by Paul R. Spitzzeri
We conclude this year’s “The Evolution of Christmas” series with the fourth post looking at how, for the years 1866 to 1868, the holiday was observed in the Angel City through references in its newspapers. For a bit of context, the holiday was becoming increasingly celebrated as a more commercial and less religious one and media representation during the Civil War was a big part of the change.
This was especially true with images of Santa Claus becoming more common in American media, particularly illustrated newspapers like Harper’s Weekly, while the dark war years were also an impetus for Christmas taking on greater importance in the country. Gift giving, primarily directed towards children, also received more attention during this period, as were private and public displays of Christmas trees.
In greater Los Angeles, the war may not have had a significant direct effect, but the region was marred in the first half of the Sixties by floods, drought, pest infestations, and smallpox epidemics, but, following the end of the war, conditions improved significantly and, by the end of the decade, the first significant and sustained period of growth was at hand.
So, it isn’t surprising to see an increase in references to the holiday during this period, though certainly incremental. In 1866, there were few, including a brief statement in the Wilmington Journal of 10 November that a Grover & Baker sewing machine for a daughter, lady friend or wife was such that “for Christmas, New Year’s Day, or any day, this is the present of all to make to a lady.”
Jeweler and watchmaker Charles Ducommun, an early Angel City merchant to advertise for the holidays, offered his latest in the Los Angeles News just before Christmas and appealed “To the Ladies of Los Angeles and Vicinity” that he’d “just received a new stock of goods, suitable for Christmas gifts!” Among these were “a splendid assortment of diamonds” as well as “breast-pins, ear-rings, and finger-rings” along with “full sets of California made jewelry.” Lastly, there were a “full assortment of fancy goods, fine candies and toys,” in addition to his staples.
As for events that Yuletide season, the Journal of 29 December stated that a Christmas Eve ball and the town’s Exchange “was a very successful, sociable and gay party,” and, as the weather was good, the community’s women “in all the witchery of their charms, attended in goodly numbers.” Naturally, it continued, “where the ladies were, there also the gay sparks [gents] of the town congregated,” so that “dancing continued until morning,” while “the supper was all that could be desired by an epicure.”
The 1867 season featured sparser references in the form of a trio of advertisements, including Jewish merchant Samuel Meyer, whose new store specialized in crockery and which promoted china, silver, glass, vases, punch bowls, toilet sets, tableware and cutlery, lamps and oils “and many other articles too numerous to mention.”
The Beehive, a short-lived store at the corner of Temple and Spring streets whose owner did not identify himself, advised readers “When you talk of Holiday Presents!! Come see me!” and added “if you want a few articles in the Cheap John auction trash line, I might rummage up a little.” On the other hand, “if you want some GOOD ARTICLES, of any description, I can find you a good big heap, at prices that can’t be beat!”
Herman W. Hellman, another of the prominent early Jews in the Angel City, who worked in his uncle Samuel’s book and stationery store and whose older brother, Isaias, was also a merchant but who soon launched a banking career that later included Herman with both achieving great success in that industry, was featured by the Los Angeles News of 17 December, which informed readers,
As the holidays are approaching, our little folks are awaiting with anxious eyes the customary displays of toys, &c., exhibited in our variety stores on such occasions, and the “children of a larger growth” are looking around for the most acceptable presents they can find to bestow upon those they love.
Hellman’s Main Street establishment was suggested and it was concluded that “our accommodating friend will be happy to gratify both young and old with a sight and a sale of articles that cannot fail to satisfy the most fastidious taste.”
After the terrible drought of the mid-Sixties, abundant rainfall on greater Los Angeles in the winter of 1867-1868, though some serious flooding resulted and the San Gabriel River, following irrigation ditches built by ex-Governor Pío Pico and others, changed course to its present one. The 3 January 1868 edition of the News reported that “many of our citizens went down to the [Los Angeles] river on Christmas day to view the destruction of property caused by the flood” and this could well have limited holiday activities for Angelenos!
The 1868 holiday season definitely included an uptick in press references, although the revived Los Angeles Star, which was out of commission for four years so its long-time returning editor, Henry Hamilton had an interesting commentary in the issue of 26 December,
This good old holiday has passed away, in a very quiet and unostentatious manner. There seemed to be very little note of preparation, and equally as little to do about our annual visitor [Santa Claus, presumably] . . . the fatted turkey was sacrificed . . . while generous wine and other libations were poured forth, in honor of the day. But, at the same time, there was none of that roistering hilarity, which in former days, it seems to us, was particularly characteristic of this festival. Christmas has passed away, and with it, in a great measure, the joys and sorrows of the year. Peace be with it.
The paper also promoted the fact that “feasting and presents are the order of the day” and encouraged patrons to shop at Ducommun’s and Hellman’s establishments, adding that “the young people . . . are doing their best to exhaust the stocks.” Consequently, the Star ended with the exhortation, “young ones, come on with your money, and you will be supplied with everything which juvenile desire can fancy, and that is no little.”
One community event that was mentioned by the Star on that day was a “Sunday School Festival” at St. Athanasius’ Episcopal Church, where children “were presented by their teachers and the ladies of the congregation with gifts from a Christmas Tree.” It was added that the edifice, situated at the southwest corner of Temple and New High streets, “was very neatly decorated” including “a tree well covered with offerings for the juveniles.”
The women of the church were congratulated for their efforts which, it was hoped, was satisfying to them “to see the joy and gratification depicted upon the countenances of the little folk as they received their respective presents from the dear old ‘Santa Claus.'” The paper playfully added that it was unaware if “his venerable saintship was consulted” or “whether the contributions emanated from him” or congregants.” Excellent singing was highlighted and it was concluded that “the affair passed off to the infinite delight of the young, and the pleasure of the children of a larger growth.”
