Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Christmas in 1900

Winona, Minnesota in 1900
Christmas Was Homebound, Dark, and Thoroughly Commercial
As local retailers made their final holiday pitches 100 years ago this week, Winona celebrated a Christmas season that was both utterly unlike, and yet very similar to, today's observances. One merchant ran an ad in Winona's 20 December 1900 Daily Herald that declared, "Only one place to buy holiday presents or clothing. The greatest assortment, the lowest prices and extra inducements. A fine art medallion with every $10.00 purchase. Go to the Hirsch Clothing Company."
In some ways, the holiday that Winona celebrated 100 years ago was as different from today's as a "fine art medallion" is from a laptop computer. What may be the most basic difference is that, unlike most of today's Winona County residents, those in 1900 spent virtually no time on the highway. Automobiles were sufficiently well developed that long-distance travel in them was theoretically possible (Stanley Steamers were capable of speeds up to 120 mph during the first decade of the 20th century), but roads were another matter altogether. For a variety or reasons, the nation's highways were all but impassable in 1900 - to the point that they have been compared - unfavourably - with those of Turkey during the same era.
Whatever long-distance travel did take place over the holidays was by train, and certainly not by airplane. The Wright Brothers' epoch-making "first flight" would not take place for another three years.
Another fundamental difference between Winona's Christmas of 1900 and that of 2000 is that while this year's celebration will be electrified in every conceivable way, yesteryear's celebration was not. No one gave or received gifts needing batteries or power cords, electrical kitchen appliances were all-but unheard of, and "Christmas lights" usually meant "candles."
The two greatest similarities between Christmases of today and those of yesteryear lie, in many people's minds, at opposite ends of a spiritual and commercial continuum.
On one end, Christmas was, then as now, celebrated as a religious holiday, although that was a relatively new development in 1900. Prior to the 1800s, many religious denominations had been adamantly opposed to all Christmas observances, because the holiday had long been most widely observed by society's lower classes as an occasion for drunken revelry and licentiousness.
At the other end of the spectrum, retailers exploited Christmas's commercial potential to the maximum possible extent, although the holiday gifts they offered were, by today's standards, very modest. The contents of most Christmas wish lists seldom got too much more exotic than such items as dolls, pocket knives, or comb-and-brush sets. Primitive box cameras were the height of high-tech gift giving in 1900.
Source: The Winona Post December 2000

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