Christmas in America was not born fully formed. It was argued over, prohibited, reinvented, advertised?and eventually transformed into tradition.
In colonial New England, celebrating Christmas could cost you a fine.
Two centuries later, department stores were turning the holiday into a spectacle, electric lights were glowing on Christmas trees, advertisers were reshaping Santa Claus, and a Montgomery Ward copywriter was creating a red-nosed reindeer that millions of families would eventually claim as their own.
FROM BANNED TO BELOVED traces the surprising history of how Christmas became Christmas in America.
Drawing on newspapers, diaries, advertisements, government records, illustrations, archival collections, and contemporary accounts, Matthew Nichols investigates the real events behind some of America's most familiar holiday traditions?and separates the documentary record from the legends that grew around it.
Inside, discover:
• Why some deeply religious colonists rejected Christmas?and why Massachusetts Bay eventually fined people for observing it.
• How New York writers, historians, printers, and families helped transform St. Nicholas into an American icon.
• What the original 1823 publication of A Visit from St. Nicholas actually said?and why questions about its authorship never completely disappeared.
• How an image of Queen Victoria's family helped popularize the Christmas tree in American homes without actually introducing the custom to America.
• How Thomas Nast placed Santa inside the politics and propaganda of the Civil War.
• How department stores, greeting-card publishers, electricity, mass printing, and advertising changed the way Americans experienced Christmas.
• Why Coca-Cola did not invent the modern Santa Claus?even though its advertisements helped make one version of him extraordinarily familiar.
• How Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer began as a Montgomery Ward promotional booklet before escaping the advertising department and becoming something much larger.
Autorentext
Matthew Nichols is the founder of TrueHistories.com and the author of investigative nonfiction that explores the hidden systems, forgotten records, and overlooked events that shaped history. Drawing on archival research, court records, government documents, and contemporary sources, he focuses on separating documented fact from popular myth. His work examines the people, institutions, and decisions that operated behind the public stories history often remembers.
He is the author of numerous works of historical nonfiction, including Ashes of Silence, Blood-Stained Slippers, Hidden Figures, Erased Codes, The Deal That Broke America, and The Roll Up.