Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what, Mary?
Speaker 3: What's that? Gabe?
Speaker 2: Did you know? The kids didn't get Christmas presents until
Speaker 2: the eighteen hundreds. Before then, and we're talking specifically England here,
Speaker 2: Christmas was more of an adult holiday where wealthy patrons
Speaker 2: gave servants gifts to celebrate the end of the harvest,
Speaker 2: which workers celebrated with raucous parties. But by the early
Speaker 2: nineteenth century, as more people moved into factory jobs, the
Speaker 2: wild celebrations came to an end and Christmas became more
Speaker 2: of a family celebration. And of course families often have children,
Speaker 2: so the gifts went to them.
Speaker 3: So it was basically like all crazy office parties before
Speaker 3: this if your office was a farm, I guess. And
Speaker 3: then it just became a much teamer and sweeter holiday
Speaker 3: like the one we know now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you can actually see this change happening in advertisements.
Speaker 2: A historian named Joseph Wachelder discovered this while searching winter
Speaker 2: issues of a London daily newspaper in eighteen hundred and
Speaker 2: eighteen oh one. There was not a single ad for
Speaker 2: children's presence, but by eighteen sixteen there were dozens.
Speaker 3: Okay, so what kind of toys were popular back then?
Speaker 2: Actually a few things that sound pretty fun. Chemistry sets, kaleidoscopes,
Speaker 2: little toy theaters, and something called a quote genealogical and
Speaker 2: chronological Game of England, which, if I'm going to be honest,
Speaker 2: seems more like a homework assignment than a game.
Speaker 3: But you know, feels like Shoots and Ladders meets Cold
Speaker 3: Case Files. And now that I'm saying that out loud,
Speaker 3: it sounds awesome, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, too bad you can't buy it anymore, but
Speaker 2: you can, of course buy lots of other things, toys included.
Speaker 2: And with the holiday shopping season kicking off, we're going
Speaker 2: to explore this very specific intersection between festivity and commerce.
Speaker 2: It's a story with deep roots going all the way
Speaker 2: back to ancient Rome, through medieval Germany, and even up
Speaker 2: to modern day Philadelphia. So let's dive in. Hey there,
Speaker 2: podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Gabe bluesy A,
Speaker 2: and I'm here with Mary, Philip, Sandy Will and Mango
Speaker 2: couldn't be with us today because they got lost at
Speaker 2: the mall and over there in the booth dressed like
Speaker 2: the Christmas tree from a Charlie Brown Christmas. That's our
Speaker 2: friend and producer, Dylan Fagan. Way to get into the
Speaker 2: holiday spirit there, Dylan.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, I like how statuesque Dylan looks right like
Speaker 3: he's just kind of leaning over with a single ornament
Speaker 3: holding a few bunches of pine needles. It's very impressive,
Speaker 3: you know, I almost feel like he belongs in a
Speaker 3: department store window.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And actually, if anyone from Macy's happens to be listening,
Speaker 2: we'd be happy to rent you, Dylan for the holiday season,
Speaker 2: just you know, get in touch.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what five hundred dollars a day?
Speaker 2: That seems fair well.
Speaker 3: Speaking of which, let's talk about holiday window displays. Now,
Speaker 3: I did not know this before, but the holiday window
Speaker 3: display is an all American creation that dates back to
Speaker 3: the eighteen seventies. Window shopping itself had been a thing
Speaker 3: for a while, and you know, it hadn't occurred to
Speaker 3: me that there was a time when window shopping was
Speaker 3: not a thing. But it was. And it's all because
Speaker 3: of the inventions of plate glass and gas powered lamps.
Speaker 3: So plate glass meant that shop owners could have these
Speaker 3: huge windows that went the entire length of their store,
Speaker 3: so they had a ton of space to show off
Speaker 3: their goods, and the gas lighting made it all visible
Speaker 3: even at night. So in late nineteenth century New York
Speaker 3: window shopping was pretty competitive. Eye catching displays were a must,
Speaker 3: and in eighteen seventy four Macy's, which back then just
Speaker 3: had the one location in Manhattan, they claimed to have
Speaker 3: introduced the holiday specific window display to entice those winter shoppers.
Speaker 2: Do we know what this first display was.
Speaker 3: Gabe, of course we do.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: One window had a collection of dolls from Europe. Nice.
