The Battle For Christmas

Renew：Part 12
Author：Stephen Nissenbaum
Update：08-15-2023
Tags：Other Books
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Chapter List

Chapter 1
Chapter i). A few of these broadsides-watchman"s addresses, as they were known-have survived. All of them remind their wealthy readers of the sense of security their nocturnal vigilance has managed to provide, and all go on to beg a reward for their efforts. A particularly resonant watchman"s address was circulated in 1829 by the watchmen of the Philadelphia suburb of Southwark. Headed "Southwark Watchman"s Address for Christmas Day," it went in part like this: ... [W]hile you"re reposing in sleep"s fond embrace, Upon your rich soft downy bed, The Watchman, who"s one of your own fellow race, Sees clouds gathering thick o"er his head.This doth not affright him, his pathway is clear, To serve you, he"s ne"er seen to stray; To shield you from danger, and guard you from fear, Propels him alone on his way....
Chapter 1 Chapter 1) a few special ingredients-sugar, spices, rum-that were purchased in local shops. Or shopkeepers might provide some finishing 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.
Chapter 4 Chapter 4). This house was a fashionable place, perhaps too much so for Catharine"s more understated tastes. Elizabeth Ellery Sedgwick cared intensely about acc.u.mulating both material goods and success in New York"s fashionable social circuits, and she had a sense that by lavishing herself with the one she would help ensure herself the other. Each year Mrs. Sedgwick proudly reported to her father what she had been given that holiday season and also the number of visitors who had called upon her household on New Year"s Day (one year she boasted that the total was "about 70 gentlemen"). In turn, she noted that her husband, Robert, "made 63 calls in five hours, so you may judge how he walked." (Such a schedule meant that each visit took less than five minutes, including traveling time.) Elizabeth Sedgwick even thought about her children"s holiday gifts in the context of the fashionable world. Recalling how she had just greeted her seventy callers in the front room of her house, Mrs. Sedgwick proudly noted that the children "occupied the back parlor, and made a pretty perspective for us as we received our visitors." Nor did she fail to note that several of the children"s gifts were "very valuable."25 Out of the sense of n.o.blesse that governed so much of her life, Catharine Sedgwick partic.i.p.ated fully in the fashionable ritual of receiving the gentlemen callers. But the visitations wore on her patience. In a private letter (written to a favorite young niece) Sedgwick noted that on New Year"s Day, 1835, she had greeted "between 70 & 80" gentlemen, but she added that neither their names nor their fashionable witticisms (the latter presumably repeated at every stop) were worth pa.s.sing along. A single example would have to do, Sedgwick confided to her niece. One of the callers had chosen to comment cleverly on the beautiful winter weather (the sun had come out on that very day) by comparing it to the seasonal appearance of Gift Books (or literary "annuals," as they were also known): "He said "Nature has come out with her her annual at last, & as bright as the best of them-the gentlemen find it a book of beauty."" annual at last, & as bright as the best of them-the gentlemen find it a book of beauty.""26 The following year Catharine Sedgwick took an authors revenge, in the form of a mocking fictionalized account of that same experience. Her account made up the central section of the short story in which the Christmas tree also figured. In Sedgwick"s fictional rendering the woman who receives the visitors is the tale"s teenage heroine, a charming and attractive girl named Lizzy Percival, the oldest child in a New York family of great wealth and prominence, and the character who obviously represents Catharine Sedgwick herself. (Lizzy Percival is sweet, caring, and sincere-a young woman who shares Catharine Sedgwick"s disdain for artifice.) Like the Sedgwicks, the fictional Percival family experienced a busy New Year"s Day: "their visitors were innumerable, and a continual stream poured in and poured out," uttering in the process "the stereotyped sayings of the season." When one of their visitors referred to the New Year"s ritual as a "fine old custom" created by "our Dutch ancestors," Lizzy secretly thought of him as an "interloper who had not a drop of... Dutch blood." (And when another asked for "whiskey-punch," Lizzy modestly reminded him that alcohol had been ""banished from