Consumer Rites: The Buying and Selling of American Holidays

by Leigh Eric Schmidt

Book Overview

Slogans such as "Let's put Christ back into Christmas" or "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" hold an appeal to Christians who oppose the commercializing of events they hold sacred. However, through a close look at the rise of holidays in the United States, Leigh Schmidt show us that commercial appropriations of these occasions were as religious in form as they were secular. The rituals of America's holiday bazaar that emerged in the nineteenth...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0691017212
• ISBN13: 9780691017211
• Release Date: October 1997
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Packed full of irony and interest

I read this in 1997, but am just now realizing I never reviewed it. It is beyond my imagination that anyone would not be riveted by this book. It traces the 19th and early 20th cent. evolution of a number of holidays with churchly roots that were co-opted by Hallmark and the dept. stores, often with the zealous cooperation of hapless Christians. Schmidt can tell a story with balance, accuracy, humor, and action.