Speaker 3: Another one recreated scenes from Uncle Tom's cabin. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't know how that was Christmas related, but apparently
Speaker 3: it was. And other department stores followed suit, and they
Speaker 3: actually kept adding to this idea with high tech extras
Speaker 3: like Santa cruising along in a steam powered sleigh, which
Speaker 3: sounds kind of amazing. But one of my favorite innovations
Speaker 3: came from Lord and Taylor. In nineteen thirty eight. It
Speaker 3: was an unseasonably warm November in New York and the
Speaker 3: Lord and Taylor folks they wanted to get people into
Speaker 3: the holiday spirit, so they emptied out the storefront windows
Speaker 3: of merchandise, frosted the glass and blue bleached white cornflakes
Speaker 3: so it looked like a blizzard. Love it, and they
Speaker 3: piped the sound of howling winds out through speakers. I
Speaker 3: love this so much because it's so creative, but also
Speaker 3: it was the first time that merchandise wasn't featured in
Speaker 3: a window. It was just about creating a mood in
Speaker 3: order to increase sales. Well.
Speaker 2: Another thing that department stores deserve credit for is the
Speaker 2: man himself, Santa Claus. The Santa we know today is
Speaker 2: a mashup of Nordic folklore about a man who punished
Speaker 2: naughty kids and rewarded nice ones, plus Nicholas of Myra,
Speaker 2: a saint non for being generous. As for the red
Speaker 2: suit and beard, we have the eighteen twenty three poem
Speaker 2: Twas the Night before Christmas to thank for that. Clement
Speaker 2: Moore's poem described Santa as a quote jolly old elf
Speaker 2: with a round belly, twinkling eyes and dimples, and that
Speaker 2: image has stuck all this time, so, perhaps unsurprisingly, it's
Speaker 2: not too long after that poem that Santa started showing
Speaker 2: up during the shopping season. A lot of stores have
Speaker 2: claimed to have the first live Santa. But one of
Speaker 2: the earliest was from eighteen forty one at a dry
Speaker 2: goods store in Philadelphia, and within five years there were
Speaker 2: at least three other stores in Philly with their own
Speaker 2: Saint Nick's.
Speaker 3: I did not realize that Santa was in Philadelphia stores
Speaker 3: before New York. I just always associate him with Mazie's
Speaker 3: right from Miracle on thirty fourth Street, which we watch
Speaker 3: every year at Christmas.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, as you should. And you know that
Speaker 2: movie really solidified the connection between Santa and the Christmas
Speaker 2: shopping season. But not every department store Santa was up
Speaker 2: to snuff in those days. Many wore suits and beards
Speaker 2: that were frayed and ill fitting. Others returned from their
Speaker 2: breaks wreaking of cigarettes or alcohol, and some were incredibly
Speaker 2: rude to the children who came to see them. And
Speaker 2: that sort of behavior didn't sit right with a man
Speaker 2: named Charles Howard. He was a farmer by trade, but
Speaker 2: his true passion was his yearly role as a department
Speaker 2: store Santa. Charles believed that kids deserved a better class
Speaker 2: of Santa, so with his wife's blessing, he converted their
Speaker 2: farmhouse near Rochester, New York into the world's first Santa
Speaker 2: Claus training school. His first crop of students in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty seven consisted of just three hopeful Santas, but enrollments
Speaker 2: steadily grew over time, and so did Charles's reputation as
Speaker 2: a top tier Santa. For example, he actually served as
Speaker 2: a Santa consultant during the filming of Miracle on thirty
Speaker 2: Fourth Street, and in nineteen forty eight he was called
Speaker 2: up to the big leagues to appear as Santa in
Speaker 2: the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. That was and still is
Speaker 2: the most high profile Santa gig in the country, and
Speaker 2: it's one that Charles Howard proudly filled all the way
Speaker 2: until nineteen sixty five, and even though he died a
Speaker 2: year later, his name lives on The Charles W. Howard
Speaker 2: Santa Claus School moved from New York to Michigan in
Speaker 2: the nineteen eighties, and according to its website, they still
Speaker 2: teach about three hundred aspiring Santas each year. The intensive
Speaker 2: three day curriculum includes a crash course in Santa history
Speaker 2: and tradition, as well as public relations and child SiGe ecology.
