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- [00:00]
Tracy V. Wilson
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [00:06]
Shaquille O'Neal (Shaq)
The clock's running out on December deal drops at Lowe's, but there's still time to wrap up something they'll love. Shop great gifts under $50 like the Dewalt Elite Series 100 piece bit set. Plus if you order by 2pm, you get same day delivery by 8pm Shop December deal drops while you can. Lowe's we help you save and now Superhuman Shack I keep telling them not to say that. I'm no superhuman. Believe it or not, I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea, or OSA in adults with obesity. Moderate to severe OSA is a condition where breathing is interrupted during sleep with loud snoring, choking, gasping for air, and even daytime fatigue. Let's just say it can sound a lot like this. Sound familiar? Learn more at don't sleep on OSA.com.
- [01:00]
Holly Frey
This information is provided by Lily, a medicine company. Listen to your elders, honey. You might know them from their viral videos. But now the Old Gays are pulling back the curtain with their podcast Silver Linings with the Old Gays, brought to you in partnership with I Heart Ruby Studio and Vive Healthcare. Hosts Robert, Mick, Bill and Jesse share their favorite pride, memories and the importance of celebrating all year long in honor of Palm Springs Pride. So check out Silver Linings with the Old gays on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Happy Saturday everybody. As we're approaching Christmas, it seemed like the perfect time to revisit our episode on Washington Irving. Although he's most well known for the tale of the Headless Horseman that's told in his story the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Irving's writing about Christmas is important and deeply influential to the way the holiday is celebrated in the United States. Probably more than most people are aware. This episode originally came out on December 20th, 2021. Enjoy. Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.
- [02:17]
Tracy V. Wilson
Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson.
- [02:20]
Holly Frey
And I'm Holly Fry.
- [02:22]
Tracy V. Wilson
Over the years, we've talked about various influences on Christmas as a holiday, particularly in the US and the uk. So we've talked about Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, the poem a visit from St. Nicholas, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, Joel Roberts Poinset, namesake of the poinsettia, NORAD's tradition of tracking Santa's progress on Christmas Eve, and then, most recently, our episode on how the Nutcracker Ballet became a Christmas time staple. Another Christmas influence might come to mind, more in connection with Halloween because it's Washington Irving, author of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, which became part of Disney's the Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad in 1949 and absolutely, truly terrified me when I was a child. We will talk about Irving's work and his Christmas influence today, including his influence of Charles Dickens. Washington Irving did most of his Christmas related writing pretty early in his career, but we're going to save the most detailed discussion of it for the last third of the episode after our second sponsor break. Also, if you listen to this show with anybody who's going to be just truly eagerly awaiting Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, that part of the episode might be something to just say for later. Like maybe listen to it yourself first before foisting it on any young ears.
- [03:48]
Holly Frey
Sounds like a great plan. Always. Washington Irving was born on April 3, 1783 in New York City. That is the same year that the Treaty of Paris formally ended the Revolutionary War. So he was growing up as the United States was establishing itself as an independent nation. Washington Irving was named after George Washington, and he also attended George Washington's inauguration in New York City just after he turned 6.
- [04:15]
Tracy V. Wilson
Irving was the youngest of William and Sarah Irving's 11 children, nine of whom survived to adulthood. Both of them had immigrated to North America. Sarah had come from Cornwall, England, and William from the Orkney Islands, Scotland. William was a church deacon as well as being a hardware dealer and a merchant.
- [04:35]
Holly Frey
In 1798, when he was 14, Washington's parents sent him to Tarrytown on the Hudson river, not far from Sleepy Hollow, to try to protect him from a devastating outbreak of yellow fever in New York City. He fell in love with the area, wandering around and exploring and learning the folklore and heritage of its residents, many of whom were Dutch immigrants and their descendants.
- [04:58]
Tracy V. Wilson
The young Washington Irving seems to have been really doted on. As the baby of the family. His father insisted that all of his younger brothers go to college. But Washington was described as kind of a dreamer and lax when it came to his studies. So rather than attending college like his brothers, he started a law apprenticeship at the age of 15. First he was at the law office of Henry Masterson, and then with former New York Attorney General Josiah Ogden Hoffman. Irving was chronically ill and in 1804 he went to Europe with the hope of improving his health. He stayed there until 1806. Then when he got back to the US he was admitted to the New York bar, reportedly though just barely. He just barely got past that exam.
- [05:44]
Holly Frey
After he returned to the U.S. irving started a satirical periodical with his brother William and their friend James Kirk Paulding. Paulding also went on to become a writer in his own right, and later served as the Secretary of the Navy under Martin Van Buren. They called their periodical Salmagundi, or the Whim, Whams and Opinions of Launcelot Langstaff, Esquire. It published about 20 issues in 1807 and 1808.
- [06:10]
Tracy V. Wilson
This periodical has been described as the mad magazine of its day, and it lampooned a number of targets, but a lot of its focus was on the political and social life of New York City. The use of Gotham as a nickname for New York City was coined in its pages. This picked up the name from the story the Wise Men of Gotham, in which the villagers of Gotham Nottinghamshire feign incompetence in order to get out of a visit from King John. So this nickname of Gotham not meant to be flattering.
- [06:44]
Holly Frey
Don't tell Batman. In 1808, Irving became engaged to Matilda Hoffman, daughter of his law mentor Josiah Ogden Hoffman, and about a year later, he gave up any pretense of practicing law.
- [06:57]
Tracy V. Wilson
In 1809, Irving published a fictional history of the Dutch colonization of New York called A History of New York from the Beginning of the World to the End of the Dutch Dynasty. This was narrated by and written under the pen name of Diedrich Knickerbocker. That's one of many pseudonyms that Irving used for different purposes during his career, and one of the many names that he also seems to have picked up from somebody that he knew. Thanks to this book. Knickerbocker became a nickname for New Yorkers of Dutch ancestry, and then a nickname for New Yorkers more generally. The New York Knicks, if you're not aware, is short for the Knickerbockers.
