Partnership between the General Services administration and the National Museum of civil war medicine. Thisays like to ask question how many of you have been here before . All right, everybody. Great. Welcome back to the museum. Always like to make a shout out when we see mr. Richard lyons in the audience. The reason we are here in this space is because mr. Lyons made an incredible discovery in the 1990s that saved this building from being torn down. Always like a round of applause for mr. Lyons his discovery. [applause] Evenings Program is a pay what you please event, meaning at the conclusion of the program, we encourage you to leave a donation based on what you thought the program and the museum is worth to you and an evening of civil war history. The donation bin is at the front of the Visitors Center on the first floor. As you head out this evening, if you would just drop something in there. All of the proceeds go to support the Clara Barton Missing Soldiers Office museum. Interested in learning more about membership or becoming a supporter of the museum, please let myself or other Staff Members at the front desk know. We would be happy to assist you. But tonights program we are very excited about. We will explore how the civil war shaped the celebration of christmas in the United States. Tonights presenter is brad stone, a long docent at the National Museum of National War Museum of medicine. He has had a long career with the federal government as a senior public rations executive dealing with a wide variety of Public Health issues. This experience included leading operations of the u. S. Food and Drug Administration and the u. S. Substance abuse administration. He currently volunteers as a docent on a regular basis at the National Museum of civil war usscine and also aboard the constellation and baltimore harbor. Please join me in welcoming brad stone, our civil war santa. Sister stone thank you. [applause] thank you, jake. Again, thank you all for coming out tonight. I hope since it is christmas time, the presentation i will be giving is not the typical, boring history talk. Instead, i intend to make a boring history talk in which you win some exciting prizes. I will be giving you some challenges related to the discussion about how the civil war really shaped the Christmas Holiday we all know and enjoy today. I think it is important to see how christmas was celebrated from the inception of our country to today and how again the civil war really shaped the modern holiday. To begin with, we should go back to colonial times, and i think a assume theycans holiday we celebrate today was really brought to us by our pilgrim forefathers. Well, its definitely not the case. In fact, our pilgrim forefathers the pilgrims and the puritans did not particularly care for the holiday at all. In fact, they shunned it. They viewed it as being associated with things like the church of england, which they had to flee, or catholicism, which they definitely did not like. In new england, the holiday was not celebrated at all. In fact, for quite a period of time in places like boston, it was illegal to celebrate the holiday, and if you were caught doing so, you would be severely ed. Other colonies had a far different approach to the holiday. In places like jamestown, they did celebrate christmas, but they did not celebrate it in the way we do today, kind of a reverential way. It was more of a partying type of holiday. John smith of Jamestown Colony recorded that he had lots of eggnog that day and was full of spirit but not necessarily religious spirit. Again, from our colonial times, the holiday is perceived in different ways by americans. In revolutionary times, again, different colonies look at different ways and people within the colonies look at it in different ways. Many of the patriots are actually somewhat suspicious of the holiday. They tend to associate it with britain, and at that point, they really dont want to have much to do with britain, so they ignore celebrating it. Others, like george washington, do celebrate it, but again, he celebrates it in a much different way than most of us would today. It is not really to him and many others a major religious holiday. Indeed, he does not consider it that, and thats one of the reasons why he chooses it in 1776 to launch one of his most decisive attacks of the war in trenton, new jersey. Attack,ery successful one of his most successful victories, and in large part, it is due to the fact that the hessians, who were german mercenaries fighting for the british, do observe the holiday the night of observe the holiday. The night of Christmas Eve, they were setting up decorations and drinking. Contrary to popular misconception, they do not drink themselves into a stupor. That is not why they are defeated the following morning, but a large part of their defeat is due to the part that due to the fact that they are observing the Christmas Holiday and the americans are not. Again, even in revolutionary times, christmas is not the holiday we think of it as today. Why christmas in america is not sort of universally revered, we have to look at what americans are thinking of when they think of christmas around the end of the 18th century and the early 19th century. They are looking at the traditions of europe. At that time, america is almost entirely a nation of immigrants, so they are looking at the s of europe and other places. When you look at those traditions, and a lot of them are not very reverent, and a lot of them have some kind of weird aspect to them. One of the big practices in england and in some other parts of europe is the practice of g, one of mummerin the major ways you celebrate the