December 2, 2025 • 32 mins
Tis the season for commerce, and Gabe and Mary are standing by with answers to all the questions you didn’t know you had. Like: What was the Tickle Me Elmo of ancient Rome? Why was Black Friday almost called Big Friday? And what happened when FDR messed with Thanksgiving in order to give people more time to shop? (Chaos, that’s what happened.) Plus: Helpful suggestions for anyone struggling to find the perfect gift.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Guess what, Mary?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
What's that? Gabe?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Did you know? The kids didn't get Christmas presents until
the eighteen hundreds. Before then, and we're talking specifically England here,
Christmas was more of an adult holiday where wealthy patrons
gave servants gifts to celebrate the end of the harvest,
which workers celebrated with raucous parties. But by the early
nineteenth century, as more people moved into factory jobs, the
(00:48):
wild celebrations came to an end and Christmas became more
of a family celebration. And of course families often have children,
so the gifts went to them.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
So it was basically like all crazy office parties before
this if your office was a farm, I guess. And
then it just became a much teamer and sweeter holiday
like the one we know now.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, and you can actually see this change happening in advertisements.
A historian named Joseph Wachelder discovered this while searching winter
issues of a London daily newspaper in eighteen hundred and
eighteen oh one. There was not a single ad for
children's presence, but by eighteen sixteen there were dozens.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Okay, so what kind of toys were popular back then?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Actually a few things that sound pretty fun. Chemistry sets, kaleidoscopes,
little toy theaters, and something called a quote genealogical and
chronological Game of England, which, if I'm going to be honest,
seems more like a homework assignment than a game.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
But you know, feels like Shoots and Ladders meets Cold
Case Files. And now that I'm saying that out loud,
it sounds awesome, right.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, Well, too bad you can't buy it anymore, but
you can, of course buy lots of other things, toys included.
And with the holiday shopping season kicking off, we're going
to explore this very specific intersection between festivity and commerce.
It's a story with deep roots going all the way
back to ancient Rome, through medieval Germany, and even up
(02:14):
to modern day Philadelphia. So let's dive in. Hey there,
(02:39):
podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Gabe bluesy A,
and I'm here with Mary, Philip, Sandy Will and Mango
couldn't be with us today because they got lost at
the mall and over there in the booth dressed like
the Christmas tree from a Charlie Brown Christmas. That's our
friend and producer, Dylan Fagan. Way to get into the
holiday spirit there, Dylan.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah, Yeah, I like how statuesque Dylan looks right like
he's just kind of leaning over with a single ornament
holding a few bunches of pine needles. It's very impressive,
you know, I almost feel like he belongs in a
department store window.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And actually, if anyone from Macy's happens to be listening,
we'd be happy to rent you, Dylan for the holiday season,
just you know, get in touch.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, what five hundred dollars a day?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
That seems fair well.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Speaking of which, let's talk about holiday window displays. Now,
I did not know this before, but the holiday window
display is an all American creation that dates back to
the eighteen seventies. Window shopping itself had been a thing
for a while, and you know, it hadn't occurred to
me that there was a time when window shopping was
not a thing. But it was. And it's all because
(03:41):
of the inventions of plate glass and gas powered lamps.
So plate glass meant that shop owners could have these
huge windows that went the entire length of their store,
so they had a ton of space to show off
their goods, and the gas lighting made it all visible
even at night. So in late nineteenth century New York
window shopping was pretty competitive. Eye catching displays were a must,
(04:03):
and in eighteen seventy four Macy's, which back then just
had the one location in Manhattan, they claimed to have
introduced the holiday specific window display to entice those winter shoppers.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Do we know what this first display was.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Gabe, of course we do.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
One window had a collection of dolls from Europe. Nice.
Another one recreated scenes from Uncle Tom's cabin. Okay, yeah,
I don't know how that was Christmas related, but apparently
it was. And other department stores followed suit, and they
actually kept adding to this idea with high tech extras
like Santa cruising along in a steam powered sleigh, which
(04:39):
sounds kind of amazing. But one of my favorite innovations
came from Lord and Taylor. In nineteen thirty eight. It
was an unseasonably warm November in New York and the
Lord and Taylor folks they wanted to get people into
the holiday spirit, so they emptied out the storefront windows
of merchandise, frosted the glass and blue bleached white cornflakes
(05:00):
so it looked like a blizzard. Love it, and they
piped the sound of howling winds out through speakers. I
love this so much because it's so creative, but also
it was the first time that merchandise wasn't featured in
a window. It was just about creating a mood in
order to increase sales. Well.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Another thing that department stores deserve credit for is the
man himself, Santa Claus. The Santa we know today is
a mashup of Nordic folklore about a man who punished
naughty kids and rewarded nice ones, plus Nicholas of Myra,
a saint non for being generous. As for the red
suit and beard, we have the eighteen twenty three poem
(05:37):
Twas the Night before Christmas to thank for that. Clement
Moore's poem described Santa as a quote jolly old elf
with a round belly, twinkling eyes and dimples, and that
image has stuck all this time, so, perhaps unsurprisingly, it's
not too long after that poem that Santa started showing
up during the shopping season. A lot of stores have
(05:58):
claimed to have the first live Santa. But one of
the earliest was from eighteen forty one at a dry
goods store in Philadelphia, and within five years there were
at least three other stores in Philly with their own
Saint Nick's.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I did not realize that Santa was in Philadelphia stores
before New York. I just always associate him with Mazie's
right from Miracle on thirty fourth Street, which we watch
every year at Christmas.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, of course, as you should. And you know that
movie really solidified the connection between Santa and the Christmas
shopping season. But not every department store Santa was up
to snuff in those days. Many wore suits and beards
that were frayed and ill fitting. Others returned from their
breaks wreaking of cigarettes or alcohol, and some were incredibly
rude to the children who came to see them. And
(06:42):
that sort of behavior didn't sit right with a man
named Charles Howard. He was a farmer by trade, but
his true passion was his yearly role as a department
store Santa. Charles believed that kids deserved a better class
of Santa, so with his wife's blessing, he converted their
farmhouse near Rochester, New York into the world's first Santa
Claus training school. His first crop of students in nineteen
(07:05):
thirty seven consisted of just three hopeful Santas, but enrollments
steadily grew over time, and so did Charles's reputation as
a top tier Santa. For example, he actually served as
a Santa consultant during the filming of Miracle on thirty
Fourth Street, and in nineteen forty eight he was called
up to the big leagues to appear as Santa in
the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. That was and still is
(07:29):
the most high profile Santa gig in the country, and
it's one that Charles Howard proudly filled all the way
until nineteen sixty five, and even though he died a
year later, his name lives on The Charles W. Howard
Santa Claus School moved from New York to Michigan in
the nineteen eighties, and according to its website, they still
teach about three hundred aspiring Santas each year. The intensive
(07:53):
three day curriculum includes a crash course in Santa history
and tradition, as well as public relations and child SiGe ecology.