Speaker 2: Hands on tutorial for maintaining a Santa suit and applying
Speaker 2: the makeup, and even instruction on how to care for reindeer,
Speaker 2: just in case a kid should ever ask.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're never going to be a great Scanta if
Speaker 3: you don't have your LinkedIn all polished up. Okay, Well,
Speaker 3: so looking beyond the United States for a moment. Another
Speaker 3: legendary holiday shopping tradition is the German Christmas market. If
Speaker 3: you've ever seen a photo, you will know. They feature
Speaker 3: twinkly lights, hand carved ornaments, these big hot mugs of
Speaker 3: mould wine. It's cozy, it's fun, but they do have
Speaker 3: a dark side as well. So German holiday markets date
Speaker 3: back to the fifteenth century. The oldest one that's still
Speaker 3: around today is in Dresden. It started in fourteen thirty four,
Speaker 3: which is just incredible to think about that it's been
Speaker 3: going that long. Series and over the centuries, these markets
Speaker 3: spread all across Europe and they grew in size. But
Speaker 3: as the nineteenth century rolled along, the markets began facing
Speaker 3: competition from department stores, which sold mass produced toys and
Speaker 3: other Christmas items at much lower prices. The department stores
Speaker 3: actually forced a lot of markets out to the city
Speaker 3: outskirts in the suburbs, and by the nineteen thirties, these
Speaker 3: traditional markets were in severe decline.
Speaker 2: And you said, this is Germany in the nineteen thirties, right,
Speaker 2: So I imagine this is when the dark part comes in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's when it gets dark. When
Speaker 3: the Nazis seized power, they were fixated on this idea
Speaker 3: of German greatness, and they wanted to change Christmas from
Speaker 3: a religious holiday to one that just celebrated German heritage
Speaker 3: as not Geo writes quote. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor
Speaker 3: in nineteen thirty three, his newly empowered political party wasted
Speaker 3: no time in transforming Christmas from a religious holiday devoted
Speaker 3: to peace on Earth to a nationalist one that extolled
Speaker 3: German heritage. Party officials inserted Nazi imagery into Nativity scenes,
Speaker 3: filled advent calendars with party propaganda, and even rewrote Christmas
Speaker 3: carols like Silent Night to de emphasize its Christian connotations.
Speaker 3: So basically, reviving the Christmas market to showcase craftsmanship and
Speaker 3: German tradition was a way to accomplish these goals. So
Speaker 3: the Nazis moved to the Christmas markets from the suburbs
Speaker 3: back to the city centers like to the heart of Berlin,
Speaker 3: and they set really strict rules on what could be sold.
Speaker 3: Everything had to be holiday related and German made, including ornaments,
Speaker 3: gingerbread and toys. The stalls were also allowed to sell
Speaker 3: very German things like brought worst and nothing like a
Speaker 3: brought worst at Christmas? Am I right? And of course
Speaker 3: because these were such popular gathering places, it was a
Speaker 3: convenient place to feature speeches from Nazi leaders like Joseph Gerbels.
Speaker 3: So the holiday market slowed down during World War Two,
Speaker 3: but after the war, as European economies rebounded, the markets
Speaker 3: did too, and while they kept the spirit of community
Speaker 3: and Christmas, they got rid of that Nazi veneer that
Speaker 3: had been tacked on. And today there are over three
Speaker 3: thousand of them in Germany. And what's really great is
Speaker 3: that people of German descent have brought these markets to
Speaker 3: places all over the world, and so despite that dark
Speaker 3: time in their past, they're really and they're a great
Speaker 3: way to support independent businesses, artists and crafts people.
Speaker 2: Which of course is you know, a great thing to
Speaker 2: do during the holidays and at any time. Really, but
Speaker 2: all right, we have to take a quick break. But
Speaker 2: when we come back ancient Roman traditions and the origins
Speaker 2: of the slinky, the walking spring toy that almost wasn't
Speaker 2: welcome back to part time genius. Okay, Mary, question for you?
Speaker 2: Are you a last minute shopper or do you make
Speaker 2: a list, check it twice, and get everything taken care
Speaker 2: of long before mid December.
Speaker 3: I don't think I've ever purchased a Christmas gift before
Speaker 3: December fifteenth, That, ever.
Speaker 2: Is shocking to meet.
Speaker 3: Wow. Yeah, well, part of it is that my mom's
Speaker 3: birthday is December tenth, and so growing up, we weren't
Speaker 3: allowed to even think about Christmas until after her birthday.
Speaker 3: And that's just stayed with me. Last year, I spent
Speaker 3: to Umber twenty third in Macy's. No, I think I
Speaker 3: deserve some sort of metal of valor for surviving that.