all refined society."" Catharine Sedgwick evidently supported the detoxification of New Year"s visitations.) Every one of Lizzy"s fictional visitors spoke in stock phrases, and most of them were coa.r.s.e, materialistic, and compet.i.tive. One man boasted that his wife had received fully 200 visitors the previous year. Another openly compared the hospitality he had received at various houses. A third betrayed the confidence of a woman he knew-a relative of Lizzy"s who had declined to receive visitors that day on grounds of ill health-by revealing that the woman was not sick at all: """ Say to my friends, "I"m sick, I"m dead [she had confided]." But, between ourselves, my dear Lizzy, the draperies to the drawing-room curtains are not completed-that"s all.""27 The least offensive of the fictional visitors were the ones who merely attempted to be clever. Among these was a young man whose witticism will already be familiar to us. Echoing almost verbatim Sedgwick"s earlier, real-life report, this young man extolled the weather "and said that nature had, last of all the publishers, come out with her annual, and the gentlemen had found it "a book of beauty.""28 This kind of extended (and autobiographical) satire provides a literary contrast that sets off the brief but important appearance of the Christmas tree in this story. Set in this new context, its meaning is simple: Catharine Sedgwicks Christmas tree is a.s.sociated with everything that is absent in the fashionable visitation ritual. It is a.s.sociated with children-innocent, good-hearted children-and the private s.p.a.ce of a purely domestic ritual. In effect, Catharine Sedgwick had turned the tables on the sheriff (discussed in Chapter 3 Chapter 3) who had identified with the world of alcohol and male culture and dismissed the world of women (and temperance) as cold comfort.
Chapter 3 Chapter 3). Often homeless, they eked out their subsistence by hawking afternoon newspapers and "extra" editions on the streets of the city. By the 1850s newsboys const.i.tuted a familiar and sometimes aggressive segment of the urban population, and they were notorious for their streetwise impertinence and for the racket they made at their beloved theater. Charles Loring Brace referred to them as "a fighting, gambling set." Consisting largely of immigrant Irish Catholics, the newsboys seem to have spoken in an argot of their own, and they were usually known only by nicknames-"Pickle Nose," "Fat Jack," Mickety," "Round Hearts," "No-Nothing Mike," "O"Neill the Great," "Wandering Jew," even (in one case) "Horace Greeley."26 The Newsboys" Lodging House that Brace set up in 1854 provided many of these boys with a stable household. By 1867 the Children"s Aid Society was operating five such lodging houses in poor districts of New York, one of which was located at the corner of West Twenty-fourth Street and Eighth Avenue, just at the edge of the former Chelsea estate owned by Clement Clarke Moore!27 The newsboys became a source of special pleasure for Charles Loring Brace. Working with them became for him a secular version of the ministry to which he had originally intended to devote himself. From time to time Brace even delivered brief sermons to his charges, nonsectarian sermons that avoided any effort to lure the always-suspicious "newsies" away from their Catholic heritage. (He delivered one of these sermons at Christmas, emphasizing Jesus" humble birth and upbringing "among common laboring people" and the fact that his own chosen ministry was to "the great ma.s.ses of mankind-the poor laboring people-just such as you are, boys." And in another sermon Brace called Jesus "the working-man"s friend.") The newsboys became a source of special pleasure for Charles Loring Brace. Working with them became for him a secular version of the ministry to which he had originally intended to devote himself. From time to time Brace even delivered brief sermons to his charges, nonsectarian sermons that avoided any effort to lure the always-suspicious "newsies" away from their Catholic heritage. (He delivered one of these sermons at Christmas, emphasizing Jesus" humble birth and upbringing "among common laboring people" and the fact that his own chosen ministry was to "the great ma.s.ses of mankind-the poor laboring people-just such as you are, boys." And in another sermon Brace called Jesus "the working-man"s friend.")28 Guided by what was probably a combination of private admiration and pragmatic tactics, Brace dealt with these newsboys without sentimentality, without pretending that they embodied purity or selflessness. He came to relish what he