Hands on tutorial for maintaining a Santa suit and applying
the makeup, and even instruction on how to care for reindeer,
just in case a kid should ever ask.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, you're never going to be a great Scanta if
you don't have your LinkedIn all polished up. Okay, Well,
so looking beyond the United States for a moment. Another
legendary holiday shopping tradition is the German Christmas market. If
you've ever seen a photo, you will know. They feature
twinkly lights, hand carved ornaments, these big hot mugs of
mould wine. It's cozy, it's fun, but they do have
(08:34):
a dark side as well. So German holiday markets date
back to the fifteenth century. The oldest one that's still
around today is in Dresden. It started in fourteen thirty four,
which is just incredible to think about that it's been
going that long. Series and over the centuries, these markets
spread all across Europe and they grew in size. But
as the nineteenth century rolled along, the markets began facing
(08:55):
competition from department stores, which sold mass produced toys and
other Christmas items at much lower prices. The department stores
actually forced a lot of markets out to the city
outskirts in the suburbs, and by the nineteen thirties, these
traditional markets were in severe decline.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And you said, this is Germany in the nineteen thirties, right,
So I imagine this is when the dark part comes in.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's when it gets dark. When
the Nazis seized power, they were fixated on this idea
of German greatness, and they wanted to change Christmas from
a religious holiday to one that just celebrated German heritage
as not Geo writes quote. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor
in nineteen thirty three, his newly empowered political party wasted
(09:36):
no time in transforming Christmas from a religious holiday devoted
to peace on Earth to a nationalist one that extolled
German heritage. Party officials inserted Nazi imagery into Nativity scenes,
filled advent calendars with party propaganda, and even rewrote Christmas
carols like Silent Night to de emphasize its Christian connotations.
(09:57):
So basically, reviving the Christmas market to showcase craftsmanship and
German tradition was a way to accomplish these goals. So
the Nazis moved to the Christmas markets from the suburbs
back to the city centers like to the heart of Berlin,
and they set really strict rules on what could be sold.
Everything had to be holiday related and German made, including ornaments,
(10:19):
gingerbread and toys. The stalls were also allowed to sell
very German things like brought worst and nothing like a
brought worst at Christmas? Am I right? And of course
because these were such popular gathering places, it was a
convenient place to feature speeches from Nazi leaders like Joseph Gerbels.
So the holiday market slowed down during World War Two,
but after the war, as European economies rebounded, the markets
(10:42):
did too, and while they kept the spirit of community
and Christmas, they got rid of that Nazi veneer that
had been tacked on. And today there are over three
thousand of them in Germany. And what's really great is
that people of German descent have brought these markets to
places all over the world, and so despite that dark
time in their past, they're really and they're a great
way to support independent businesses, artists and crafts people.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Which of course is you know, a great thing to
do during the holidays and at any time. Really, but
all right, we have to take a quick break. But
when we come back ancient Roman traditions and the origins
of the slinky, the walking spring toy that almost wasn't
(11:34):
welcome back to part time genius. Okay, Mary, question for you?
Are you a last minute shopper or do you make
a list, check it twice, and get everything taken care
of long before mid December.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I don't think I've ever purchased a Christmas gift before
December fifteenth, That, ever.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Is shocking to meet.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Wow. Yeah, well, part of it is that my mom's
birthday is December tenth, and so growing up, we weren't
allowed to even think about Christmas until after her birthday.
And that's just stayed with me. Last year, I spent
to Umber twenty third in Macy's. No, I think I
deserve some sort of metal of valor for surviving that.
It was insane, but it was also kind of fun,
you know. It was just like there are so many
(12:11):
people and tourists. There was something kind of great. I
felt good about having procrastinated. How about you.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, I can imagine the energy that of the late
season shoppers there. But yeah, you know, I like to
thrift shop a lot. I'll go to flea markets, I'll
go to antique stores. So I'm kind of picking stuff
up throughout the year. You know, if I see something,
I just have to have it. I don't know if
I really have room for it, but maybe I can
pawn it off on someone else later in the year.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Wait, is that technically regifting if you we've sort of
lot of yourself, You're not sure.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, well, if you buy it without the intention to
keep it, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But yeah, it's a great area.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
It's a very ethically gray area. No, you know what
it is. It's like it's curatorial acquisition.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, there we go. We'll go with that. That sounds
much nicer. Okay, all right, So we talked about the
origin of giving children gifts at Christmas time, which is
surprisingly recent, but the idea of winter holidays themselves actually
goes back millennia. Many ancient civilizations, including the Babylonians, Mesopotamians,
and Egyptians, had a festival celebrating the winter solstice, but
(13:18):
it was the Romans who cemented the idea of putting
up holiday decorations and exchanging presents. This was done during
the Saturnalia festival, which was held every year in mid
December as a way to honor Saturn, the god of
agriculture and the harvest. It was the most popular holiday
in ancient Rome, and it honestly sounds like a lot
of fun. Folks decorated their houses with wreaths made of
(13:41):
holly and ivy, and there was music and singing, eating, drinking,
gift giving, and best of all, no one worked during Saturnalia,
not even the people. The Romans had enslaved.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Wow, no work presence, NonStop partying. I'm in right, sign
me up.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
But the best part is initially it was just that's
a one day affair, but over time it became a
whole week long event. On the last day of Saturnalia,
Romans would give each other small figures made of wax
wood or terra cotta called sigilla. It's widely believed this
is why we still give gifts during our holiday season.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Oh so it was like little terracotta figures, but they
were the ticklemielmo of ancient Roma.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Well, speaking of holiday, it toys, my all time favorite,
mostly for the story behind it has got to be
the Slinky. It was a runaway or slink away hit
in nineteen forty five, but it almost didn't happen. So
in nineteen forty three, a mechanical engineer named Richard James
was at work in a Philadelphia shipyard. He accidentally knocks
(14:43):
the spring off a shelf, and instead of crashing to
the ground, the spring looked like it was walking, first
down to a stack of books, then to a table,
then to the floor, where it finally landed. That night,
Richard went home and told his wife Betty about it,
and he was like, I think this could be a
to I would have loved to have heard that conversation
with Betty. You would not believe what happened at work today.
(15:05):
I knocked a spring over and Betty was like, okay, honey. Anyway,
he was really excited and he thought this could be
a toy. Betty was actually the one who came up
with the name slinky later, and so Richard was so
excited about this. He built a machine that coiled wire
into a spiral, borrowed five hundred dollars, started a company,
and woila, this slinky was born.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Wow, and the rest is a toy history, right.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Well almost, except no one was buying it. I mean,
if you had never seen a slinky before, and you
didn't know what it does, it doesn't necessarily catch her attention.
So in nineteen forty five, Richard went around to department
stores in Philadelphia trying to persuade them to stock his toy,
but no one was interested. Finally, he managed to convince
one department store, Gimbals, to include a slinky in their
(15:52):
holiday display. They priced them at one dollar, which is
around seventeen dollars today, which is a lot.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
That seems like a lot for a coiled a medal. Yeah,
but I mean I'm guessing the display at Gimbal's that's
when sales took off.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
That would be great. But no, no, still, no. Richard
may have been a great inventor if you consider a
marketing a spring inventing it Okay, The problem was he
wasn't really great at package design. The slinky just came
wrapped in plain parchment paper, so it just sat there
looking honestly, really boring among all these brightly colored holiday toys.