Speaker 3: It was insane, but it was also kind of fun,
Speaker 3: you know. It was just like there are so many
Speaker 3: people and tourists. There was something kind of great. I
Speaker 3: felt good about having procrastinated. How about you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can imagine the energy that of the late
Speaker 2: season shoppers there. But yeah, you know, I like to
Speaker 2: thrift shop a lot. I'll go to flea markets, I'll
Speaker 2: go to antique stores. So I'm kind of picking stuff
Speaker 2: up throughout the year. You know, if I see something,
Speaker 2: I just have to have it. I don't know if
Speaker 2: I really have room for it, but maybe I can
Speaker 2: pawn it off on someone else later in the year.
Speaker 3: Wait, is that technically regifting if you we've sort of
Speaker 3: lot of yourself, You're not sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, if you buy it without the intention to
Speaker 2: keep it, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's a great area.
Speaker 3: It's a very ethically gray area. No, you know what
Speaker 3: it is. It's like it's curatorial acquisition.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there we go. We'll go with that. That sounds
Speaker 2: much nicer. Okay, all right, So we talked about the
Speaker 2: origin of giving children gifts at Christmas time, which is
Speaker 2: surprisingly recent, but the idea of winter holidays themselves actually
Speaker 2: goes back millennia. Many ancient civilizations, including the Babylonians, Mesopotamians,
Speaker 2: and Egyptians, had a festival celebrating the winter solstice, but
Speaker 2: it was the Romans who cemented the idea of putting
Speaker 2: up holiday decorations and exchanging presents. This was done during
Speaker 2: the Saturnalia festival, which was held every year in mid
Speaker 2: December as a way to honor Saturn, the god of
Speaker 2: agriculture and the harvest. It was the most popular holiday
Speaker 2: in ancient Rome, and it honestly sounds like a lot
Speaker 2: of fun. Folks decorated their houses with wreaths made of
Speaker 2: holly and ivy, and there was music and singing, eating, drinking,
Speaker 2: gift giving, and best of all, no one worked during Saturnalia,
Speaker 2: not even the people. The Romans had enslaved.
Speaker 3: Wow, no work presence, NonStop partying. I'm in right, sign
Speaker 3: me up.
Speaker 2: But the best part is initially it was just that's
Speaker 2: a one day affair, but over time it became a
Speaker 2: whole week long event. On the last day of Saturnalia,
Speaker 2: Romans would give each other small figures made of wax
Speaker 2: wood or terra cotta called sigilla. It's widely believed this
Speaker 2: is why we still give gifts during our holiday season.
Speaker 3: Oh so it was like little terracotta figures, but they
Speaker 3: were the ticklemielmo of ancient Roma.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: Well, speaking of holiday, it toys, my all time favorite,
Speaker 3: mostly for the story behind it has got to be
Speaker 3: the Slinky. It was a runaway or slink away hit
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty five, but it almost didn't happen. So
Speaker 3: in nineteen forty three, a mechanical engineer named Richard James
Speaker 3: was at work in a Philadelphia shipyard. He accidentally knocks
Speaker 3: the spring off a shelf, and instead of crashing to
Speaker 3: the ground, the spring looked like it was walking, first
Speaker 3: down to a stack of books, then to a table,
Speaker 3: then to the floor, where it finally landed. That night,
Speaker 3: Richard went home and told his wife Betty about it,
Speaker 3: and he was like, I think this could be a
Speaker 3: to I would have loved to have heard that conversation
Speaker 3: with Betty. You would not believe what happened at work today.
Speaker 3: I knocked a spring over and Betty was like, okay, honey. Anyway,
Speaker 3: he was really excited and he thought this could be
Speaker 3: a toy. Betty was actually the one who came up
Speaker 3: with the name slinky later, and so Richard was so
Speaker 3: excited about this. He built a machine that coiled wire
Speaker 3: into a spiral, borrowed five hundred dollars, started a company,
Speaker 3: and woila, this slinky was born.
Speaker 2: Wow, and the rest is a toy history, right.
Speaker 3: Well almost, except no one was buying it. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you had never seen a slinky before, and you
Speaker 3: didn't know what it does, it doesn't necessarily catch her attention.
Speaker 3: So in nineteen forty five, Richard went around to department
Speaker 3: stores in Philadelphia trying to persuade them to stock his toy,
Speaker 3: but no one was interested. Finally, he managed to convince
Speaker 3: one department store, Gimbals, to include a slinky in their
Speaker 3: holiday display. They priced them at one dollar, which is
Speaker 3: around seventeen dollars today, which is a lot.
Speaker 2: That seems like a lot for a coiled a medal. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but I mean I'm guessing the display at Gimbal's that's
Speaker 2: when sales took off.
