5 minute read
Cover story
Will the real Santa please stand up?
BY ERIK ANDERSON
Special to The News-Post
Every Christmas, the internet buzzes with memes purporting to set the record straight on the real origin of our modern-day Santa Claus mythology.
Some say the core elements come from the real-life St. Nicholas, a thirdcentury Christian bishop from the country we now call Turkey. Others claim the bulk of Santa Claus tropes stem from the legends of the Norse god Odin and other various Germanic pagan folk tales.
According to Brad Stone, a volunteer docent at the National Museum of Civil War Medicine in Frederick, many sources contributed to Santa Claus traditions around the world, but the specific version of Santa Claus known in contemporary American pop culture primarily owes his existence to the U.S. Civil War.
“I came into the whole thing thinking, like many Americans, ‘Well, gee, we just continue [Christmas] traditions that came over with the pilgrims on the Mayflower,’” Stone said. “Then I realized, no, it’s a much more complex and, to me, fascinating story about how many influences came to a head during the Civil War and basically forged what we consider Christmas today.”
At a Dec. 17 presentation at the museum called “Christmas and the Civil War,” Stone will share his deep research on the transformation of American Christmas traditions during the country’s bloody conflict, with a special focus on the development of Santa Claus.
“I try to make it a little bit different than your standard history presentation insofar as I try to weave in some things that make it a fun experience for the audience,” Stone said. “That, hopefully, makes it a little more unique than the average history talk.”
Stone will host museum visitors while dressed in a Civil War-era Santa Claus costume and will pepper his presentation with trivia challenges and prizes. Among other treats, knowledgeable winners will receive Necco Wafers, a candy that was popular during the Civil War, though they were known as “hub wafers” at the time.
“If you know Brad, he really loves to commit to a bit, so he looks fantastic,” said
John Lustrea, the museum’s former director of education and the current visitor services manager with Visit Frederick.
When researching American Christmas traditions, Stone was surprised to discover that most of the elements have their roots not in England but in the German-speaking areas of Europe. This is due in part to a large 19th-century wave of German immigration to the United States, he said, but also to the influence of Prince Albert, the German prince who married Queen Victorian. Stone said American tastemakers closely followed the Victorian court, which is widely credited with introducing the Christmas tree to the English-speaking world.
The most important influence on the American view of Santa Claus, however, came from a popular Civil War editorial cartoonist by the name of Thomas Nast, himself a German immigrant to the United States, Stone said. The Santa Claus depicted in Nast’s cartoons is not a direct copy of the Germanic folklore figures who reward and punish children on various Christian feast days in December but rather, Nast was interested in creating a specifically American personification of the Christmas spirit who was unfailingly patriotic and easily identifiable with the Union side of the Civil War.
“At the beginning of the Civil War, both sides are kind of scrambling to weaponize Christmas and Santa Claus,” Stone said. “And Nast, being a master propagandist and being the ardent pro-Unionist, does everything he can to show it is solidly a Union holiday.”
In continental folk traditions, the supernatural beings who visited children — from St. Nicholas to the horned Belsnickle — seem like smalltime operators who bring little treats like fruit and nuts that reflect the rural economies of their villages. Nast introduced a Santa Claus who reflects the global industrial might of the Union, one with a giant factory at the North Pole run by an army of elven workers that produces fancy, modern toys. Stone said this industrial Union Santa Claus stood as a contrast to the Confederacy, where the economy was largely agricultural.
“Toward the end of the war and after the war when [Nast] puts the finishing touches on Santa Claus, he’s almost mirroring it on who the great icons were during that period of time in the United States. They were titans of industry,” Stone said. “They were able to have these international enterprises that could provide things to the masses. Well, he’s doing the same thing with Santa Claus.”
Wikimedia Commons
The 19th-century political cartoonist Thomas Nast immortalized Santa Claus’ current look with an initial illustration in an 1863 issue of Harper’s Weekly as part of a large illustration titled “A Christmas Furlough.” The popularity of that image prompted him to create another illustration for Harper’s on Jan. 1, 1881, his most famous (shown here), “Merry Old Santa Claus.”
When: 2 to 3 p.m. Dec. 17 Where: National Museum of Civil War Medicine, 48 E. Patrick St., Frederick Tickets: Event included in price of museum admission: $9.50 for adults, $8.50 for seniors (65 and up), $7 for students, $8.50 for military with ID, free for museum members and children 9 and under. Info: 301-695-1864, civilwarmed.org
please stand up?
Courtesy photo One of Thomas Nast’s Christmas sketches for Harper’s Weekly.
Stone says Nast’s cartoons also created a lasting connection between Santa Claus and the U.S. military. Nast depicted Santa Claus clad in stars and stripes, distributing presents to Union soldiers, and today the North American Aerospace Defense Command provides an annual Christmas Eve “Santa Tracker” so children can follow the toy-giver’s flight across the globe.
Lustrea said that in addition to the event being fun and educational in and of itself, it can be part of a whole day of holiday fun in downtown Frederick.
“It’s the Saturday before Christmas — a great excuse to come to downtown Frederick, get a break from the cold, go do some shopping and have some good food,” he said. “That’s one of the benefits of the museum’s location: If you come to an event like this, you get to make a day of it with all the other cool stuff in the area.”
Erik Anderson is a freelance writer in Frederick who cares about few things more than the history of his community. Email him at erikanderson07@gmail.com.