But Richard wasn't ready to give up. He believed in
(16:28):
his idea, so he asked Gimbals if he could do
a demonstration of how it worked. They agreed, and so
the week after Thanksgiving, he set up a ramp in
the store, put some slinkies up at the top, and
let them walk down, basically showing the thing that had
gotten him so excited in the first place. And that's
what worked. Within ninety minutes, Gimbals sold all four hundred
(16:48):
slinkies it had, and by the end of the holiday season,
Richard had sold twenty thousand slinkies across the United States.
One year later, he'd sold two hundred and fifty thousand
of them.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
While So, I mean, you know, you got to give
the guy credit for persevering if nothing else right. Maybe
he didn't invent it, but he noticed.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
It the great noticer.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, there we go. Well, you know, as long as
we're in the nineteen forties, my next fact is about
Christmas Club savings accounts, which some people probably used back
then to buy their slinkies. Are you familiar with these? Mary,
have you heard of this?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
I am not.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I am not tell me, Okay, So Christmas Club started
in December nineteen oh nine when three shoe factory workers
walked into the Carlisle Trust Company in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
That does I have to say, that does sound like
the setup to a joke.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Well, in this case, it was a business plan. Because
what these guys did is they pitched an idea to
the bank's treasurer, a guy named Merkle Landis. So they
wanted to open a joint bank account. And here's the
innovative part. Each week they planned to deposit money that
they had collected from themselves and from their fellow shoe
factory of friends. This account would earn in and then
(18:00):
right before Christmas the next year, they planned to withdraw
the money and split the interest with everyone who had contributed.
So Landis thought this was an interesting idea, not just
for shoe factory workers, but for everybody. So he placed
an ad in the local newspaper for something he called
a Christmas Savings Club, offering three percent interest to anyone
(18:20):
who made steady deposits all year long. So the idea
was simple and familiar. In December, you would open an
account with a small deposit, and then over the next
fifty weeks you would add more money. In November you
could withdraw the money and the interest, but if you
take it out earlier you had to pay a fee.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Well, so, besides the guys from the shoe factory did
anyone sign up?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, actually, three hundred and fifty people signed up that
first year, and they saved an average of twenty eight
dollars each, which is around nine hundred and fifty dollars
in today's money.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And wow.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah. The program was so well received that the Carlisle
Trust kept it going the next year, and soon other
banks started doing the same thing, though not all of
them offered better interest rates or even interest at all.
Maintaining these special accounts cost the bank's money, but in
the long term they were a great way to reach
new customers. Early advertisements for Christmas clubs targeted families and
(19:17):
young professionals, you know, the most likely future customers for
car loans and mortgages, so it was a smart play
on the bank's part, and parents were also encouraged to
enroll their children in the clubs as a way to
teach them financial responsibility. The best part, though, is that
some banks even offered incentives for opening a Christmas savings account,
(19:38):
like membership cards or a free porcelain Christmas bill.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Woo Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
These gimmicks worked really well though, because in nineteen thirty five,
money taken from these accounts made up about ten percent
of all holidays spending, and by nineteen sixty five, approximately
fifteen million Americans were members of a local Christmas club.
Of course, these days, credit cards are a far more
(20:04):
popular way to facilitate holiday spending and overspending, but believe
it or not, some banks and credit unions do still
offer holiday savings accounts.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
And I'd have to imagine that a lot of those
club cards were used on Black Friday, right, the biggest
shopping day of the year. And to unpack that origin,
we are going back to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Wow, it is I think that's a third time now, right,
It's wild how much Philadelphia has influenced holiday shopping.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I know they call it the City of Brotherly Love.
It's more like the City of Holiday Shopping. Okay, so
new slogan. If anyone from Philly is listening.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
You can have that for free.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, that's right. So let's go back to the nineteen fifties.
It's after World War Two, people have a little money,
and the day is after Thanksgiving. Are big holiday shopping days,
but they are also big for college football, and one
of the biggest games in the country is the annual
Army Navy Rivalry, which for many ye was played this
Saturday after Thanksgiving, right and that.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Game it's often held in Philly because that's halfway between
West Point and Annapolis exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
It's neutral territory. So in those days after Thanksgiving, suburbanites
and out of town football fans would flood the city
for the game, and stores took advantage of this extra
foot traffic by having sales, which the city promoted. It
became a big enough thing that eventually people began coming
to Philly just for the sales, not even for the football.
And the thing is, the local cops hated it because
(21:32):
the huge crowds meant they had to work twelve hour shifts,
So the police started calling it Black Friday, and in
nineteen sixty one some more marketing minded folks tried to
change it to Big Friday, but it was too late.
Black Friday was the name and it was here to stay.
It's still the most profitable shopping day of the year,
(21:52):
and it spawned these spinoffs like Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday,
and Giving Tuesday. Here is a crazy statistic. Last year,
one hundred and ninety seven million customers shopped either online
or in person on that handful of days. From Thanksgiving
to Cyber Monday.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Oh wow, and I was one of them. Well, speaking
of Thanksgiving Day, have you ever noticed that it never
falls on November twenty ninth or November thirtieth.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I don't know that I've noticed that. I just know
that Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November. Right,
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
But that wasn't always the case. Although Thanksgiving had been
celebrated since George Washington's time, it wasn't until eighteen seventy
that Congress declared it a recurring national holiday. The thing is,
it didn't have a fixed date. Presidents were technically allowed
to set the date each year, but in practice, almost
(22:45):
all of them followed the tradition set by Abraham Lincoln,
which was that Thanksgiving fell on the last Thursday of November.
But I said almost all the presidents, because in nineteen
thirty nine, Franklin D. Roosevelt broke precedent by moving holiday
up by one week, setting off a huge controversy in
the process. Now, the reason he did this is because
(23:07):
Thanksgiving was set to fall late that year on November thirtieth,
and retailers were like, hey, this shortens the holiday shopping
season and that's gonna hurt our bottom line. So they
asked Roosevelt to move the holiday up a week now.
FDR was sympathetic to this because he knew sales had
been in a decade long slump following the Great Depression,
(23:28):
so in August of thirty nine, he issued a proclamation
moving Thanksgiving from the last Thursday to the second to
last Thursday.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Okay, so, and then the retailers were happy. Everyone was happy.
No more problems, Mary.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
If there were no problems, would I be telling you
this story. There were lots of problems. People hated this change.