saw as the independence, compet.i.tiveness, and signs of ambition ambition that characterized the culture of newsboys, even the aggressive edge they displayed, and he worked to encourage those attributes. Whatever else they were, newsboys were by definition not beggars-they that characterized the culture of newsboys, even the aggressive edge they displayed, and he worked to encourage those attributes. Whatever else they were, newsboys were by definition not beggars-they worked worked for their own support. The most successful among them earned as much as $3 a day and sometimes even more. for their own support. The most successful among them earned as much as $3 a day and sometimes even more.29 (The aspiring young author Horatio Alger spent several months in residence at the original Newsboys" Lodging House, and he based several of his novels on that experience.) (The aspiring young author Horatio Alger spent several months in residence at the original Newsboys" Lodging House, and he based several of his novels on that experience.) Brace retained, at the same time, his earlier sense that the newsboys needed to grow up in an environment that was genial and cheerful, and he tried with considerable success to make every Newsboys" Lodging House into just such an environment. Brace was skillful in dealing with newsboys on their own terms, and he made sure he hired a flexible and well-trained staff. Indeed Brace, along with many others, admired the newsboys" independent spirit, their solidarity, and their internal code of honor. As one scholar has put it, "Newsboys inhabited a twilight realm somewhere between desperate poverty and democratic manhood."30 Brace knew better than to patronize the newsies, and he even took pleasure in watching them ridicule any visiting speakers who did. The lodging houses were characterized, as Paul Boyer has put it, by "the prevailing high spirits, the street slang, and the boisterous shouts of tough little gamins totally unin-timidated by the surroundings of a benevolent inst.i.tution." Brace knew better than to patronize the newsies, and he even took pleasure in watching them ridicule any visiting speakers who did. The lodging houses were characterized, as Paul Boyer has put it, by "the prevailing high spirits, the street slang, and the boisterous shouts of tough little gamins totally unin-timidated by the surroundings of a benevolent inst.i.tution."31 Such geniality satisfied Brace"s own deep craving for the unforced social warmth he had first encountered in Germany at Christmastime. Such geniality satisfied Brace"s own deep craving for the unforced social warmth he had first encountered in Germany at Christmastime.
Chapter 1 Chapter 1 and the slave practices described in and the slave practices described in Chapter 7 Chapter 7. Even when the Irish rituals were religious, they retained the rowdy old carnival note-alcohol, s.e.x, and aggressive begging. Take the midnight Ma.s.s on Christmas Eve, for example. This event (it was held outdoors, illuminated by great bonfires) was usually preceded and followed by what a nineteenth-century Irish writer termed "jovial orgies," perambulating groups who engaged in heavy drinking that often led to illicit s.e.xual couplings.3 By the 1830s, the church itself had largely abolished the midnight Ma.s.s. By the 1830s, the church itself had largely abolished the midnight Ma.s.s.
Chapter 4 Chapter 4, p. 133.
Chapter 3.
Chapter 5 5.
Chapter 6.
Chapter 7.
Chapter 6 Chapter 6-and showed me how. Bob Gross has been on intimate terms with this project from the beginning, and a trusted and valued friend for much, much longer. (It was Bob, loyal as always, who first suggested the possibility of my going to William and Mary for a year.) R. Jackson Wilson made several characteristically shrewd (and simple) suggestions when this book was in its formative stages. Jack has been true for more than thirty years. I will never attain the purity of his literary style, but I value his friendship even more. Finally, although David Tebaldi has never read a word of this ma.n.u.script, his presence informs it nonetheless. As executive director of the Ma.s.sachusetts Foundation for the Humanities (which I once served as president), David has been a tireless example to the people of Ma.s.sachusetts-and to me personally-of how scholars and non-scholars together can confront intellectually serious issues. Like Jack Wilson, Bob Gross, and my old collaborator Paul Boyer, David Tebaldi has been a model for my most important commitment as a writer and teacher: that complex ideas do not need to be expressed in complicated language.