| Description |
xvi, 363 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-358) and index. |
| Contents |
Time is money. Church festivals and commercial fairs : the peddling of festivity -- "Enterprise holds carnival while poetry keeps Lent" : from Sabbatarian discipline to romantic longing -- A commercial revolution : national holidays and the consumer culture -- St. Valentine's day greeting. St. Valentine's pilgrimage from Christian martyr to patron of love -- The handmade and the ready-made : of puzzle purses, chapbooks, and the valentine vogue -- Remaking the holiday's rituals : the marketing of valentines, 1840-1860 -- Mock valentines : a private charivari -- "A meaner sort of merchandize" or, "A pleasure without alloy"? : the new fashion contested and celebrated -- Expanding holiday trade : from confectioners' hearts to Hallmark cards -- Christmas bazaar. The rites of the New Year : revels, gifts, resolutions, and watch nights -- The birth of the Christmas market, 1820-1900 -- Shopping towards Bethlehem : women and the Victorian Christmas -- Christmas cathedrals : Wanamaker's and the consecration of the marketplace -- Magi, miracles, and Macy's : enchantment and disenchantment in the modern celebration -- Putting Christ in Christmas and keeping him there : the piety of protest. |
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Easter parade. "In the beauty of the lilies" : the art of church decoration and the art of window display -- Piety, fashion, and a spring promenade -- "A bewildering array of plastic forms" : Easter knickknacks and novelties -- Raining on the Easter parade : protest, subversion, and disquiet -- Mother's Day bouquet. Anna Jarvis and the churches : sources of a new celebration -- Commercial floriculture and the moral economy of flowers : the marketing of Mother's Day -- Pirates, profiteers and trespassers : negotiating the bounds of church, home, and marketplace -- The invention of Father's Day : the humbug of modern ritual -- Epilogue : April Fools? : trade, trickery, and modern celebration. |
| Summary |
Reexamining the story of holidays in the United States, Leigh Schmidt shows that commercial appropriations of these occasions were actually as religious in form as they were secular. The new rituals of America's holiday bazaar offered a luxuriant merger of the holy and the profane - a heady blend of fashion and faith, merchandising and gift giving, profits and sentiments. In this richly illustrated book that captures both the blessings and ballyhoo of American holiday observances from the mid-eighteenth century through the twentieth, the author offers a reassessment of the "consumer rites" that various social critics have long decried for their spiritual emptiness and banal sentimentality. |
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Schmidt uses everything from diaries to manuals on church decoration and window display to show in bright detail the ways people have prepared for and celebrated specific holidays - such as going Christmas shopping, making love tokens, choosing Easter bonnets, sending flowers to Mom, or buying ties for Dad. He demonstrates, in particular, how women took the lead as holiday consumers, shaping warm-hearted celebrations of home and family through their intricate engagement with the marketplace. Bringing together the history of business, religion, and gender, this book offers a fascinating cultural history of an endlessly debated marvel - the commercialization of American holidays. |
| Subject |
Holidays -- Economic aspects -- United States.
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Holidays -- Economic aspects. |
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United States. |
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Holidays. |
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United States -- Religious life and customs.
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United States -- Economic conditions.
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Economic conditions. |
| Indexed Term |
Festivals |
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United States |
| ISBN |
0691017212 |
|
0691029806 (cloth ; alkaline paper) |
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9780691029801 (cloth ; alkaline paper) |
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9780691017211 |
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