A poll showed that sixty two percent of voters opposed it,
so thousands of people showed up at the White House
in protests that year.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
What why were they so angry?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Some people argued that it was a latent abuse of
power by FDR, But also this last minute change was
super inconvenient. School breaks and college football games were timed
around Thanksgiving and already scheduled for the thirtieth and many
folks had already made travel plans to visit relatives for
the holiday. So in the end, only twenty three states
(24:19):
agreed to move the date. One of those states was
New Jersey. However, the mayor of Atlantic City was a
guy named Charles White, and he was not a fan
of the President's so he said, okay, you can move
Thanksgiving up a week, but that's not the real Thanksgiving,
that's Frank'sgiving. And the name was of course a little
(24:40):
dig at FDR, but it caught on.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
What happened the next year when Thanksgiving roles around.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Well, thirty two states decided to celebrate on the Franksgiving date,
that is, the second to last Thursday in November, but
there was still a lot of confusion. For instance, have
you seen Holiday in the Bing Crosby movie where he
sings White Christmas?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, of course, it's a great movie, aside from you know,
the blackface of course.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah. But if you remember, it takes place in nineteen
forty one, and there's a little scene where they show
a calendar with a cartoon turkey jumping back and forth
between the two thursdays, not really knowing when to land.
He actually gives up altogether and just kind of shrugs.
So the whole thing became this national headache slash joke,
and perhaps more importantly, the expected increase in sales never happened,
(25:29):
So in the spring of nineteen forty one, FDR admitted
he had made a mistake and promised that Thanksgiving would
go back to normal the following year. But there still
must have been some concern over shopping days, because that
same year, Congress passed a law officially making Thanksgiving the
fourth Thursday of November, meaning that, depending on the year,
(25:51):
the holiday is observed either on the last Thursday, as
Lincoln intended, or the second to last Thursday, as retailers wanted.
But in either case, the latest it can ever be
is November twenty eighth.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Huh wow, I'm looking at a calendar right now, Gabe,
and you know what it looks like. In twenty thirty,
Thanksgiving will be on November twenty eighth, So everyone filed
us away, and several years from now you can think
of us. Well, I'm glad that we have that worked out.
But Gabe, before we go, how about we head down
to the rec center and help any listeners who might
still be looking for that perfect holiday gift.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Sounds great, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
So here's the gift I'm going to recommend for everyone
on your Christmas list. It is a trash picker. Do
you know what that is, Gabe.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Uh, It's like a grabber claw right, correct.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
It's a long grabber with a handle, and you can
use it to pick up small objects from the ground,
including trash. And the reason I think this is such
a great gift as well. First of all, it's very affordable.
You can get it at any home improvement store. You
can get it at your local hardware store, which is
where I got mine a couple of years ago. But
it's also a great way to start doing fun activities
with your friends and family. Everyone get your trash pickers,
(27:12):
go out and do a little impromptu cleanup of your
local park. You don't have to wait for someone to
organize it. You can just do it yourself or go
down your block. There's always trash. There's trash everywhere you
guys know, I'm really passionate about garbology. But it's a
lot of fun. You can do it with kids, you
can do it with friends. It would be a great
first date, I think, and you may end up learning
a lot about the world around you inadvertently. Like my
(27:35):
kid and I were out picking up trash in the
park a few weeks ago and we realized that in
our neighborhood, Corona is the beer of choice. We could
tell that from the bottle caps. Do I need to
know that? No, but I do know it, and I'm
glad that I do. So, if there's someone in your
life who enjoys a clean environment and learning obscure things
about the world around them, a trash picker, put a
(27:55):
big bow on it. They're gonna love it. So gay,
what do you recommend.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Your recommendation was a way to pick up trash, and
my recommendation is actual trash. I recommend that you give
an old wall calendar to someone that you love this year.
The thing is because of leap years, and because time
is a flat circle, those dates on the calendar, they
eventually match up again. So it might take you know,
(28:21):
eleven years or so, but those old one time use
wall calendars will come around again. So, for example, in
twenty twenty six, you can reuse any calendar from just
for example nineteen seventy, nineteen eighty one, nineteen eighty seven,
nineteen ninety eight. It'll be just as useful as a
twenty twenty six calendar, but with a much funnier, more
(28:45):
outdated design and branding.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
On it.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
If there's an Alf fan in your life, for instance,
or maybe a Beanie Baby lover, you know from the nineties,
they can relive those glory days with an old Wall calendar.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
We actually tried red watching Alf recently. It doesn't. It
doesn't hold up.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I would say, yeah, I'd say it holds up. I
mean as much as it ever did, right, I do
you know I have a soft spot for the time
in American history where you could have a prime time
sitcom about an alien puppet basically starring an alien puppet,
and everybody tuned in, millions of people.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
I mean, I'm a cat person, and so Alf is
a little difficult for me just to kind.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Of say that, although to his credit he curbed that,
you know, for for the entire series. I don't believe
he eats a single cat ast.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
No, he just threatened. He threatens to. Yeah, yeah, Okay, Well,
so I hope this is helpful to everyone who's been listening.
Of course it is. If you're standing there, if you're
like Will and Mango and you're trapped in a mall
and you don't know what to buy, leave them all,
get out of there and go get an old Wall calendar.
And a trash picker. Yeah there you go.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, use your use your trash picker to pick a
wall calendar out of the trash and gift it to
someone you love. And on that note, there is one
more gift we have to talk about, and that's today's trophy. Mary.
Since you shared the inspiring story of the little slinky
that could, I think you deserve it.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Oh well, thank you, And of course all the credit
really goes to Richard and Betty James, and I guess
the entire city of Philadelphia. Anyway, we are busy working
on episodes for twenty twenty six. If there is a
topic that you're curious about that you would like us
to explore, please drop us a note at high Geniuses
at gmail dot com, or you can give us a
call at three oh two four oh five five nine
(30:29):
two five. You can also get in touch if you'd
like a gift for yourself of an official part time
Genius membership card. You just need to give us your name,
your address, and one fun fact. We will send you
a membership card for free. A lot of people have
been writing in for these. It's really fun to send
them out, so don't wait. It is a limited edition. Anyway,
(30:49):
that is a wrap for today. This episode was written
by our good pal Marissa Brown. Thank you Marissa, Will
and Mango will be back next week and in the
meantime from Will, Mango, Dylan, Gabe, and myself, thank you
so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
It is hosted by my good pal Will Pearson, who
I've known for almost three decades now. That is insane
to me. I'm the Utaco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our
producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer.
I'm going to fix that in post. Our writer is
(31:36):
Gabe Lucier, who I've also known for like a decade
at this point, maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth.
He is always dressed up, always cheering us on, and
always ready to hit record and then mix the show
after he does a great job. I also want to
shout out the executive producers from iHeart my good pals
Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media
(31:59):
support from k Rales if you like our videos. That
is all Calypso's handiwork For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or tune in wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us
here at Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Thank you so much for listening.
You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Guess what, Mary?
Speaker 3 (00:24):
What's that? Gabe?
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Did you know? The kids didn't get Christmas presents until
the eighteen hundreds. Before then, and we're talking specifically England here,
Christmas was more of an adult holiday where wealthy patrons
gave servants gifts to celebrate the end of the harvest,
which workers celebrated with raucous parties. But by the early
nineteenth century, as more people moved into factory jobs, the
(00:48):
wild celebrations came to an end and Christmas became more
of a family celebration. And of course families often have children,
so the gifts went to them.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
So it was basically like all crazy office parties before
this if your office was a farm, I guess. And
then it just became a much teamer and sweeter holiday
like the one we know now.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Yeah, and you can actually see this change happening in advertisements.