Lastly, the edition published a Christmas Hymn, the authorship of which was not given, but which marked the birth of Christ during the era “of haughty Rome” and which concluded in its final verse with a modern application. Here are samples from the verse:
It was the calm and silent night!
Seven hundred years and fifty-three
Had Rome been growing up to might,
And now was queen of land and sea.
No sound was heard of clashing wars—
Peace brooded o’er the hushed domain;
Apollo, Palas, Jove, and Mars
Held undisturbed their ancient reign,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago.
It is the calm and silent night!
A thousand bells ring out, and throw
Their joyous peals abroad, and smite
The darkness—charmed and holy now!
The night that erst no name had worn,
To it a happy name is given;
For in that stable lay, new-born,
The peaceful Prince of earth and Heaven,
In the solemn midnight,
Centuries ago!
Perhaps in response to the assertion that the holiday was generally celebrated quietly and with little ostentation, a piece of correspondence from “Esor,” which, in reversing the letters, might be the surname of the proprietor of the well-known Sunny Slope Ranch of the San Gabriel Valley, this being Leonard J. Rose, covered in an extensive post from earlier this year, is a remarkable detailed review of the Christmas he celebrated.
“Esor” informed “Friend Hamilton” that he “was favored with a snug place at the Christmas board of a hospitable friend, in full accordance with the national habit of celebrating every event of gladsome nature, through an appeal to the stomach.” It was stated that “Christmas, ever gladsome, ever welcome, as it comes to us on the eternal zodiacal waltz, has gone!” before the writer exclaimed that children “were assembled around the Christmas trees, with boughs laden with good things.”
The writer cataloged these gifts, including the fact that “little arms were loaded with wooden horses, tin swords and trumpets, squalkers, squeakers, whirligigs, and the thousand and one other toys, which in these days, are so admirably contrived for their amusement.” He then commented on the glories of childhood and how adults yearn to return to those halcyon days, while he also remarked that nothing was better than to see children interacting absent of cliques, rings or sets as adults do.
After noting that families “gathered at the Christmas board,” “Esor” went into a reverie and offered “All hail, good Santa Claus! You come to us, indeed, in this golden land, not . . . with snowy robes and icicle diadem . . . but . . . as a bright particular star of hope in life’s pathway.” He then displayed a further colorful expression of the holidays in what might be the longest sentence ever published in a Los Angeles newspaper:
The wassail bowls and blazing yule logs of the olden time are, indeed, no longer here; but the most cherished personage, Santa Claus, has come over to us from fatherland [Europe—Germany was Rose’s homeland], and, as of yore, still sports with Christmas elves and gnomes, and flirts in firelight dances around every chimney corner in the land; athwart every doorway gleams his laughing, twinkling eye, as sweet, childish, merry laughter echoes through the glittering branches of Christmas trees, hung tastefully with glittering fruits and trinkets, together with living leaves and flowers. Gay garlands of hope are worn by youthful fancy, and fair hands twine fragrant wreaths of buds of friendship with the glossy ringlets of youth and beauty.
“Esor” ended with the opinion that, “let the Frenchman take his frogs and claret; the German, his pipe, beer, and pretzel; the Englishman, his roast beef and plum pudding; and the Chinaman, his shark fins and mice, but commend us to the inevitable turkey and mince pie, indispensable to the Christmas of the Yankee.”
We’ll conclude with another snippet of verse, this from The Overland Monthly, a pioneering California literary magazine which debuted in 1868 with the noted poet Bret Harte as editor, and the writer being Ina Coolbrith, whose work was first published in the Star just over a decade before and highlighted here in a prior post.
Born Josephine Smith in the Mormon colony at Nauvoo, Illinois and the niece of Joseph Smith, the founder of the LDS Church, she was first recognized as a poet while a teenager in Los Angeles, (the “Ina” likely being a shortened version of her name in Spanish, Josefina). After an abusive marriage and the loss of her only child, Coolbrith, taking the maiden name of her mother, moved to San Francisco, where she achieved significant fame for her work in publications like The Overland Monthly, which she assisted Harte in producing.
Her poem, “Under the Christmas Snow,” has eleven stanzas, but here is a sampling of a tragic story of an unrequited love:
Most lives live more in the shadow, I think, than in the sun,
And the shadow from some is lifted only when life is done;
And so, though I wear mourning, I am glad at heart to know,
She rests in her still white slumber, under the Christmas snow.
She was to have married Philip. He sailed with his ship in June.
How long they walked by the sea that night, under the waning moon!
“A year and a day of parting, and a lifetime, sweet, with you.”
Ah me, but we dream life bravely, if only our dreams come true! . . .
Again and again in dead of night, I wakened to find—ah me!
The still, white form at the window that looked on the lonely sea.
Forever and ever the ocean! And I thought, with yearning pain,
“If only the year were over, and Philip were back again!”
June passed into December. We were merry at Christmas-tide.
Berry and oak and holly, and folk from the country-side;
Music and feast and frolic, laughter and life and light—
I never missed poor Maggie, till far into the night . . .
Ah, well! It is over! Philip? No, we have never heard.
I loved him next to Maggie. ‘Tis hard to have no word.
But for her, though I wear morning, I am glad at heart to know
She lies in her quiet slumber, in the peace of the Christmas snow.
We will return next December with a further look at the observance of the Christmas holidays from Los Angeles newspaper references, picking up from 1868 and continuing into the 1870s.
Meanwhile, we wish everyone the best of the holiday season!