Speaker 3: That would be great. But no, no, still, no. Richard
Speaker 3: may have been a great inventor if you consider a
Speaker 3: marketing a spring inventing it Okay, The problem was he
Speaker 3: wasn't really great at package design. The slinky just came
Speaker 3: wrapped in plain parchment paper, so it just sat there
Speaker 3: looking honestly, really boring among all these brightly colored holiday toys.
Speaker 3: But Richard wasn't ready to give up. He believed in
Speaker 3: his idea, so he asked Gimbals if he could do
Speaker 3: a demonstration of how it worked. They agreed, and so
Speaker 3: the week after Thanksgiving, he set up a ramp in
Speaker 3: the store, put some slinkies up at the top, and
Speaker 3: let them walk down, basically showing the thing that had
Speaker 3: gotten him so excited in the first place. And that's
Speaker 3: what worked. Within ninety minutes, Gimbals sold all four hundred
Speaker 3: slinkies it had, and by the end of the holiday season,
Speaker 3: Richard had sold twenty thousand slinkies across the United States.
Speaker 3: One year later, he'd sold two hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 3: of them.
Speaker 2: While So, I mean, you know, you got to give
Speaker 2: the guy credit for persevering if nothing else right. Maybe
Speaker 2: he didn't invent it, but he noticed.
Speaker 3: It the great noticer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there we go. Well, you know, as long as
Speaker 2: we're in the nineteen forties, my next fact is about
Speaker 2: Christmas Club savings accounts, which some people probably used back
Speaker 2: then to buy their slinkies. Are you familiar with these? Mary,
Speaker 2: have you heard of this?
Speaker 3: I am not.
Speaker 2: I am not tell me, Okay, So Christmas Club started
Speaker 2: in December nineteen oh nine when three shoe factory workers
Speaker 2: walked into the Carlisle Trust Company in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3: That does I have to say, that does sound like
Speaker 3: the setup to a joke.
Speaker 2: Well, in this case, it was a business plan. Because
Speaker 2: what these guys did is they pitched an idea to
Speaker 2: the bank's treasurer, a guy named Merkle Landis. So they
Speaker 2: wanted to open a joint bank account. And here's the
Speaker 2: innovative part. Each week they planned to deposit money that
Speaker 2: they had collected from themselves and from their fellow shoe
Speaker 2: factory of friends. This account would earn in and then
Speaker 2: right before Christmas the next year, they planned to withdraw
Speaker 2: the money and split the interest with everyone who had contributed.
Speaker 2: So Landis thought this was an interesting idea, not just
Speaker 2: for shoe factory workers, but for everybody. So he placed
Speaker 2: an ad in the local newspaper for something he called
Speaker 2: a Christmas Savings Club, offering three percent interest to anyone
Speaker 2: who made steady deposits all year long. So the idea
Speaker 2: was simple and familiar. In December, you would open an
Speaker 2: account with a small deposit, and then over the next
Speaker 2: fifty weeks you would add more money. In November you
Speaker 2: could withdraw the money and the interest, but if you
Speaker 2: take it out earlier you had to pay a fee.
Speaker 3: Well, so, besides the guys from the shoe factory did
Speaker 3: anyone sign up?
Speaker 2: Yeah, actually, three hundred and fifty people signed up that
Speaker 2: first year, and they saved an average of twenty eight
Speaker 2: dollars each, which is around nine hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 2: in today's money.
Speaker 3: And wow.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The program was so well received that the Carlisle
Speaker 2: Trust kept it going the next year, and soon other
Speaker 2: banks started doing the same thing, though not all of
Speaker 2: them offered better interest rates or even interest at all.
Speaker 2: Maintaining these special accounts cost the bank's money, but in
Speaker 2: the long term they were a great way to reach
Speaker 2: new customers. Early advertisements for Christmas clubs targeted families and
Speaker 2: young professionals, you know, the most likely future customers for
Speaker 2: car loans and mortgages, so it was a smart play
Speaker 2: on the bank's part, and parents were also encouraged to
Speaker 2: enroll their children in the clubs as a way to
Speaker 2: teach them financial responsibility. The best part, though, is that
Speaker 2: some banks even offered incentives for opening a Christmas savings account,
Speaker 2: like membership cards or a free porcelain Christmas bill.
Speaker 3: Woo Yeah right.
Speaker 2: These gimmicks worked really well though, because in nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 2: money taken from these accounts made up about ten percent
Speaker 2: of all holidays spending, and by nineteen sixty five, approximately
Speaker 2: fifteen million Americans were members of a local Christmas club.
