wa.s.sailing from peasants to landlords, from poor folk to rich ones, the gifts themselves most often took the form of food and drink-the landlord's best food and drink, served within his house. Such gifts were not ”presents” in the modern sense of being purchased in the commercial market. Oftentimes, indeed, they were manufactured within the household itself, and from grains cultivated by the same peasants who were now receiving them back in the form of ”cakes and ale.”

When the gift exchange was brought inside and limited to the family circle, such gifts no longer made sense. The wife and children of a prosperous man already ate the household's best food; they were already living in the family manor. What made Christmas special for them them had to be a different sort of gift, the sort of gift that soon became known as a Christmas ”present.” And that was precisely the kind of gift that could most conveniently be procured through a had to be a different sort of gift, the sort of gift that soon became known as a Christmas ”present.” And that was precisely the kind of gift that could most conveniently be procured through a purchase purchase.

The actual change was not that simple, of course. In the latter part of the eighteenth century, as we have already seen, ordinary households sometimes held special Christmas dinners, dinners that might include (as they did for the Maine midwife Martha Ballard-see Chapter 1 Chapter 1) a few special ingredients-sugar, spices, rum-that were purchased in local shops. Or shopkeepers might provide some finis.h.i.+ng touch for a handmade Christmas present: In 1769, for example, Joseph Stebbins paid a shopkeeper in Deerfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, for ”coolering [dyeing] a pare of Mitt[en]s for [his] wife.” Presumably the mittens themselves had already been knitted, probably at home, perhaps by Mrs. Stebbins herself. (We can infer that the newly dyed mittens were probably intended as a Christmas gift because the transaction took place on December 22.)1 We might think of such transactions, in which shops played a small but crucial role, as ”semi-commercial.” They may have been commonplace, though evidence on this score is extremely difficult to come by-buried in ma.n.u.script account-books. But things would begin to change soon after 1800. We might think of such transactions, in which shops played a small but crucial role, as ”semi-commercial.” They may have been commonplace, though evidence on this score is extremely difficult to come by-buried in ma.n.u.script account-books. But things would begin to change soon after 1800.

IT IS COMMONPLACE, nowadays, to hark back to a time when Christmas was simpler, more authentic, and less commercial than it has become. Even professional historians have tended to write about the pre-twentieth-century Christmas in that way. Generally when people muse along these lines it is to a.s.sociate the noncommercial holiday with the years of their own childhood, or perhaps the childhood of their parents or (at most) their grandparents.

As it happens, such musings have been commonplace for a long time-for more than a century and a half. Consider the theme of a short story dating back to the middle of the nineteenth century, a story that commented on the profusion of presents bought and sold during the holiday season-and the trouble many comfortably-off Americans had in finding something meaningful to give their loved ones at Christmas. The author of the story was soon to become America's best-known writer-Harriet Beecher Stowe. When Stowe wrote her Christmas story in 1850, she had not yet written Uncle Tom's Cabin Uncle Tom's Cabin, although that great novel was beginning to take shape in her mind. But what was also in her mind that year were the problems posed by Christmas shopping.

”Oh, dear!' ”sighs one of the characters in the opening lines of this story. ”Ohristmas is coming in a fortnight, and I I have got to think up presents for everybody! Dear me, it's so tedious! Everybody has got everything that can be thought of.'” This character goes on to declare that even though ”'every shop and store is glittering with all manner of splendors,'” it was impossible to decide what presents ”'to get for people that have more than they know what to do with now; to add pictures, books, and gilding when the centre tables are loaded with them now, and rings and jewels when they are a perfect drug!'” When she was a child of 10, explained Stowe (or the character who stands in for her in the story), ”'the very idea of a present was so new'” that a child would be ”'perfectly delighted'” with the gift of even a single piece of candy. In those days, ”'presents did not fly about as they do now.'” But nowadays, things are different: ”'There are worlds of money wasted, at this time of year, in getting things that n.o.body wants, and n.o.body cares for after they are got.'” have got to think up presents for everybody! Dear me, it's so tedious! Everybody has got everything that can be thought of.'” This character goes on to declare that even though ”'every shop and store is glittering with all manner of splendors,'” it was impossible to decide what presents ”'to get for people that have more than they know what to do with now; to add pictures, books, and gilding when the centre tables are loaded with them now, and rings and jewels when they are a perfect drug!'” When she was a child of 10, explained Stowe (or the character who stands in for her in the story), ”'the very idea of a present was so new'” that a child would be ”'perfectly delighted'” with the gift of even a single piece of candy. In those days, ”'presents did not fly about as they do now.'” But nowadays, things are different: ”'There are worlds of money wasted, at this time of year, in getting things that n.o.body wants, and n.o.body cares for after they are got.'”2 Just as many people do today, Harriet Beecher Stowe seems to have believed that this change took place within her own generation (she was born in 1811). But the difference is that Stowe was substantially correct. Commercial Christmas presents did start to become common when she was a child, and especially during the decade of the 1820s. This chapter will explore the process by which that came to happen and the implications such a development had for the meaning of the gift exchange.

