Skip to main content

Christmas in (Business) History

We provide today a series of links to sites offering information and reflections on the history of the Christmas holiday, many with business history relevance.
For a large list, see the History News Network's "Hot Topics" list for Christmas, which includes

a 2011 Backstory audiocast featuring historian Stephen Nissenbaum, author of The Battle for Christmas
Gregory McNamee on "Christmas, Cash, and Commodities"
James Sturcke on "The Commercial Roots of Christmas"
Other sites :
The Mahoning Valley Historical Society, which provides short articles on belsnickles, "putz" houses (Christmas villages), and the Shiny Brite ornament company
The company that printed Christmas Seals
Albert Sadacca, Thomas Edison, and the invention of Christmas lights
The Coca-Cola company and its sponsorship of "A Charlie Brown Christmas"
WSJ review of Inventing the Christmas Tree
The history of the Christmas "cracker"
Louis Prang and the American Christmas card, New-York Historical Society
American History through Christmas Cards, Wisconsin Historical Society
Henry Cole and the First Christmas Cards; that first card is here (and above)
History of the National Christmas Tree (Washington, DC)
The FBI on "It's a Wonderful Life" : "a rather obvious attempt to discredit bankers"
Montgomery Ward invents Rudolph (the red-nosed reindeer)
Alfred Loman, Macy's Parade, and Santa's Reindeer
Mark Carr and (possibly) the first retail Christmas tree lot
Thomas Nast, Morristown, NJ, and Santa Claus
Germany exports Christmas Markets
Charles Dickens, the man who invented Christmas--or not?

Popular posts from this blog

The Exchange is changing platforms! Please read to continue receiving our messages [working links]

  Dear subscribers to The Exchange: I am happy to announce that our blog is moving platforms. For almost a decade, the Business History Conference has used Blogger to publish and archive posts. However, in early 2021, the blogging site announced that their email serving service would be terminated. In addition, we noticed that many of our subscribers had stopped receiving the blog’s emails, and our subscription provides very limited reporting. In agreement, the Electronic Media Oversight Committee , web administrator Shane Hamilton, and web editor Paula de la Cruz-Fernández decided to move our web blog from Blogger to our website . We now write to you to request that if you wish to continue receiving announcements from the BHC, please subscribe here: https://thebhc.org/subscribe-exchange   Interested people will be asked to log into their BHC’s account or open one, free. If you have questions, please email The Business History Conference <web-admin [at] thebhc.org>...

#BHC2022MexicoCity Workshop: Empresariado en América Latina en Perspectiva Histórica y Global

Segundo Taller Empresariado en América Latina en Perspectiva Histórica y Global En víspera de la reunión anual 2022 de la Business History Conference   Historia empresarial en tiempos de incertidumbre: acogiendo la complejidad y la diversidad https://thebhc.org/2022-bhc-meeting   7 de abril de 2022 Hotel María Isabel Sheraton, México Instituciones co-organizadoras Business History Conference y la Asociación Mexicana de Historia Económica, A. C. Llamado a presentación de resúmenes El día previo al inicio de la Business History Conference (BHC) 2022 se llevará a cabo el Segundo Taller Empresariado en América Latina en Perspectiva Histórica y Global. Esta es una invitación para aquellxs investigadorxs que prefieran presentar resultados de investigación en idioma español o portugués y deseen aprovechar la reunión anual de la BHC para entablar conversaciones con investigadores internacionales especializados en las temáticas que trabajan. No hay temas predefin...

The Exchange has moved to the BHC's website

  Dear members subscribers of The Exchange   The Exchange, the weblog of the BHC, is now part of our website ( https://thebhc.org ). We migrated the blog to serve our membership and interested parties best since Blogger is discontinuing its email service.   Note that this will be the last message we will send from Blogger .   The Exchange was founded by Pat Denault over a decade ago, and it has become an essential channel for announcements from and about the BHC and from our subscribers and members. Announcements from The Exchange will come up on the News section of our website as they did before. However, if you wish to receive these announcements via email, and you have not done so yet, please subscribe to The Exchange by: Going to our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org ), s crolling down to the end of the page, and clicking on "Subscribe to the Latest BHC News." Or go to the “News” section of our website's homepage ( https://thebhc.org/ ),   and click on...