Speaker 2: Of course, these days, credit cards are a far more
Speaker 2: popular way to facilitate holiday spending and overspending, but believe
Speaker 2: it or not, some banks and credit unions do still
Speaker 2: offer holiday savings accounts.
Speaker 3: And I'd have to imagine that a lot of those
Speaker 3: club cards were used on Black Friday, right, the biggest
Speaker 3: shopping day of the year. And to unpack that origin,
Speaker 3: we are going back to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2: Wow, it is I think that's a third time now, right,
Speaker 2: It's wild how much Philadelphia has influenced holiday shopping.
Speaker 3: I know they call it the City of Brotherly Love.
Speaker 3: It's more like the City of Holiday Shopping. Okay, so
Speaker 3: new slogan. If anyone from Philly is listening.
Speaker 2: You can have that for free.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right. So let's go back to the nineteen fifties.
Speaker 3: It's after World War Two, people have a little money,
Speaker 3: and the day is after Thanksgiving. Are big holiday shopping days,
Speaker 3: but they are also big for college football, and one
Speaker 3: of the biggest games in the country is the annual
Speaker 3: Army Navy Rivalry, which for many ye was played this
Speaker 3: Saturday after Thanksgiving, right and that.
Speaker 2: Game it's often held in Philly because that's halfway between
Speaker 2: West Point and Annapolis exactly.
Speaker 3: It's neutral territory. So in those days after Thanksgiving, suburbanites
Speaker 3: and out of town football fans would flood the city
Speaker 3: for the game, and stores took advantage of this extra
Speaker 3: foot traffic by having sales, which the city promoted. It
Speaker 3: became a big enough thing that eventually people began coming
Speaker 3: to Philly just for the sales, not even for the football.
Speaker 3: And the thing is, the local cops hated it because
Speaker 3: the huge crowds meant they had to work twelve hour shifts,
Speaker 3: So the police started calling it Black Friday, and in
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty one some more marketing minded folks tried to
Speaker 3: change it to Big Friday, but it was too late.
Speaker 3: Black Friday was the name and it was here to stay.
Speaker 3: It's still the most profitable shopping day of the year,
Speaker 3: and it spawned these spinoffs like Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday,
Speaker 3: and Giving Tuesday. Here is a crazy statistic. Last year,
Speaker 3: one hundred and ninety seven million customers shopped either online
Speaker 3: or in person on that handful of days. From Thanksgiving
Speaker 3: to Cyber Monday.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, and I was one of them. Well, speaking
Speaker 2: of Thanksgiving Day, have you ever noticed that it never
Speaker 2: falls on November twenty ninth or November thirtieth.
Speaker 3: I don't know that I've noticed that. I just know
Speaker 3: that Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November. Right,
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: But that wasn't always the case. Although Thanksgiving had been
Speaker 2: celebrated since George Washington's time, it wasn't until eighteen seventy
Speaker 2: that Congress declared it a recurring national holiday. The thing is,
Speaker 2: it didn't have a fixed date. Presidents were technically allowed
Speaker 2: to set the date each year, but in practice, almost
Speaker 2: all of them followed the tradition set by Abraham Lincoln,
Speaker 2: which was that Thanksgiving fell on the last Thursday of November.
Speaker 2: But I said almost all the presidents, because in nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine, Franklin D. Roosevelt broke precedent by moving holiday
Speaker 2: up by one week, setting off a huge controversy in
Speaker 2: the process. Now, the reason he did this is because
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving was set to fall late that year on November thirtieth,
Speaker 2: and retailers were like, hey, this shortens the holiday shopping
Speaker 2: season and that's gonna hurt our bottom line. So they
Speaker 2: asked Roosevelt to move the holiday up a week now.
Speaker 2: FDR was sympathetic to this because he knew sales had
Speaker 2: been in a decade long slump following the Great Depression,
Speaker 2: so in August of thirty nine, he issued a proclamation
Speaker 2: moving Thanksgiving from the last Thursday to the second to
Speaker 2: last Thursday.
Speaker 3: Okay, so, and then the retailers were happy. Everyone was happy.
Speaker 3: No more problems, Mary.
Speaker 2: If there were no problems, would I be telling you
Speaker 2: this story. There were lots of problems. People hated this change.
Speaker 2: A poll showed that sixty two percent of voters opposed it,
Speaker 2: so thousands of people showed up at the White House
Speaker 2: in protests that year.
Speaker 3: What why were they so angry?