Advertising for Presents If the domestic reform of Christmas began as an enterprise of patricians, fearful for their authority, it was soon being reinforced by merchants, who needed the streets to be cleared of drunks and rowdies in order to secure them for Christmas shoppers; by shoppers who in turn needed to feel secure in the streets; and by newspaper editors whose success depended on their mediating between other businessmen and their own readers (who were shoppers, too).

Advertis.e.m.e.nts for Christmas presents actually began to appear as early as the first signs of interest in St. Nicholas emerged, although they did not become common for several more decades. The first explicit ad for Christmas presents I have found anywhere in the United States comes from a New England community, Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts. Dating from 1806 and headed ”Christmas Gifts,” the advertis.e.m.e.nt was placed by a local bookseller. (Salem was a major port at this time, and a prosperous one.) Boston and New York had their first Christmas advertising two years later, in 1808, when two such ads appeared in the New York Evening Post New York Evening Post. One of these was for a shop offering ”four hundred and fifty kinds of Christmas presents and New-year's gifts, consisting of toys, childrens [sic] and school books, Christmas pieces, Drawing books, Paint, Lead Pencils, Conversations and Toy cards, Pocket Books, Penknives, &c.”3 The advertising began to proliferate after 1820. By 1823 Christmas was already becoming so commercial that one Boston magazine was able to make a joke of it: ”[There] is a time to give,” says Solomon, and had [that] preacher lived in these days, he would have acknowledged, that there was no time like the present present, and never a better a.s.sortment of gifts gifts. Could he [just] peep into the Bookstore of Munroe & Francis, ... he might find a book for each of his wives [and] concubines, and each of their children, without purchasing duplicates.4 A decade later, in 1834, a letter printed in a Boston Unitarian magazine suggested that the available choice of presents, and the aggressiveness with which they were being advertised, had reached the point where Christmas shopping was becoming a source of confusion. ”The days are close at hand when everybody gives away something to somebody,” this letter began: All the children are expecting presents, and all aunts and cousins to say nothing of near relatives, are considering what they shall bestow upon the earnest expectants.... I observe that the shops are preparing themselves with all sorts of things to suit all sorts of tastes; and am amazed at the cunning skill with which the most worthless as well as most valuable articles are set forth to tempt and decoy the bewildered purchaser.

The same letter warned shoppers to ”put themselves on their guard, to be resolved to select from the tempting ma.s.s only what is useful and what may do good,” and to avoid ”empty trifles, which amuse or gratify for the day only.”

The very mult.i.tude bewilders most purchasers; and often have I been pained to observe the perplexity of some kind parent or friend, who wished to choose wisely, but knew not how, and after long balancing took something at random, perhaps good, perhaps worthless.5 Only too familiar. Even in a small town in rural New Hamps.h.i.+re, in 1835 a local newspaper printed a cautionary tale t.i.tled ”Reflect Before You Buy”-a story written for young children!6 Similar examples abound from following years. By the time Harriet Beecher Stowe published her 1850 lament, the sentiment she expressed had become a commonplace. Similar examples abound from following years. By the time Harriet Beecher Stowe published her 1850 lament, the sentiment she expressed had become a commonplace.

