The Battle for Christmas (62 page)

21.
For the decentralized nature of the American book trade, see two books by William Charvat:
Literary Publishing in America, 1790–1850
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993); and
The Profession of Authorship in America, 1800–1870: The Papers of William Charvat
(Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1968), ch. 1.

22.
New York Herald
, Dec. 23, 1839. Bennett’s $3 minimum suggests the financial level below which Gift Books did not penetrate.

23.
The New-York Book of Poetry
(New York, 1837).

24.
David Kaser (ed.),
The Cost Book of Carey & Lea, 1825–1838
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1963), 68–108, 280–284. This paragraph is based on the work of UMass graduate student Richard Gassan—who also devised the idea of calculating these figures.

25.
The Annualette: A Christmas and New Years Gift for Children
(Boston, 1840), preface. There was a similar verse in the same Gift Book for 1841.

26.
The Pearl
(Philadelphia, 1837), 186. The publishers of
The Pearl
may well have pressured their authors to insert such advertising copy into their work. In another children’s Gift Book,
Christmas Blossoms
for 1850, a Santa-like figure named Uncle Thomas embeds the same point in a passage explaining the advantages of mass production and mass marketing:

27.
St. Nicholas’ Book, for All Good Boys and Girls
(Philadelphia, 1842), 6.

28.
John Davis to Elizabeth Bancroft Davis, Dec. 26, 1826, in John Davis Papers, American Antiquarian Society.

29.
Reprinted in
Albany Journal
, Dec. 16, 1846.

30.
New York Herald
, Dec. 23, 1839.

31.
The Brilliant: A Gift Book for 1850
(New York, 1850). This was edited by T. S. Arthur, best remembered today as the author of the temperance novel
Ten Nights in a BarRoom
.

32.
Philadelphia Public Ledger
, Dec. 24, 1844.

33.
In a Boston bookshop in 1823, King Solomon “might there find his own proverbs illustrated, and made familiar to the eye of childhood, by means of the graphic art; and the [wonders] of Egypt and the realm of his favorite queen of Sheba, displayed in miniature, to furnish up an evening of entertainment for the nursery.” (“
CHRISTMAS AND NEW YEAR’S PRESENTS
,” in
New England Galaxy and Masonic Magazine
, Dec. 26, 1823.)

34.
New Hampshire Gazette
[Portsmouth], Dec. 22, 1818; “The Diary of Isaiah Thomas 1805–1828,” in
Transactions and Collections of the American Antiquarian Society
X (1909), 171. Bibles had long been commercial products, but never before to this degree.

35.
Albany Journal
, Dec. 16, 1846 (reprinted from the
New York Tribune)
.

36.
Peter J. Wosh,
Spreading the Word: The Bible Business in Nineteenth-Century America
(Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), 19–21. Wosh adds that the Harpers “established the Bible as an article of mass consumption, an attractive centerpiece for the proper Victorian bookshelf. The medium rather than the message assumed center stage as mere possession of the volume conferred cultural status on, and testified to the good taste of, the purchaser” (ibid., 20). See also R. Laurence Moore,
Selling God: American Religion in the Marketplace of Culture
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 17–18, 34–35. An excellent reference source is Margaret T. Hills,
The English Bible in America: A Bibliography of Editions of the Bible and the New Testament Published in America 1777–1957
(New York: American Bible Society, 1961).

37.
The dates of these inscriptions also confirm that these personal Bibles, like Gift Books, were seen as appropriate presents to be given during the Christmas season (or, in one of these cases, at Thanksgiving).

38.
Louisa May Alcott,
Little Women; or, Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy
(Boston, 1869), Ch. 2.

39. See Richard H. Brodhead,
Cultures of Letters: Scenes of Reading and Writing in Nineteenth-Century America
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 95–96.

40.
Susan Warner,
The Wide, Wide World
(New York, 1851), ch. 3, 30–31 (this scene is also briefly described in Moore,
Selling God
, 34). Later in the novel, in a scene set at Christmas, the feeling of helplessness became especially acute. Ellen and her friends are discussing Christmas presents they are about to make out of satin cloth and morocco leather they have received. They agree to choose which pieces each of them will take. “But this business of choosing was found to be very long and very difficult….” One girl says: “I declare it’s too vexatious! Here I’ve got this beautiful piece of blue satin, and can’t do any thing with it; it just matches that blue morocco—it’s a perfect match—I could have made a splendid thing of it, and I have got some cord and tassels that would just do—I declare it’s too bad.” She is told by another girl: “Well, choose, Margaret.” But Margaret replies: “I don’t know what to choose—that’s the thing. What can one do with red and purple morocco and blue satin? I might as well give up” (ibid., 292–293). For another example, see Anna Warner,
Mr. Rutherford’s Children. Second Volume
(New York, 1855), 91–96. (Anna Warner was Susan Warner’s sister and her sometime collaborator.)