Speaker 2: Some people argued that it was a latent abuse of
Speaker 2: power by FDR, But also this last minute change was
Speaker 2: super inconvenient. School breaks and college football games were timed
Speaker 2: around Thanksgiving and already scheduled for the thirtieth and many
Speaker 2: folks had already made travel plans to visit relatives for
Speaker 2: the holiday. So in the end, only twenty three states
Speaker 2: agreed to move the date. One of those states was
Speaker 2: New Jersey. However, the mayor of Atlantic City was a
Speaker 2: guy named Charles White, and he was not a fan
Speaker 2: of the President's so he said, okay, you can move
Speaker 2: Thanksgiving up a week, but that's not the real Thanksgiving,
Speaker 2: that's Frank'sgiving. And the name was of course a little
Speaker 2: dig at FDR, but it caught on.
Speaker 3: What happened the next year when Thanksgiving roles around.
Speaker 2: Well, thirty two states decided to celebrate on the Franksgiving date,
Speaker 2: that is, the second to last Thursday in November, but
Speaker 2: there was still a lot of confusion. For instance, have
Speaker 2: you seen Holiday in the Bing Crosby movie where he
Speaker 2: sings White Christmas?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Yeah, of course, it's a great movie, aside from you know,
Speaker 3: the blackface of course.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But if you remember, it takes place in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty one, and there's a little scene where they show
Speaker 2: a calendar with a cartoon turkey jumping back and forth
Speaker 2: between the two thursdays, not really knowing when to land.
Speaker 2: He actually gives up altogether and just kind of shrugs.
Speaker 2: So the whole thing became this national headache slash joke,
Speaker 2: and perhaps more importantly, the expected increase in sales never happened,
Speaker 2: So in the spring of nineteen forty one, FDR admitted
Speaker 2: he had made a mistake and promised that Thanksgiving would
Speaker 2: go back to normal the following year. But there still
Speaker 2: must have been some concern over shopping days, because that
Speaker 2: same year, Congress passed a law officially making Thanksgiving the
Speaker 2: fourth Thursday of November, meaning that, depending on the year,
Speaker 2: the holiday is observed either on the last Thursday, as
Speaker 2: Lincoln intended, or the second to last Thursday, as retailers wanted.
Speaker 2: But in either case, the latest it can ever be
Speaker 2: is November twenty eighth.
Speaker 3: Huh wow, I'm looking at a calendar right now, Gabe,
Speaker 3: and you know what it looks like. In twenty thirty,
Speaker 3: Thanksgiving will be on November twenty eighth, So everyone filed
Speaker 3: us away, and several years from now you can think
Speaker 3: of us. Well, I'm glad that we have that worked out.
Speaker 3: But Gabe, before we go, how about we head down
Speaker 3: to the rec center and help any listeners who might
Speaker 3: still be looking for that perfect holiday gift.
Speaker 2: Sounds great, let's do it.
Speaker 3: So here's the gift I'm going to recommend for everyone
Speaker 3: on your Christmas list. It is a trash picker. Do
Speaker 3: you know what that is, Gabe.
Speaker 2: Uh, It's like a grabber claw right, correct.
Speaker 3: It's a long grabber with a handle, and you can
Speaker 3: use it to pick up small objects from the ground,
Speaker 3: including trash. And the reason I think this is such
Speaker 3: a great gift as well. First of all, it's very affordable.
Speaker 3: You can get it at any home improvement store. You
Speaker 3: can get it at your local hardware store, which is
Speaker 3: where I got mine a couple of years ago. But
Speaker 3: it's also a great way to start doing fun activities
Speaker 3: with your friends and family. Everyone get your trash pickers,
Speaker 3: go out and do a little impromptu cleanup of your
Speaker 3: local park. You don't have to wait for someone to
Speaker 3: organize it. You can just do it yourself or go
Speaker 3: down your block. There's always trash. There's trash everywhere you
Speaker 3: guys know, I'm really passionate about garbology. But it's a
Speaker 3: lot of fun. You can do it with kids, you
Speaker 3: can do it with friends. It would be a great
Speaker 3: first date, I think, and you may end up learning
Speaker 3: a lot about the world around you inadvertently. Like my
Speaker 3: kid and I were out picking up trash in the
Speaker 3: park a few weeks ago and we realized that in
Speaker 3: our neighborhood, Corona is the beer of choice. We could
Speaker 3: tell that from the bottle caps. Do I need to
Speaker 3: know that? No, but I do know it, and I'm
Speaker 3: glad that I do. So, if there's someone in your
Speaker 3: life who enjoys a clean environment and learning obscure things
Speaker 3: about the world around them, a trash picker, put a
Speaker 3: big bow on it. They're gonna love it. So gay,
Speaker 3: what do you recommend.