Most commercial presents were manufactured for children. The very first advertis.e.m.e.nt I have found for Christmas presents, the 1806 one from Salem, Ma.s.sachusetts, was for ”a large a.s.sortment of Youth's and Children's Books.” The first ad from Boston, in 1808, was for ”Books for Children.” The first New York ad, also in 1808, was for children's books and toys.7 Over the years, children remained the primary target of Christmas ads, but they ceased to be the Over the years, children remained the primary target of Christmas ads, but they ceased to be the exclusive exclusive targets. In 1809, for example, four of the five ads for holiday presents that appeared in one Boston newspaper were for the entertainment of children, but the remaining one focused on the decoration of women: ”a general a.s.sortment of elegant and fas.h.i.+onable targets. In 1809, for example, four of the five ads for holiday presents that appeared in one Boston newspaper were for the entertainment of children, but the remaining one focused on the decoration of women: ”a general a.s.sortment of elegant and fas.h.i.+onable JEWELLERY JEWELLERY [sic], consisting of Fine pearl set Brooches; Ear Rings; Finger Rings; Bracelets, &c., with rich carnelian and topaz Centers; ... carnelian Necklaces; Ear k.n.o.bs; Tops and Drops; tortoise-sh.e.l.l Combs of all descriptions; gold Watch Chains....” (Women, like children, were dependent members of the household. Only later were adult men included as appropriate recipients of Christmas presents.) [sic], consisting of Fine pearl set Brooches; Ear Rings; Finger Rings; Bracelets, &c., with rich carnelian and topaz Centers; ... carnelian Necklaces; Ear k.n.o.bs; Tops and Drops; tortoise-sh.e.l.l Combs of all descriptions; gold Watch Chains....” (Women, like children, were dependent members of the household. Only later were adult men included as appropriate recipients of Christmas presents.)8 A thorough examination of early-nineteenth-century American newspapers might well yield slightly earlier dates for such minor milestones as the first complaint about consumer confusion or the first Christmas advertis.e.m.e.nt. But the pattern itself seems clear enough: Commercial Christmas presents were first publicly advertised in the first two decades of the nineteenth century, and the advertising became pervasive during the following decade, in the 1820s. And through the ”country editions” printed by many urban newspapers for their rural readers, word that Christmas presents were available (and fas.h.i.+onably appropriate) spread throughout much of the United States.

In the early 1840s advertis.e.m.e.nts for Christmas presents became more numerous, ornate, and sophisticated, and newspapers began to organize them into a separate category t.i.tled ”Holiday Advertis.e.m.e.nts.” These columns were typically placed on the front page, at the very beginning of the advertising section (one New York paper noted in 1841 that they held ”the post of honor”).9 Christmas advertis.e.m.e.nts began to appear earlier and earlier, into the second week of December. Christmas advertis.e.m.e.nts began to appear earlier and earlier, into the second week of December.10 On December 23, 1845, Horace Greeley's On December 23, 1845, Horace Greeley's New York Tribune New York Tribune announced that the paper would be ”compelled to issue a [special] supplement” the following day so as ”to make room for the matter which the pressure of Holiday Advertis.e.m.e.nts has crowded out for a few days past.” (”By the way,” it added, ”our readers who think of making Christmas Presents will find our advertising columns unusually interesting. Almost every thing worth buying is offered there. Read and make your selections.”) Finally, Santa Claus himself began to be used in advertis.e.m.e.nts, and of course in shops themselves, as a way of attracting the attention of children (more about this later). announced that the paper would be ”compelled to issue a [special] supplement” the following day so as ”to make room for the matter which the pressure of Holiday Advertis.e.m.e.nts has crowded out for a few days past.” (”By the way,” it added, ”our readers who think of making Christmas Presents will find our advertising columns unusually interesting. Almost every thing worth buying is offered there. Read and make your selections.”) Finally, Santa Claus himself began to be used in advertis.e.m.e.nts, and of course in shops themselves, as a way of attracting the attention of children (more about this later).