A historian named Joseph Wachelder discovered this while searching winter
issues of a London daily newspaper in eighteen hundred and
eighteen oh one. There was not a single ad for
children's presence, but by eighteen sixteen there were dozens.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Okay, so what kind of toys were popular back then?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Actually a few things that sound pretty fun. Chemistry sets, kaleidoscopes,
little toy theaters, and something called a quote genealogical and
chronological Game of England, which, if I'm going to be honest,
seems more like a homework assignment than a game.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
But you know, feels like Shoots and Ladders meets Cold
Case Files. And now that I'm saying that out loud,
it sounds awesome, right.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, Well, too bad you can't buy it anymore, but
you can, of course buy lots of other things, toys included.
And with the holiday shopping season kicking off, we're going
to explore this very specific intersection between festivity and commerce.
It's a story with deep roots going all the way
back to ancient Rome, through medieval Germany, and even up
(02:14):
to modern day Philadelphia. So let's dive in. Hey there,
(02:39):
podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Gabe bluesy A,
and I'm here with Mary, Philip, Sandy Will and Mango
couldn't be with us today because they got lost at
the mall and over there in the booth dressed like
the Christmas tree from a Charlie Brown Christmas. That's our
friend and producer, Dylan Fagan. Way to get into the
holiday spirit there, Dylan.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
Yeah, Yeah, I like how statuesque Dylan looks right like
he's just kind of leaning over with a single ornament
holding a few bunches of pine needles. It's very impressive,
you know, I almost feel like he belongs in a
department store window.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
And actually, if anyone from Macy's happens to be listening,
we'd be happy to rent you, Dylan for the holiday season,
just you know, get in touch.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
Yeah, what five hundred dollars a day?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
That seems fair well.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Speaking of which, let's talk about holiday window displays. Now,
I did not know this before, but the holiday window
display is an all American creation that dates back to
the eighteen seventies. Window shopping itself had been a thing
for a while, and you know, it hadn't occurred to
me that there was a time when window shopping was
not a thing. But it was. And it's all because
(03:41):
of the inventions of plate glass and gas powered lamps.
So plate glass meant that shop owners could have these
huge windows that went the entire length of their store,
so they had a ton of space to show off
their goods, and the gas lighting made it all visible
even at night. So in late nineteenth century New York
window shopping was pretty competitive. Eye catching displays were a must,
(04:03):
and in eighteen seventy four Macy's, which back then just
had the one location in Manhattan, they claimed to have
introduced the holiday specific window display to entice those winter shoppers.
Speaker 2 (04:14):
Do we know what this first display was.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Gabe, of course we do.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Nice.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
One window had a collection of dolls from Europe. Nice.
Another one recreated scenes from Uncle Tom's cabin. Okay, yeah,
I don't know how that was Christmas related, but apparently
it was. And other department stores followed suit, and they
actually kept adding to this idea with high tech extras
like Santa cruising along in a steam powered sleigh, which
(04:39):
sounds kind of amazing. But one of my favorite innovations
came from Lord and Taylor. In nineteen thirty eight. It
was an unseasonably warm November in New York and the
Lord and Taylor folks they wanted to get people into
the holiday spirit, so they emptied out the storefront windows
of merchandise, frosted the glass and blue bleached white cornflakes
(05:00):
so it looked like a blizzard. Love it, and they
piped the sound of howling winds out through speakers. I
love this so much because it's so creative, but also
it was the first time that merchandise wasn't featured in
a window. It was just about creating a mood in
order to increase sales. Well.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Another thing that department stores deserve credit for is the
man himself, Santa Claus. The Santa we know today is
a mashup of Nordic folklore about a man who punished
naughty kids and rewarded nice ones, plus Nicholas of Myra,
a saint non for being generous. As for the red
suit and beard, we have the eighteen twenty three poem
(05:37):
Twas the Night before Christmas to thank for that. Clement
Moore's poem described Santa as a quote jolly old elf
with a round belly, twinkling eyes and dimples, and that
image has stuck all this time, so, perhaps unsurprisingly, it's
not too long after that poem that Santa started showing
up during the shopping season. A lot of stores have
(05:58):
claimed to have the first live Santa. But one of
the earliest was from eighteen forty one at a dry
goods store in Philadelphia, and within five years there were
at least three other stores in Philly with their own
Saint Nick's.
Speaker 3 (06:11):
I did not realize that Santa was in Philadelphia stores
before New York. I just always associate him with Mazie's
right from Miracle on thirty fourth Street, which we watch
every year at Christmas.
Speaker 2 (06:20):
Yeah, of course, as you should. And you know that
movie really solidified the connection between Santa and the Christmas
shopping season. But not every department store Santa was up
to snuff in those days. Many wore suits and beards
that were frayed and ill fitting. Others returned from their
breaks wreaking of cigarettes or alcohol, and some were incredibly
rude to the children who came to see them. And
(06:42):
that sort of behavior didn't sit right with a man
named Charles Howard. He was a farmer by trade, but
his true passion was his yearly role as a department
store Santa. Charles believed that kids deserved a better class
of Santa, so with his wife's blessing, he converted their
farmhouse near Rochester, New York into the world's first Santa
Claus training school. His first crop of students in nineteen
(07:05):
thirty seven consisted of just three hopeful Santas, but enrollments
steadily grew over time, and so did Charles's reputation as
a top tier Santa. For example, he actually served as
a Santa consultant during the filming of Miracle on thirty
Fourth Street, and in nineteen forty eight he was called
up to the big leagues to appear as Santa in
the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. That was and still is
(07:29):
the most high profile Santa gig in the country, and
it's one that Charles Howard proudly filled all the way
until nineteen sixty five, and even though he died a
year later, his name lives on The Charles W. Howard
Santa Claus School moved from New York to Michigan in
the nineteen eighties, and according to its website, they still
teach about three hundred aspiring Santas each year. The intensive
(07:53):
three day curriculum includes a crash course in Santa history
and tradition, as well as public relations and child SiGe ecology.
Hands on tutorial for maintaining a Santa suit and applying
the makeup, and even instruction on how to care for reindeer,
just in case a kid should ever ask.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
Yeah, you're never going to be a great Scanta if
you don't have your LinkedIn all polished up. Okay, Well,
so looking beyond the United States for a moment. Another
legendary holiday shopping tradition is the German Christmas market. If
you've ever seen a photo, you will know. They feature
twinkly lights, hand carved ornaments, these big hot mugs of
mould wine. It's cozy, it's fun, but they do have
(08:34):
a dark side as well. So German holiday markets date
back to the fifteenth century. The oldest one that's still
around today is in Dresden. It started in fourteen thirty four,
which is just incredible to think about that it's been
going that long. Series and over the centuries, these markets
spread all across Europe and they grew in size. But
as the nineteenth century rolled along, the markets began facing
(08:55):
competition from department stores, which sold mass produced toys and
other Christmas items at much lower prices. The department stores
actually forced a lot of markets out to the city
outskirts in the suburbs, and by the nineteen thirties, these
traditional markets were in severe decline.
