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?

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...

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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>...

Tomorrow: Webinar -- COVID-19, debt monetization, and lessons from war financing

Webinar COVID-19, debt monetization, and lessons from war financing by Harold James With introductions by Markus Brunnermeier, Director of the Princeton Bendheim Center for Finance Event Details Friday, April 24 12:30 PM ET Space is limited, pre-registration is required. A Zoom link will be emailed to those who register early the morning of the event. The Zoom webinar room will open to attendees five minutes before the webinar begins. On Friday, April 24 at 12:30 PM ET, Harold James will join the Princeton Bendheim Center for Finance for a webinar on the history of war financing and lessons for COVID-19. James is Professor of History and International Affairs at Princeton University. The event will begin with a brief discussion by Markus Brunnermeier, Director of the Princeton Bendheim Center for Finance. James will then present. Both Brunnermeier and James will take questions from the audience throughout the event. Visit the COVID-19 webinar series page for all u...

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