It was probably no accident that these aggressive advertising tactics were devised in hard economic times. The depression that set in at the end of 1839 was the deepest the United States had yet experienced. But merchants, abetted by newspapers, openly used Christmas as a way to attract shoppers even in the depths of the depression. One Philadelphia paper announced on December 24, 1841, that ”Christmas is at hand,” and tried to persuade its readers to ignore economic conditions for a while by opening their purses to buy holiday gifts. The newspaper represented the depression as ”Old Hard Times,” an unpopular monarch. But readers were a.s.sured that he ”has abdicated for the present,” to be replaced by a more benevolent figure: ”Old Santa Claus is expected tonight, and gaily are the windows of the fancy, fruit, cake, and other stores decorated to receive him-and puzzled will the old fellow be to make a selection from the thousand curiosities, delicacies, and elegancies which are spread before him.” The newspaper itself was prepared to come to Santas a.s.sistance: ”In consideration of the many duties that he has to perform at this time, we will endeavor to lighten his labors; and in order that he may make the best choice to be found in the city, we are determined to send him a copy of the Ledger, where he will find every thing that is worthy of his notice judiciously advertised under the proper head....”11 Most Philadelphia shopkeepers emphasized the variety of gifts they had in stock and-in a tacit acknowledgment of the hardness of the times-the wide range of prices for which they could be bought. A jeweler made the point as well as anyone: He had rings as costly as $25 each, but also as cheap as 25 cents (the same was true of his earrings, breast pins, gold and silver pencil cases, and so on). This jeweler even offered violins for sale-at anywhere from ”$i to $40.”12 Businessmen went to great lengths to persuade Philadelphians to visit their shops. Beginning with the 1840 Christmas season, a fierce compet.i.tion developed among the city's confectioners, who devised the idea of baking immense cakes that would be displayed in their shop windows on December 23-”mammoth cakes,” they were termed. Customers could purchase pieces of the cake to take home. One of these cakes weighed in at 250 pounds; another was twice that size. The following year the stakes went up: One confectioner t.i.tled his ad ”LARGE AND E EXTRA MAMMOTH F FRUIT C CAKE-NEARLY 1000 1000 POUNDS POUNDS.”13 Another confectioner concluded his ad with a verse: Another confectioner concluded his ad with a verse: My cake is of a giant size, Formel to delight your tastes and eyes;Lastly, to name a case in point, The Times Times being sadly out of joint [i.e., the depression] ..., being sadly out of joint [i.e., the depression] ...,My Prices Prices shall be very small, shall be very small, To meet my patrons, one and all.

Confectioners also created an even more widespread fad: caramelized sugar and chocolate molded into a variety of improbable shapes, and crafted to appear real. One report, from Philadelphia, referred to lavish Christmas displays of candied ”mutton chops, sausages, boiled lobsters, pieces of bacon, cabbages, carrots, loaves of bread, &c. all made of sugar, and colored to the life.”14 More common shapes included various kinds of animals as well as oversize insects such as beetles, spiders, and-for some reason these were a special favorite-c.o.c.kroaches. More common shapes included various kinds of animals as well as oversize insects such as beetles, spiders, and-for some reason these were a special favorite-c.o.c.kroaches.

LUXURY AND THE L LURE OF C CHRISTMAS.

There is a paradox here. Christmas presents were almost by definition luxury items-and luxuries are the first things that people give up when times are hard. But there was also another side to the same coin, a countervailing impulse that made many people vulnerable to splurging at Christmas, even in hard times. Businessmen knew that Christmas was the one time of the year when people had long expected to buy and consume things they did not need, even if they could not really afford to. A New York newspaper, the Herald Herald, had played on this point two years earlier, when the depression was just coming on. Despite the state of the economy (what the writer of one article coyly termed ”the rumored hardness of the times”), Christmas presents were readily available, and everyone should purchase something-at the very least, a present for the ”one being that they love.” Forget the depression for a little while, this writer counseled: ”Who is there, that is not ground into the very dust by biting poverty, that would hesitate, at this hallowed season, to bestow a souvenir upon this one beloved object-this cherished flower of affection?”15 This writer was well aware of how vulnerable his readers were to the call for spending even beyond their means ”at this hallowed season.” This writer was well aware of how vulnerable his readers were to the call for spending even beyond their means ”at this hallowed season.”