Speaker 2 (09:10):
And you said, this is Germany in the nineteen thirties, right,
So I imagine this is when the dark part comes in.
Speaker 3 (09:16):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's when it gets dark. When
the Nazis seized power, they were fixated on this idea
of German greatness, and they wanted to change Christmas from
a religious holiday to one that just celebrated German heritage
as not Geo writes quote. When Adolf Hitler became Chancellor
in nineteen thirty three, his newly empowered political party wasted
(09:36):
no time in transforming Christmas from a religious holiday devoted
to peace on Earth to a nationalist one that extolled
German heritage. Party officials inserted Nazi imagery into Nativity scenes,
filled advent calendars with party propaganda, and even rewrote Christmas
carols like Silent Night to de emphasize its Christian connotations.
(09:57):
So basically, reviving the Christmas market to showcase craftsmanship and
German tradition was a way to accomplish these goals. So
the Nazis moved to the Christmas markets from the suburbs
back to the city centers like to the heart of Berlin,
and they set really strict rules on what could be sold.
Everything had to be holiday related and German made, including ornaments,
(10:19):
gingerbread and toys. The stalls were also allowed to sell
very German things like brought worst and nothing like a
brought worst at Christmas? Am I right? And of course
because these were such popular gathering places, it was a
convenient place to feature speeches from Nazi leaders like Joseph Gerbels.
So the holiday market slowed down during World War Two,
but after the war, as European economies rebounded, the markets
(10:42):
did too, and while they kept the spirit of community
and Christmas, they got rid of that Nazi veneer that
had been tacked on. And today there are over three
thousand of them in Germany. And what's really great is
that people of German descent have brought these markets to
places all over the world, and so despite that dark
time in their past, they're really and they're a great
way to support independent businesses, artists and crafts people.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Which of course is you know, a great thing to
do during the holidays and at any time. Really, but
all right, we have to take a quick break. But
when we come back ancient Roman traditions and the origins
of the slinky, the walking spring toy that almost wasn't
(11:34):
welcome back to part time genius. Okay, Mary, question for you?
Are you a last minute shopper or do you make
a list, check it twice, and get everything taken care
of long before mid December.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
I don't think I've ever purchased a Christmas gift before
December fifteenth, That, ever.
Speaker 2 (11:48):
Is shocking to meet.
Speaker 3 (11:50):
Wow. Yeah, well, part of it is that my mom's
birthday is December tenth, and so growing up, we weren't
allowed to even think about Christmas until after her birthday.
And that's just stayed with me. Last year, I spent
to Umber twenty third in Macy's. No, I think I
deserve some sort of metal of valor for surviving that.
It was insane, but it was also kind of fun,
you know. It was just like there are so many
(12:11):
people and tourists. There was something kind of great. I
felt good about having procrastinated. How about you.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
Yeah, I can imagine the energy that of the late
season shoppers there. But yeah, you know, I like to
thrift shop a lot. I'll go to flea markets, I'll
go to antique stores. So I'm kind of picking stuff
up throughout the year. You know, if I see something,
I just have to have it. I don't know if
I really have room for it, but maybe I can
pawn it off on someone else later in the year.
Speaker 3 (12:37):
Wait, is that technically regifting if you we've sort of
lot of yourself, You're not sure.
Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, well, if you buy it without the intention to
keep it, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (12:46):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
But yeah, it's a great area.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
It's a very ethically gray area. No, you know what
it is. It's like it's curatorial acquisition.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Yeah, there we go. We'll go with that. That sounds
much nicer. Okay, all right, So we talked about the
origin of giving children gifts at Christmas time, which is
surprisingly recent, but the idea of winter holidays themselves actually
goes back millennia. Many ancient civilizations, including the Babylonians, Mesopotamians,
and Egyptians, had a festival celebrating the winter solstice, but
(13:18):
it was the Romans who cemented the idea of putting
up holiday decorations and exchanging presents. This was done during
the Saturnalia festival, which was held every year in mid
December as a way to honor Saturn, the god of
agriculture and the harvest. It was the most popular holiday
in ancient Rome, and it honestly sounds like a lot
of fun. Folks decorated their houses with wreaths made of
(13:41):
holly and ivy, and there was music and singing, eating, drinking,
gift giving, and best of all, no one worked during Saturnalia,
not even the people. The Romans had enslaved.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Wow, no work presence, NonStop partying. I'm in right, sign
me up.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
But the best part is initially it was just that's
a one day affair, but over time it became a
whole week long event. On the last day of Saturnalia,
Romans would give each other small figures made of wax
wood or terra cotta called sigilla. It's widely believed this
is why we still give gifts during our holiday season.
Speaker 3 (14:17):
Oh so it was like little terracotta figures, but they
were the ticklemielmo of ancient Roma.
Speaker 2 (14:21):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:23):
Well, speaking of holiday, it toys, my all time favorite,
mostly for the story behind it has got to be
the Slinky. It was a runaway or slink away hit
in nineteen forty five, but it almost didn't happen. So
in nineteen forty three, a mechanical engineer named Richard James
was at work in a Philadelphia shipyard. He accidentally knocks
(14:43):
the spring off a shelf, and instead of crashing to
the ground, the spring looked like it was walking, first
down to a stack of books, then to a table,
then to the floor, where it finally landed. That night,
Richard went home and told his wife Betty about it,
and he was like, I think this could be a
to I would have loved to have heard that conversation
with Betty. You would not believe what happened at work today.
(15:05):
I knocked a spring over and Betty was like, okay, honey. Anyway,
he was really excited and he thought this could be
a toy. Betty was actually the one who came up
with the name slinky later, and so Richard was so
excited about this. He built a machine that coiled wire
into a spiral, borrowed five hundred dollars, started a company,
and woila, this slinky was born.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
Wow, and the rest is a toy history, right.
Speaker 3 (15:28):
Well almost, except no one was buying it. I mean,
if you had never seen a slinky before, and you
didn't know what it does, it doesn't necessarily catch her attention.
So in nineteen forty five, Richard went around to department
stores in Philadelphia trying to persuade them to stock his toy,
but no one was interested. Finally, he managed to convince
one department store, Gimbals, to include a slinky in their
(15:52):
holiday display. They priced them at one dollar, which is
around seventeen dollars today, which is a lot.
Speaker 2 (15:57):
That seems like a lot for a coiled a medal. Yeah,
but I mean I'm guessing the display at Gimbal's that's
when sales took off.
Speaker 3 (16:06):
That would be great. But no, no, still, no. Richard
may have been a great inventor if you consider a
marketing a spring inventing it Okay, The problem was he
wasn't really great at package design. The slinky just came
wrapped in plain parchment paper, so it just sat there
looking honestly, really boring among all these brightly colored holiday toys.