christmas season. Today, we may think of the who march the people in the parade in philadelphia, but in the late 18th century, early 19th century, they are basically groups of people usually Wearing Masks and disguises and a lot of them come from the lower socioeconomic spectrum, and they are going to the houses of more welloff families, and they basically entertain them. In exchange for that entertainment, they expect stuff. Its either food or presence for, very often, alcohol. Its either food or presents or, very often, alcohol. One of the songs we think of is we wish you a Merry Christmas, which sounds pretty wholesome, right . But if you look closely at the like some figure putting, so bring it right here we wont go until we get some. That sounds more like an extortion threat to me. Again, it is these bands of her mask people coming to your home in this case saying we want alcohol. Toraditional punch bowl used andide alcoholic beverages, in some cases, this could be like the halloween from hell. In newfoundland, they outlawed mmering because people had been murdered in their homes from these gangs of mummers. A lot of people were wary of celebrating christmas. Thats going to change for a couple of reasons. Oops. Well, i dont have the slide so i will talk about it instead. Two big things that will really influence how the holiday is celebrated occur at the very outset of the 19th century. The first is the second great awakening. This is an enormous religious Revival Movement that sweeps across the nation, and it makes americans far more religious than they have ever been before, and it affects almost every aspect of their lives, and a ator aspect of it is a look traditional Christmas Holidays like christmas. Christmas becomes far more of a time for reverence, for observing the birth of christ, and that is going to play a very in howcant role americans start to look at the holiday. The other major influence that is occurring at the turnofthecentury is the fact that the Industrial Revolution is really starting to kick off, both in places like england and in the United States, particularly in the north, and what that is doing is basically creating more availability of goods at affordable prices, and what does that allow you to do . That allows you to manifest the spirit of giving and sharing at christmas by exchanging gifts. Again, that is also a very important aspect and why americans start to warm up to the Christmas Holiday. One of the other problems that americans face is even if you want to celebrate christmas, what tradition do you draw upon . All the nations of europe basically have different forms of christmas and different images of the spirit of christmas or the santa claustype figure. One basic problem is when do you celebrate the holiday . That ranges all over the calendar. For example, if you are from holland, you celebrate it in early december, but if you are in eastern europe, you celebrate it in early january. Most other european nations have dates somewhere, you know, around the time we celebrate but not exactly. Thats one question you have to answer. The other one is, again, who is the spirit of christmas going to center around . You have all these different figures father christmas from andand, noel from france, Saint Nicholas from germany. They all have some things in common. They all look like they could be members of zz top. Theyve got the beard thing going, but they have widely different approaches to the holiday. Some are very spiritual. Some are not. Some are very focused on children and gifts to children. Some are more oriented to, you know, adult recreation. Different images and different approaches. Decide howgoing to and when we celebrate the holiday. In looking at the christmas oops, im sorry. H, theres the slide ok. At the holiday, we see that these forces that are driving america toward accepting starting to seep into our culture by the early 19th century, and you start to see this in the literature that becomes more and more abundant as the century rolls on. It starts in america in 1819 with washington irving, one of ,mericas most famous writers writing something, a series of essays. It basically lays out how a proper family should celebrate the holiday. You are moving away from drunken revelry to a more genteel, more theesome celebration of holiday. Shortly thereafter, it is by reverendin 1822 Clement Clark mores famous what he calls a visit from Saint Nicholas, what we generally call was the night before christmas twas the night before christmas. It is generally laying out what santa should be all about. A jolly guy. Santa is there to provide christmas presents to the good boys and girls. How does he get about . Its in the poem. Flying reindeer. A lot of the things we think about christmas are established through this program. There are a few things that need to be tweaked. He refers to santa as a bright, jolly, old elf. As you can see, a little big to be an elf. The other thing is tiny reindeer. Anybody seen a reindeer lately . They could lose a few pounds. But he is getting the essential elements correct. So much so that heres my first challenge can anyone name the eight reindeer in the poem . Dachshund and dancer and prancer and or dasher and dancer and prancer and comet blitzen. All. Tone you got them congratulations. To share with you these reindeer nuggets made by reindeer. I will not tell you how they are made. The challengers get harder as we go on. The challenges get harder as we go on. Im just kidding. Charles dickens will write the very famous and very influential a christmas carol. That will really establish a lot of aspects of the modern christmas as well, the idea of christmas