It was potent fuel. Christmas had long been a special ritual time when the ordinary rules of behavior were upended. It was a time when people let strange things happen to their sense of what was acceptable behavior, their sense of limits. Christmas was (and still is) a time to let go of ordinary psychological restraints, to s.h.i.+ft into an inner state in which it became possible to do what was otherwise unthinkable. What made that sort of indulgence objectively possible in an agricultural society was, as we have seen, the cycle of the seasons, in which December was a time of leisure and a season of plenty-plenty of food and drink. It was a time when consumption-overconsumption-was expected. It was a time to gorge on the best food and drink-not just bread and beer but ”cakes and ale.” It was a time to splurge, until the hard freeze of winter, and with it the constraints of ordinary existence, set in once again.

For many people living in America (and Western Europe) in the second quarter of the nineteenth century, that seasonal rhythm was less powerfully imposed, less all-defining, than it had once been. Urbanization and capitalism were liberating people from the constraints of an agricultural cycle and making larger quant.i.ties of goods available for more extended periods of time. But that change was very recent; and memories of the behavioral rhythms of the old seasonal cycle were still fresh. Late December was still a.s.sociated with letting go, with splurging, with overindulgence in luxuries that were hardly available at all during the rest of the year.

In early-nineteenth-century America, however, Christmas had to contend with another countervailing force. This had to do not with seasonal rhythms but with cultural predisposition. Most Americans of the Jacksonian period were predisposed to distrust luxury and excess. Even where buying luxury goods was economically possible, it was ideologically suspect. During and after the War for Independence, Americans had been taught that indulging in luxury was frivolous-that it was a vice a.s.sociated with the decadent aristocratic nations of Europe. The American Republic had to be more abstemious than that if it was to survive and prosper. Buying luxury goods amounted, therefore, almost to a subversive political act, the kind of small gesture that could jeopardize the future health of the Republic. Consumer capitalism and civic virtue were not commonly a.s.sociated with each other in early-nineteenth-century America.

Once again, Christmas came to the rescue. For this was one time of the year when the lingering reluctance of middle-cla.s.s Americans to purchase frivolous gifts for their children was overwhelmed by their equally lingering predisposition to abandon ordinary behavioral constraints. Christmas helped intensify and legitimize a commercial kind of consumerism.

Producers and merchants were not slow to grasp these connections. They recognized that it was possible to exploit the season by offering a plethora of ”fancy” goods, luxury items of precisely the kind that few people were willing to purchase at any other time of the year: books, toys, jewelry and fancy clothes, candy and cake. After all, one of the defining characteristics of an effective Christmas present was that it was was a luxury, not something that satisfied a practical need. As Horace Greeley put it in an 1846 editorial, a Christmas gift should never be ”a matter of homely necessity.” a luxury, not something that satisfied a practical need. As Horace Greeley put it in an 1846 editorial, a Christmas gift should never be ”a matter of homely necessity.”

A commercial Christmas thus emerged in tandem with the commercial economy itself, and the two were mutually reinforcing. On the one hand, the new economy made possible that now-familiar development-the commercialization of Christmas. On the other, Christmas itself served to fuel the general process of commercialization. It was the thin end of the wedge by which many Americans became enmeshed in the more self-indulgent aspects of consumer spending. (To be sure, it has recently become clear that the ”consumer revolution” was actually a long process, one whose beginnings historians now place back in the colonial period, even before the American Revolution.16 But the process accelerated sharply around the beginning of the nineteenth century.) Christmas was used to lubricate the ”demand side” of a dynamic commercializing economy. Much as Christmas alcohol helped release one sort of ordinarily forbidden behavior, so Christmas advertising helped release another sort. In this way Christmas became a crucial means of legitimizing the penetration of consumerist behavior into American society. But the process accelerated sharply around the beginning of the nineteenth century.) Christmas was used to lubricate the ”demand side” of a dynamic commercializing economy. Much as Christmas alcohol helped release one sort of ordinarily forbidden behavior, so Christmas advertising helped release another sort. In this way Christmas became a crucial means of legitimizing the penetration of consumerist behavior into American society.