But Richard wasn't ready to give up. He believed in
(16:28):
his idea, so he asked Gimbals if he could do
a demonstration of how it worked. They agreed, and so
the week after Thanksgiving, he set up a ramp in
the store, put some slinkies up at the top, and
let them walk down, basically showing the thing that had
gotten him so excited in the first place. And that's
what worked. Within ninety minutes, Gimbals sold all four hundred
(16:48):
slinkies it had, and by the end of the holiday season,
Richard had sold twenty thousand slinkies across the United States.
One year later, he'd sold two hundred and fifty thousand
of them.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
While So, I mean, you know, you got to give
the guy credit for persevering if nothing else right. Maybe
he didn't invent it, but he noticed.
Speaker 3 (17:07):
It the great noticer.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Yeah, there we go. Well, you know, as long as
we're in the nineteen forties, my next fact is about
Christmas Club savings accounts, which some people probably used back
then to buy their slinkies. Are you familiar with these? Mary,
have you heard of this?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
I am not.
Speaker 2 (17:23):
I am not tell me, Okay, So Christmas Club started
in December nineteen oh nine when three shoe factory workers
walked into the Carlisle Trust Company in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
That does I have to say, that does sound like
the setup to a joke.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Well, in this case, it was a business plan. Because
what these guys did is they pitched an idea to
the bank's treasurer, a guy named Merkle Landis. So they
wanted to open a joint bank account. And here's the
innovative part. Each week they planned to deposit money that
they had collected from themselves and from their fellow shoe
factory of friends. This account would earn in and then
(18:00):
right before Christmas the next year, they planned to withdraw
the money and split the interest with everyone who had contributed.
So Landis thought this was an interesting idea, not just
for shoe factory workers, but for everybody. So he placed
an ad in the local newspaper for something he called
a Christmas Savings Club, offering three percent interest to anyone
(18:20):
who made steady deposits all year long. So the idea
was simple and familiar. In December, you would open an
account with a small deposit, and then over the next
fifty weeks you would add more money. In November you
could withdraw the money and the interest, but if you
take it out earlier you had to pay a fee.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Well, so, besides the guys from the shoe factory did
anyone sign up?
Speaker 2 (18:43):
Yeah, actually, three hundred and fifty people signed up that
first year, and they saved an average of twenty eight
dollars each, which is around nine hundred and fifty dollars
in today's money.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
And wow.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
Yeah. The program was so well received that the Carlisle
Trust kept it going the next year, and soon other
banks started doing the same thing, though not all of
them offered better interest rates or even interest at all.
Maintaining these special accounts cost the bank's money, but in
the long term they were a great way to reach
new customers. Early advertisements for Christmas clubs targeted families and
(19:17):
young professionals, you know, the most likely future customers for
car loans and mortgages, so it was a smart play
on the bank's part, and parents were also encouraged to
enroll their children in the clubs as a way to
teach them financial responsibility. The best part, though, is that
some banks even offered incentives for opening a Christmas savings account,
(19:38):
like membership cards or a free porcelain Christmas bill.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Woo Yeah right.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
These gimmicks worked really well though, because in nineteen thirty five,
money taken from these accounts made up about ten percent
of all holidays spending, and by nineteen sixty five, approximately
fifteen million Americans were members of a local Christmas club.
Of course, these days, credit cards are a far more
(20:04):
popular way to facilitate holiday spending and overspending, but believe
it or not, some banks and credit unions do still
offer holiday savings accounts.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
And I'd have to imagine that a lot of those
club cards were used on Black Friday, right, the biggest
shopping day of the year. And to unpack that origin,
we are going back to Philadelphia.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
Wow, it is I think that's a third time now, right,
It's wild how much Philadelphia has influenced holiday shopping.
Speaker 3 (20:31):
I know they call it the City of Brotherly Love.
It's more like the City of Holiday Shopping. Okay, so
new slogan. If anyone from Philly is listening.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
You can have that for free.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
Yeah, that's right. So let's go back to the nineteen fifties.
It's after World War Two, people have a little money,
and the day is after Thanksgiving. Are big holiday shopping days,
but they are also big for college football, and one
of the biggest games in the country is the annual
Army Navy Rivalry, which for many ye was played this
Saturday after Thanksgiving, right and that.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
Game it's often held in Philly because that's halfway between
West Point and Annapolis exactly.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
It's neutral territory. So in those days after Thanksgiving, suburbanites
and out of town football fans would flood the city
for the game, and stores took advantage of this extra
foot traffic by having sales, which the city promoted. It
became a big enough thing that eventually people began coming
to Philly just for the sales, not even for the football.
And the thing is, the local cops hated it because
(21:32):
the huge crowds meant they had to work twelve hour shifts,
So the police started calling it Black Friday, and in
nineteen sixty one some more marketing minded folks tried to
change it to Big Friday, but it was too late.
Black Friday was the name and it was here to stay.
It's still the most profitable shopping day of the year,
(21:52):
and it spawned these spinoffs like Cyber Monday, Small Business Saturday,
and Giving Tuesday. Here is a crazy statistic. Last year,
one hundred and ninety seven million customers shopped either online
or in person on that handful of days. From Thanksgiving
to Cyber Monday.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Oh wow, and I was one of them. Well, speaking
of Thanksgiving Day, have you ever noticed that it never
falls on November twenty ninth or November thirtieth.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
I don't know that I've noticed that. I just know
that Thanksgiving is always the fourth Thursday of November. Right,
That's right.
Speaker 2 (22:25):
But that wasn't always the case. Although Thanksgiving had been
celebrated since George Washington's time, it wasn't until eighteen seventy
that Congress declared it a recurring national holiday. The thing is,
it didn't have a fixed date. Presidents were technically allowed
to set the date each year, but in practice, almost
(22:45):
all of them followed the tradition set by Abraham Lincoln,
which was that Thanksgiving fell on the last Thursday of November.
But I said almost all the presidents, because in nineteen
thirty nine, Franklin D. Roosevelt broke precedent by moving holiday
up by one week, setting off a huge controversy in
the process. Now, the reason he did this is because
(23:07):
Thanksgiving was set to fall late that year on November thirtieth,
and retailers were like, hey, this shortens the holiday shopping
season and that's gonna hurt our bottom line. So they
asked Roosevelt to move the holiday up a week now.
FDR was sympathetic to this because he knew sales had
been in a decade long slump following the Great Depression,
(23:28):
so in August of thirty nine, he issued a proclamation
moving Thanksgiving from the last Thursday to the second to
last Thursday.
Speaker 3 (23:36):
Okay, so, and then the retailers were happy. Everyone was happy.
No more problems, Mary.
Speaker 2 (23:41):
If there were no problems, would I be telling you
this story. There were lots of problems. People hated this change.
A poll showed that sixty two percent of voters opposed it,
so thousands of people showed up at the White House
in protests that year.
Speaker 3 (23:55):
What why were they so angry?
