Consumer Rites: The Buying & Selling of American Holidays

by Leigh Eric Schmidt

Slogans such as "Let's put Christ back into Christmas" or "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" hold an appeal to Christians who oppose the commercializing of events they hold sacred. However, through a close look at the rise of holidays in the United States, Leigh Schmidt show us that commercial appropriations of these occasions were as religious in form as they were secular. The rituals of America's holiday bazaar that emerged in the nineteenth century offered a luxuriant merger of the holy and the profane--a heady blend of fashion and faith, merchandising and gift-giving, profits and sentiments, all celebrations of a devout consumption. In this richly illustrated book, which captures both the blessings and ballyhoo of American holiday observances for 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.


Schmidt tells the story of how holiday celebrations were almost banished by Puritans and other religious reformers in the colonies but went on to be romanticized and reinvented in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Merchants and advertisers were crucial for the reimagining of the holidays, promoting them in a grand, carnivalesque manner, which could include gargantuan fruit cakes, masked Santa Clauses, and exploding valentines.


Along the way Schmidt uses everything from diaries to manuals on church decoration and window display to show in bright detail the ways in which people have prepared for and celebrated specific holidays--such as going Christmas shopping, making love tokens, choosing Easter bonnets, sending flowers to Mom, 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 the American holidays.

Genres: History, American History, Nonfiction, Economics, Academic, Social Science

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Susie Meister]

This text describes the commercialization of religious holidays. He describes how the market succeeds in standardizing local religious and ethnic customs. Of particular interest is its focus on how women are often the “movers” behind the holidays and are marketed as such. Additionally, the book explores the dichotomous relationship Christianity has with consumerism—on one hand embracing it, and on another, as enemies of it.

[Jake · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating book on a topic I've always wanted to explore more. Schmidt goes through 5 major holidays and shows how religious and consumerism were brought together for our modern conceptions of many holidays. Written from a mainline religious historian, I think all Americans would enjoy this who have wondered how our hodgepodge of modern holidays came about. In particular, the insights of the shift from Puritan eschewment of holidays that dominated early America into transforming festivals into acceptable domestic events in the Victorian era were fascinating. My biggest critique is that he seems to overly pull from a small number of primary sources when he is using primary sources to talk about how holidays were celebrated (relying on just a few diaries, though he uses a broad number of other types of sources) and also that in a lot of the book there is an undue focus on the northeastern US, where I think there may have been more regional variation.

[Ryan Ard · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book gives an interesting prospective of religious holidays vs commercial holidays. The final answer is they have merged to be one in the same. This is a somewhat obvious answer as any given American will probably spend Christmas Eve at church and wake up the next morning to open hundreds of dollars worth of gifts. The book gave some good historical insight on the creation of the holidays and the businesses that quickly swooped in an made holidays what they are today. To me the mix of the sacred and the commercial is what makes our holidays uniquely American.

[Andrew Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Schmidt takes his readers on a cultural history of holidays in America. His text examines the religious and consumer interests of holidays such as Easter, Christmas, Mother's Day, and others. As a Christian I found his arguments compelling and creating new complexities around conversations around the commercialization of Christmas. Each Christmas it seems the argument resurrects that we are "leaving the Christ out of Christmas." Schmidt provides compelling historical sources that in fact it it was early Christians in America who left the "Christ out of Christmas" in that they did not want to get involved in a ruckus holiday celebration, leaving the holiday to be managed and engineered by commercial interests. It is through this framework that Schmidt argues that the origins are more secular and the modern Christmas more religious than most are willing to acknowledge.

Those of you who are interested in the history of holidays, this is an excellent read. Schmidt's writing style is academic but not beyond that of any particular audience.

[Alex Andrasik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read portions of this in preparation for a book club event. A very interesting social history of the festival spirit in American culture, one which reveals unexpected co-dependence between the sacred and the secular. The chapter on Christmas is well worth a read both for its academic treatment of society's embrace of that holiday, as well for the character of the historical observances that it sketches.

[Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is beyond my imagination that anyone would not be riveted by this book. It traces the 19th and early 20th cent. evolution of a number of holidays with churchly roots that were co-opted by Hallmark and the dept. stores, often with the zealous cooperation of hapless Christians. Schmidt can tell a story with balance, accuracy, humor, and action.