AFFECTION'S G GIFT Books as Gifts As it happened, publishers and booksellers were the shock troops in exploiting-and developing-a Christmas trade. And books were on the cutting edge of a commercial Christmas, making up more than half of the earliest items advertised as Christmas gifts. (The very first commercial Christmas gift I have encountered was the almanac that Martha Ballard's son-in-law received from one of his acquaintances. See Chapter 1 Chapter 1.) In fact, even before books were actually labeled as Christmas presents in the newspapers, they were being marketed for that purpose.

Mason Locke Weems (”Parson” Weems), a bookseller and writer who is remembered today for inventing the legend of young George Was.h.i.+ngton and the cherry tree, distributed his own books as Christmas presents in 1810-including the popular biography of Was.h.i.+ngton in which the cherry tree story first appeared. That year he advertised that he would offer a deep discount to buyers ”who take several copies of Was.h.i.+ngton and Marion [another biography] for Christmas Boxes to their young relations.”17 Even in New England, and as early as 1783, the publisher Isaiah Thomas inserted on Christmas Day in his Worcester, Ma.s.sachusetts, newspaper an ad t.i.tled ”Books for little Masters and Misses, proper for NEW YEAR'S GIFTS NEW YEAR'S GIFTS.” A year later Thomas ran a similar ad, headed ”CHILDREN'S BOOKS.... Very proper for parents &c. to present to their children as New-years gifts, &c.” (He inserted these ads on December 25, probably because the term ”New Year's” covered the two holidays together.)18 Then, in 1789, Thomas went a step further: He published a little children's book, Then, in 1789, Thomas went a step further: He published a little children's book, Nurse Truelove's Christmas Box Nurse Truelove's Christmas Box (”Christmas box” was a term for a Christmas gift). The text of this book actually concluded with a promise from ”Nurse Truelove” herself-she was something of a cross between Mother Goose and Santa Claus-”to make a present of another book by way of (”Christmas box” was a term for a Christmas gift). The text of this book actually concluded with a promise from ”Nurse Truelove” herself-she was something of a cross between Mother Goose and Santa Claus-”to make a present of another book by way of New Years Gift New Years Gift, (which will be published soon after Christmas) Christmas).” As a parting shot, ”Nurse Truelove” added an explicit ad for Isaiah Thomas's Worcester bookshop: ”In the mean time, if you should want any other little Books, pray send to Mr. Thomas's Thomas's, where you may have the following” (what followed was a list of children's books that Isaiah Thomas had on hand). Thomas was using the special a.s.sociations of the Christmas season with luxury spending to get children (and their parents) into his shop.19 Gift Books It was in the 1820s that publishers began to cultivate the Christmas trade in a systematic fas.h.i.+on. In 1826, for example, the Boston booksellers Munroe and Francis printed a special Christmas flyer-207 children's books, ranging in price from 6 6 cents to 40 cents each. Two years later the same booksellers circulated another flyer; this one was headed ”Christmas and New-Year ... Presents for the Coming Season.” Four densely printed pages in length, it listed the better part of a thousand items. cents to 40 cents each. Two years later the same booksellers circulated another flyer; this one was headed ”Christmas and New-Year ... Presents for the Coming Season.” Four densely printed pages in length, it listed the better part of a thousand items.20 But it was not just by heavy advertising that the book trade acted as the shock troops of a commercial Christmas during the 1820s. The most important step it took in that direction was to invent a new kind of product, in the form of a new literary genre that was specifically linked to the Christmas season. The genre was the ”Gift Book”-a mixed anthology of poetry, stories, essays, and (frequently) pictures. Gift Books were always published at the very end of the year, just in time for sale as Christmas presents. Whenever one of them sold well, a new number bearing the same t.i.tle would be brought out a year later (giving rise to an alternative name for the genre, ”literary annuals”).