| Details | | Publication Date: | 1995-11-01 | | Edition Description: | Illustrated |
| Size | | Length: | 363 pages | | Height: | 10.0 in | | Width: | 6.5 in | | Thickness: | 1.0 in | | Weight: | 25.6 oz |
Publisher's Note
In this richly illustrated book that captures both the blessings and ballyhoo of American holiday observances from 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. Leigh 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. "Conceptually sophisticated, wide ranging; [Schmidt] treats Valentines Day, Easter, and Mothers Day as well as Christmas all within a delicately balanced framework of tensions between market rationality and romantic sentiment.... [A] fresh and timely alternative to contemporary academic fashion."--Jackson Lears, The New Republic "Filled with interesting facts and nascent ideas."--Fred Miller Robinson, The New York Times Book Review "[A] richly documented, smoothly narrated, and lavishly illustrated [study] by a cultural historian who knows his stuff and tells it with panache. Consumer Rites is good history and good reading.... A brilliant chronicle of the American tale where domesticated remnants of Protestant religion, not nationalist identity alone, drove developments, and where capitalist expansion was in the driver's seat."--Lawrence A. Hoffman, Cross Currents
Reexamining the story of holidays in the United States, Leigh Schmidt shows that commercial appropriations of these occasions were actually as religious in form as they were secular. The new rituals of America's holiday bazaar offered a luxuriant merger of the holy and the profane - a heady blend of fashion and faith, merchandising and gift giving, profits and sentiments. In this richly illustrated book that captures both the blessings and ballyhoo of American holiday observances from 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 uses everything from diaries to manuals on church decoration and window display to show in bright detail the ways people have prepared for and celebrated specific holidays - such as going Christmas shopping, making love tokens, choosing Easter bonnets, sending flowers to Mom, or 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 American holidays.
Industry Reviews
"...a serious, nicely written, and continuously interesting essay in cultural history."
Times Literary Supplement - Alan Ryan (02/16/1996)
"An enlightening and entertaining look at a relatively undiscussed aspect of American culture."
Roseberry
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