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Some people argued that it was a latent abuse of
power by FDR, But also this last minute change was
super inconvenient. School breaks and college football games were timed
around Thanksgiving and already scheduled for the thirtieth and many
folks had already made travel plans to visit relatives for
the holiday. So in the end, only twenty three states
(24:19):
agreed to move the date. One of those states was
New Jersey. However, the mayor of Atlantic City was a
guy named Charles White, and he was not a fan
of the President's so he said, okay, you can move
Thanksgiving up a week, but that's not the real Thanksgiving,
that's Frank'sgiving. And the name was of course a little
(24:40):
dig at FDR, but it caught on.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
What happened the next year when Thanksgiving roles around.
Speaker 2 (24:46):
Well, thirty two states decided to celebrate on the Franksgiving date,
that is, the second to last Thursday in November, but
there was still a lot of confusion. For instance, have
you seen Holiday in the Bing Crosby movie where he
sings White Christmas?
Speaker 1 (25:01):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (25:01):
Yeah, of course, it's a great movie, aside from you know,
the blackface of course.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
Yeah. But if you remember, it takes place in nineteen
forty one, and there's a little scene where they show
a calendar with a cartoon turkey jumping back and forth
between the two thursdays, not really knowing when to land.
He actually gives up altogether and just kind of shrugs.
So the whole thing became this national headache slash joke,
and perhaps more importantly, the expected increase in sales never happened,
(25:29):
So in the spring of nineteen forty one, FDR admitted
he had made a mistake and promised that Thanksgiving would
go back to normal the following year. But there still
must have been some concern over shopping days, because that
same year, Congress passed a law officially making Thanksgiving the
fourth Thursday of November, meaning that, depending on the year,
(25:51):
the holiday is observed either on the last Thursday, as
Lincoln intended, or the second to last Thursday, as retailers wanted.
But in either case, the latest it can ever be
is November twenty eighth.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Huh wow, I'm looking at a calendar right now, Gabe,
and you know what it looks like. In twenty thirty,
Thanksgiving will be on November twenty eighth, So everyone filed
us away, and several years from now you can think
of us. Well, I'm glad that we have that worked out.
But Gabe, before we go, how about we head down
to the rec center and help any listeners who might
still be looking for that perfect holiday gift.
Speaker 2 (26:24):
Sounds great, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
So here's the gift I'm going to recommend for everyone
on your Christmas list. It is a trash picker. Do
you know what that is, Gabe.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Uh, It's like a grabber claw right, correct.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
It's a long grabber with a handle, and you can
use it to pick up small objects from the ground,
including trash. And the reason I think this is such
a great gift as well. First of all, it's very affordable.
You can get it at any home improvement store. You
can get it at your local hardware store, which is
where I got mine a couple of years ago. But
it's also a great way to start doing fun activities
with your friends and family. Everyone get your trash pickers,
(27:12):
go out and do a little impromptu cleanup of your
local park. You don't have to wait for someone to
organize it. You can just do it yourself or go
down your block. There's always trash. There's trash everywhere you
guys know, I'm really passionate about garbology. But it's a
lot of fun. You can do it with kids, you
can do it with friends. It would be a great
first date, I think, and you may end up learning
a lot about the world around you inadvertently. Like my
(27:35):
kid and I were out picking up trash in the
park a few weeks ago and we realized that in
our neighborhood, Corona is the beer of choice. We could
tell that from the bottle caps. Do I need to
know that? No, but I do know it, and I'm
glad that I do. So, if there's someone in your
life who enjoys a clean environment and learning obscure things
about the world around them, a trash picker, put a
(27:55):
big bow on it. They're gonna love it. So gay,
what do you recommend.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Your recommendation was a way to pick up trash, and
my recommendation is actual trash. I recommend that you give
an old wall calendar to someone that you love this year.
The thing is because of leap years, and because time
is a flat circle, those dates on the calendar, they
eventually match up again. So it might take you know,
(28:21):
eleven years or so, but those old one time use
wall calendars will come around again. So, for example, in
twenty twenty six, you can reuse any calendar from just
for example nineteen seventy, nineteen eighty one, nineteen eighty seven,
nineteen ninety eight. It'll be just as useful as a
twenty twenty six calendar, but with a much funnier, more
(28:45):
outdated design and branding.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
On it.
Speaker 2 (28:47):
If there's an Alf fan in your life, for instance,
or maybe a Beanie Baby lover, you know from the nineties,
they can relive those glory days with an old Wall calendar.
Speaker 3 (28:58):
We actually tried red watching Alf recently. It doesn't. It
doesn't hold up.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
I would say, yeah, I'd say it holds up. I
mean as much as it ever did, right, I do
you know I have a soft spot for the time
in American history where you could have a prime time
sitcom about an alien puppet basically starring an alien puppet,
and everybody tuned in, millions of people.
Speaker 3 (29:19):
I mean, I'm a cat person, and so Alf is
a little difficult for me just to kind.
Speaker 2 (29:23):
Of say that, although to his credit he curbed that,
you know, for for the entire series. I don't believe
he eats a single cat ast.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
No, he just threatened. He threatens to. Yeah, yeah, Okay, Well,
so I hope this is helpful to everyone who's been listening.
Of course it is. If you're standing there, if you're
like Will and Mango and you're trapped in a mall
and you don't know what to buy, leave them all,
get out of there and go get an old Wall calendar.
And a trash picker. Yeah there you go.
Speaker 2 (29:47):
Yeah, use your use your trash picker to pick a
wall calendar out of the trash and gift it to
someone you love. And on that note, there is one
more gift we have to talk about, and that's today's trophy. Mary.
Since you shared the inspiring story of the little slinky
that could, I think you deserve it.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
Oh well, thank you, And of course all the credit
really goes to Richard and Betty James, and I guess
the entire city of Philadelphia. Anyway, we are busy working
on episodes for twenty twenty six. If there is a
topic that you're curious about that you would like us
to explore, please drop us a note at high Geniuses
at gmail dot com, or you can give us a
call at three oh two four oh five five nine
(30:29):
two five. You can also get in touch if you'd
like a gift for yourself of an official part time
Genius membership card. You just need to give us your name,
your address, and one fun fact. We will send you
a membership card for free. A lot of people have
been writing in for these. It's really fun to send
them out, so don't wait. It is a limited edition. Anyway,
(30:49):
that is a wrap for today. This episode was written
by our good pal Marissa Brown. Thank you Marissa, Will
and Mango will be back next week and in the
meantime from Will, Mango, Dylan, Gabe, and myself, thank you
so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (31:14):
Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
It is hosted by my good pal Will Pearson, who
I've known for almost three decades now. That is insane
to me. I'm the Utaco host, Mangeshatikular aka Mango. Our
producer is Mary Phillips Sandy. She's actually a super producer.
I'm going to fix that in post. Our writer is
(31:36):
Gabe Lucier, who I've also known for like a decade
at this point, maybe more. Dylan Fagan is in the booth.
He is always dressed up, always cheering us on, and
always ready to hit record and then mix the show
after he does a great job. I also want to
shout out the executive producers from iHeart my good pals
Katrina and Norvel and Ali Perry. We have social media
(31:59):
support from k Rales if you like our videos. That
is all Calypso's handiwork For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio,
visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or tune in wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. That's it from us
here at Part Time Genius.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
Thank you so much for listening.
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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