Speaker 2: Your recommendation was a way to pick up trash, and
Speaker 2: my recommendation is actual trash. I recommend that you give
Speaker 2: an old wall calendar to someone that you love this year.
Speaker 2: The thing is because of leap years, and because time
Speaker 2: is a flat circle, those dates on the calendar, they
Speaker 2: eventually match up again. So it might take you know,
Speaker 2: eleven years or so, but those old one time use
Speaker 2: wall calendars will come around again. So, for example, in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six, you can reuse any calendar from just
Speaker 2: for example nineteen seventy, nineteen eighty one, nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety eight. It'll be just as useful as a
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six calendar, but with a much funnier, more
Speaker 2: outdated design and branding.
Speaker 1: On it.
Speaker 2: If there's an Alf fan in your life, for instance,
Speaker 2: or maybe a Beanie Baby lover, you know from the nineties,
Speaker 2: they can relive those glory days with an old Wall calendar.
Speaker 3: We actually tried red watching Alf recently. It doesn't. It
Speaker 3: doesn't hold up.
Speaker 2: I would say, yeah, I'd say it holds up. I
Speaker 2: mean as much as it ever did, right, I do
Speaker 2: you know I have a soft spot for the time
Speaker 2: in American history where you could have a prime time
Speaker 2: sitcom about an alien puppet basically starring an alien puppet,
Speaker 2: and everybody tuned in, millions of people.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm a cat person, and so Alf is
Speaker 3: a little difficult for me just to kind.
Speaker 2: Of say that, although to his credit he curbed that,
Speaker 2: you know, for for the entire series. I don't believe
Speaker 2: he eats a single cat ast.
Speaker 3: No, he just threatened. He threatens to. Yeah, yeah, Okay, Well,
Speaker 3: so I hope this is helpful to everyone who's been listening.
Speaker 3: Of course it is. If you're standing there, if you're
Speaker 3: like Will and Mango and you're trapped in a mall
Speaker 3: and you don't know what to buy, leave them all,
Speaker 3: get out of there and go get an old Wall calendar.
Speaker 3: And a trash picker. Yeah there you go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, use your use your trash picker to pick a
Speaker 2: wall calendar out of the trash and gift it to
Speaker 2: someone you love. And on that note, there is one
Speaker 2: more gift we have to talk about, and that's today's trophy. Mary.
Speaker 2: Since you shared the inspiring story of the little slinky
Speaker 2: that could, I think you deserve it.
Speaker 3: Oh well, thank you, And of course all the credit
Speaker 3: really goes to Richard and Betty James, and I guess
Speaker 3: the entire city of Philadelphia. Anyway, we are busy working
Speaker 3: on episodes for twenty twenty six. If there is a
Speaker 3: topic that you're curious about that you would like us
Speaker 3: to explore, please drop us a note at high Geniuses
Speaker 3: at gmail dot com, or you can give us a
Speaker 3: call at three oh two four oh five five nine
Speaker 3: two five. You can also get in touch if you'd
Speaker 3: like a gift for yourself of an official part time
Speaker 3: Genius membership card. You just need to give us your name,
Speaker 3: your address, and one fun fact. We will send you
Speaker 3: a membership card for free. A lot of people have
Speaker 3: been writing in for these. It's really fun to send
Speaker 3: them out, so don't wait. It is a limited edition. Anyway,
Speaker 3: that is a wrap for today. This episode was written
Speaker 3: by our good pal Marissa Brown. Thank you Marissa, Will
Speaker 3: and Mango will be back next week and in the
Speaker 3: meantime from Will, Mango, Dylan, Gabe, and myself, thank you
Speaker 3: so much for listening.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: It is hosted by my good pal Will Pearson, who
Speaker 1: I've known for almost three decades now. That is insane
Speaker 1: to me. I'm the Utaco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our
Speaker 1: producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer.
Speaker 1: I'm going to fix that in post. Our writer is
Speaker 1: Gabe Lucier, who I've also known for like a decade
Speaker 1: at this point, maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth.
Speaker 1: He is always dressed up, always cheering us on, and
Speaker 1: always ready to hit record and then mix the show
Speaker 1: after he does a great job. I also want to
Speaker 1: shout out the executive producers from iHeart my good pals
Speaker 1: Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media
Speaker 1: support from k Rales if you like our videos. That
Speaker 1: is all Calypso's handiwork For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or tune in wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us
Speaker 1: here at Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for listening.