charity, the idea of it being a familycentric holiday, and particularly the idea of children being at the forefront. He does that through the figure of tiny tim. It is very important that he is writing this at the time of Queen Victoria or the victorian age, and the reason being is during that period, both in the United States and in england, everybody is following the lead victoria. His work is a blockbuster, not in england not only but also in the United States. We will talk about this more again, but what is happening in victorian england will happen in the United States during this period. We are starting to get to the point where everybody likes the Christmas Holiday. Everybody wants to celebrate it, but the question is whos tradition are you going to follow . As i mentioned before, there were all these european traditions, so who is going to be the dominant one . Is it going to be the british tradition . Is it going to be the scotch or irish tradition . The answer is no, its actually going to be the german tradition. The hessians who lost the battle of trenton actually win the war in terms of how we are going to celebrate christmas. The influence from germany is coming in two directions. One externally and one internally. Lets see who is doing it outside the United States. Albert. S guy, prince he in essence will become the Martha Stewart of christmas in both victorian england and the United States, and as Martha Stewart would say, thats a good thing. He is influential because he is the husband of Queen Victoria,nd when he comes to her court he introduces a lot of the native traditions of germany. One of the biggest is the Christmas Tree. He will introduce that along with the idea that it should be decorated with lots of ornaments. He also stresses the importance of giving gifts, which many people trace back to the , butence of Martin Luther that was a way of really observing the birth of christ thought that was a way of really observing the birth of christ. He also introduced the way of specially wrapping the gift in special christmas wrapping paper. He introduces all these things into the court, and very quickly, the leading british publications at the time publish these illustrations of what the holiday looks like in her home Queen Victorias home and almost immediately, every proper british family has a Christmas Tree. When these images cross the pond to the United States, the same thing happens. Almost immediately, every proper American Home wants to have a Christmas Tree decorated with ornaments. Speaking of these ornaments, at about the same time these traditions are catching on both in england and the United States, germany is developing a whole industry in creating glass ornaments. Indeed, this industry will become so pervasive that germany will remain the leading provider of christmas ornaments to the United States all the way up until world war ii. This tradition of decorating the tree establishes two important things. Generally speaking, it is a time when families get together and enjoy each Others Company by decorating the tree. Kind of a bonding experience. Home it establishes a different tradition. That is my wife yelling at me for clumsily dropping the ornaments and breaking them, but it is a very important part of the Christmas Holiday. Other part ofthe the german influence coming from . Its coming from a wave of german immigrants coming into this country in the 20 years leading up to the civil war. About 1. 4 million germans come into this country. It is comparable in size to the wave of irish immigrants also coming into this country, but the german immigrants have a little bit more influence than other immigrant groups for a couple of reasons. They tend to be a little better educated, they tend to be more skilled, and the other thing is theres already a sizable herenamerican population in the country established. When they come, again, they are bringing a lot of their traditions, bringing Christmas Trees, bringing, you know, this idea that you should give gifts, and that it should be centered around the children. Leading into the decades just before the civil war, christmas is really taking off. And indeed, its not only becoming part of the culture, it is becoming a significant part of our economy. Start to see industries developed around things like christmas cards, christmas wrapping paper, christmas decorations, and things like toys. Another thing that is happening is christmas advertising really starts in earnest during this period and will become a major part of the publishing industry. Now, all these things are beginning to gel and create a holiday we can relate to a little bit more, but thats not to say there are not some outliers out there. Cities, the holidays are still celebrated by gangs of drunken hooligans places like new york. Have a name for themselves. Theres still wild and crazy , but these begin to diminish and eventually disappear. So much so that the holiday becomes seen as a very respectable thing, a very wholesome thing that everyone that innjoy, so much so most of the states leading up to the civil war, it becomes an official state holiday. In 29 out of the 34 states leading up to the civil war, it does become an official holiday. It is one of the few things leading up to the civil war that americans can seem to unite about because in this period, again, there is a growing rift in the United States that is going to lead to the civil war. Is christmas enough to unite the country . Unfortunately, the answer is no, and one of the major reasons is it cannot address the central issue that is dividing the nation, the issue of slavery. Milliones, the 4 africanamericans who are enslaved, chris