41.
The Sedgwick family maintained its cohesion and distinction well into the present century; one of its more recent members, Edie Sedgwick, achieved notoriety—and an early death from drugs—as a movie starlet in Andy Warhol’s “stable.” See Jean Stein,
Edie, An American Biography
(New York: Knopf, 1982).

42.
Pamela Sedgwick to Theodore Sedgwick, Dec. 18, 1792 (Sedgwick Family Papers, Collection III, Box 1.13) and Dec. 25, 1794 (ibid., Box 1.18); see Henry Van Schaack to Theodore Sedgwick, Dec. 25, 1788 (Sedgwick Family Papers I, Box 1.12—“Merry Christmas”). Theodore Sedgwick himself returned such salutations for the first time only on Jan. 1, 1795, in a pair of letters, one to his wife and the other to Ephraim Williams (Sedgwick Family Papers V, Box 1.14). Note: The Sedgwick Family Papers are catalogued in five separate collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society, labeled I-V, respectively. Henceforth these will be referred to as “Sedgwick I” [etc.]. The papers of Catharine M. Sedgwick are catalogued separately.)

43.
Henry Van Schaack to Theodore Sedgwick, Jan. 2, 1784 (Sedgwick I, Box 1.5). Van Schaack jokingly added that his wife had “eloped,” so there would be no women present. Eight years earlier, when Sedgwick and Van Schaack were both serving in the War for Independence, Sedgwick sent his friend a copy of a soldier’s drinking song in mid-December; the song concluded: “Its not right for a soldier to grumble I know / But there is one grudge that I lawfully owe / those Damnable Sutters[?] how slighly [i.e., slyly] they’ll come / and charge us one Dollar for a Quart of rum. / Sweet Connecticut if I shall see you one [once] more / for the price of one Quart I could have three or four. / I would Drink & be Merry my Toast it shall be / Success to the Lads that shall gain Liberty” (Sedgwick I, Box 1.1).

44.
Theodore Sedgwick to Ephraim Williams Jan. 9, 1795 (Sedgwick III, Box 2.1); Henry Van Schaack to Theodore Sedgwick, Dec. 25, 1799 (Sedgwick I, Box 4.4). Van Schaack said the wine was “excellent” and asked Sedgwick to get more. “As long as I can drink such wine you and others may consume Madeira and Claret and Cherry [Sherry] and Lisbon….” Van Schaack’s brother Peter had also received a gift of wine from Sedgwick (ibid.).

45.
The phrase comes from his letter to Pamela Dwight of Jan. 1, 1795 (Sedgwick V, Box 1.14).

46.
Pamela Sedgwick to Theodore Sedgwick, Jan. 1, 1798 (Sedgwick III, Box 2.10). On New Year’s Eve, 1799/1800, Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., wrote to his father: “I should [prefer to] live in a Town, at this season” (Sedgwick III, Box 2.16). And in 1808 Catharine M. Sedgwick wrote to her sister Frances Watson on Dec. 25 that she felt “secluded and alone” in Stockbridge (Sedgwick IV, Box 2.12).

47. Catharine Sedgwick to Frances S. Watson, Dec. 28, 1807-Jan. 1, 1808, Catharine M. Sedgwick Papers I (Massachusetts Historical Society), Box 1.1. (Note: Catharine M. Sedgwick’s papers are catalogued in three separate collections at the Massachusetts Historical Society. Henceforth these will be referred to as “CMS I” [etc.], and Catharine M. Sedgwick’s name will be abbreviated “CMS.”)

48.
Henry Dwight Sedgwick to Theodore Sedgwick, Dec. 24, 1805 (Sedgwick V, Box 2.13).

49.
Theodore Sedgwick to Henry Dwight Sedgwick, Jan. 2, 1806 (Sedgwick III, Box 3.7).

50.
Eliza S. Pomeroy to Henry D. Sedgwick (Sedgwick V, Box 5.1). A letter from Theodore Sedgwick to Henry D. Sedgwick, written the next day, Jan. 2, 1812 (ibid.), makes no reference to this “feast.”

51.
For Christmas: CMS to Robert Sedgwick, Dec. 23–24, 1817 (Sedgwick IV, Box 3.9); Charles Sedgwick to CMS, Dec. 25, 1820 (Sedgwick IV, Box 3.23); for New Year: Jane Sedgwick to Louisa Minot [part of a letter from Henry D. Sedgwick to William Minot], Dec. 29, 1820 (Sedgwick IV, Box 3.23).

52.
Ibid. (“mince pies”). It was actually New Year’s rituals in New York that were unknown in Boston, as Henry D. Sedgwick pointed out in a letter to his Boston fiancée: “Tomorrow is the commencement of a new year consecrated here to a species of brisk hilarity and hurried sociability of which you have scarcely an idea in Boston. After Church, which is out at
***1/2***
past 12 & before dinner at 3 you are expected to call on all your friends everywhere to get a glass of wine & a cookie (small cake). You cannot stay at one place more than 3 minutes.” [Henry D. Sedgwick] to [Jane] Minot (from N.Y.C.), Dec. 28–31, 1816; quoted passage is dated December 31 (Sedgwick V, Box 8.9). The next day Henry D. Sedgwick described the scene: “On New Year’s day Robert began his visits at a quarter past twelve. I accompanied him. It is considered indispensable to visit all your friends at that season…. We finished our rounds or rather ex[h]austed our time at a quarter past 3 having made more than 30 visits in every part of the city. There were still several omissions which he very much regretted.” [Henry D. Sedgwick] to [Jane] Minot, Jan. 1, 1817 (Sedgwick V, Box 9.1).

53.
This was not because of a dearth of young people in the family. From 1795 to 1820 there were twenty Sedgwick children born to the third generation (i.e., Theodore Sedgwick’s grandchildren).

54.
“Vous savez notre cher pere que nous vous aimons et que nous n’avons rien a vous donner si nous avions ete dans la ville certainement nous vous avarions donne quelque chose. A l’un qui est toujours indulgent et toujours genereaux a tout le monde et surtout a ses enfans a [sic] billet est presente par Theodore Sedgwick et M. Sedgwick.” Maria and Theodore Sedgwick III to their father, Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., Jan. 1, 1824 (Sedgwick II, Box 6.17). Theodore III was 12, and his sister was 10 years old. Of course, the letter itself was the real present, displaying, as it did, the children’s command of a foreign language.

55.
See, for example, Elizabeth Sedgwick to Robert Sedgwick, Oct., 1835: “The fact is the whole responsibility of affairs falls upon her shoulders, and even hers are not broad enough to bear it” (Sedgwick V, Box 17.14). This was one of the rare acknowledgments of the way Catharine Sedgwick was handed responsibility by her relatives. As for her love of children, Catharine Sedgwick wrote of one little boy, the son of two of her close friends: “He had better come to his Aunt Catharine who has nothing to do but to make time pass agreeably to children from two to ten years old.” CMS to Eliza Cabot Follen, April 1, 1833 (CMS I, Box 8.8). Catharine Sedgwick didn’t much like the commercial part of Christmas, but it was she who ended up doing much of the family’s shopping, because other family members trusted her judgment (and as an unmarried woman, she was expected to have the time).

56. CMS to Katherine Sedgwick, Dec. 28, 1825 (CMS I, Box 1.9). This passage was a postscript to a letter otherwise addressed to young Katherine’s father, Charles Sedgwick (Catharine’s youngest brother). Catharine Sedgwick herself had sent this same niece a present of books.

57.
What is just as striking (but not apparent from the above description) is that the woman who sent the present, “Aunt Speakman” (Jane Sedgwick’s aunt on her mother’s side) was a Bostonian. One of the lingering ambiguities of the Christmas season (it would not be resolved for another generation) was when to open presents—on December 25 or January 1? Ultimately, it was all the same thing, inasmuch as the date was less important than the sheer fact of the gifts (indeed, as we shall see, the first Christmas trees in the Sedgwick family would be set out on New Year’s Day). But it is striking nonetheless that New York was the city that held out for New Year’s, while December 25 was more customary in Boston.

58.
Elizabeth B. Sedgwick (Mrs. Charles) to CMS, Dec. 31, 1827 (Sedgwick IV, Box 5.3: misfiled because misdated 1828—“Episcopal style”); Susan Sedgwick to Jane M. Sedgwick, Jan. 5, 1828 (Sedgwick V, Box 14.1—“the most entire satisfaction”).

59.
Susan R. Sedgwick to Theodore Sedgwick, Jr., Jan. 6, 1828 (Sedgwick II, 7.8).