- [07:39]
Holly Frey
Knickerbockers are also baggy trousers that usually stop just below the knee and are gathered and fastened there with a button or a buckle. This seems to trace back to Irving's work as well, and to illustrations in the book that feature Dutch men in baggy knee breeches.
- [07:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
A History of New York was another satire. It parodied Samuel L. Mitchell's the Picture of New York or the Traveler's Guide through the Commercial Metropolis of the United States. But while it was fictional and comedic, it still drew from real people and places that Irving had known while living in New York's Hudson Valley. Irving led up to the publication of this book with something of a PR hoax. He posted a series of notices about a missing historian named Diedrich Knickerbocker. Establishing the name and reputation of this fictitious person before the book hit the stands.
- [08:31]
Holly Frey
The same year that A History of New York was published, Irving's fiance, Matilda, died of tuberculosis. That happened on April 26, 1809. And she really seems to have been the love of his life. And Irving's writing about her is full of loss. He later wrote in his journal, quote, she died in the flower of her youth and of mine, but she has lived for me ever since. In all womankind, I see her in their eyes, and it is the remembrance of her that has given a tender interest in my eyes to everything that bears the name of woman. At another point, he wrote, quote, for years I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret. I could not even mention her name. But her image was continually before me and I dreamt of her incessantly.
- [09:17]
Tracy V. Wilson
It doesn't seem like Irving wrote a lot over the next few years. He moved to Washington, D.C. in 1811 to work as a lobbyist, protecting the interests of his family's merchant business. During the War of 1812, after Britain invaded Washington, D.C. and set fire to the Capitol and the White House and other major buildings, Irving enlisted in the Army. He served as an aide de Camp to Governor Daniel Tompkins until the war ended in February of 1815.
- [09:44]
Holly Frey
After the war was over, Irving went back to Europe. His family had an import export business called P and E. Irving. The war had been really hard on most of these types of businesses, but Irving's brothers had also made a series of missteps. And in their efforts to recover after the war was over, Irving went to London to try to help them save the business, something he really felt was just hopeless from the start. In the end, he was right. The business could not be saved and bankruptcy proceedings started in 1818.
- [10:16]
Tracy V. Wilson
Washington Irving had been something of a silent partner in this business. He had been earning an income from it without being expected to really do any work. But this bankruptcy meant that income was gone. Poet and novelist Sir Walter Scott, who had become one of Irving's friends and colleagues, encouraged him to try to make a living as a writer.
- [10:36]
Holly Frey
And we will talk more about that after a sponsor break.
- [10:44]
Shaquille O'Neal (Shaq)
The clock's running out on December, deal drops at Lowe's. But there's still time to wrap up something they'll love. Shop great gifts under $50 like the Dewalt Elite Series 100 piece bit set plus if you order by 2pm, you get same day delivery by 8pm Shop December deal drops while you can. Lowe's we help you save. Everybody knows Shaq, but off camera, he's.
- [11:13]
Holly Frey
Just a regular guy.
- [11:14]
Shaquille O'Neal (Shaq)
People never believe me when I say I'm just like them. I take out the trash, do dishes, and I struggle with moderate obstructive sleep apnea, or osa.
- [11:22]
Tracy V. Wilson
And.
- [11:22]
Shaquille O'Neal (Shaq)
And a lot of adults with obesity also struggle with moderate to severe osa. You know, those scary breathing interruptions during sleep, the loud snoring, choking, and daytime fatigue? I knew I had to talk to my doctor. Don't sleep on the symptoms. Learn more@don'tsleeponosa.com this information is provided by Lilly, A Medicine company.
- [11:43]
Holly Frey
Hey, audiobook lovers.
- [11:44]
Tracy V. Wilson
This week on the podcast I'm Sitting.
- [11:46]
Holly Frey
Down with musician, producer and walking encyclopedia Questlove.
- [11:50]
Tracy V. Wilson
We're talking about Mark Ronson's memoir, Night how to be a DJ in 90s New York City. All right, like we talked about before.
- [11:58]
Holly Frey
Mark Ronson found sanctuary in the DJ booth. What's a tool or piece of equipment.
- [12:02]
Tracy V. Wilson
In the studio or on stage that gives you the most control?
- [12:06]
Shaquille O'Neal (Shaq)
So I have two microphones on stage. We have the microphone that you hear as the audience. Then we have a second microphone in which we communicate with each other. I feel like that second microphone kind of saved all of our friendships. No band likes each other after 20 years or 25 years. The Beatles broke up in seven and a half years, and we're going on 35.
- [12:30]
Tracy V. Wilson
Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart.
- [12:33]
Holly Frey
Audiobook Club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [12:50]
Tracy V. Wilson
While living in Europe, Washington Irving wrote the Sketchbook of Geoffrey Crayon Gent. This was largely a series of sketches of English life based on what he had experienced while living there, and it also contained three short stories, Rip van Winkle, the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Spectre Bridegroom.
- [13:09]
Holly Frey
Although the sketchbook was published under the pseudonym of Jeffrey Crayon, both Rib van Winkle, about a man who goes off to the mountains to escape his stereotypically shrewish wife and sleeps for 20 years, and the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, about superstitious schoolteacher Ichabod Crane and his Flight from the Headless Horseman, are attributed to Diederik Knickerbocker. The two stories are set in Dutch communities in New York, but both are rooted in German folklore. The sketchbook also contained five essays about Christmas in England, and we'll talk a little bit more about that later.
- [13:43]
Tracy V. Wilson
Although many of the other pieces describe Irving's experiences in England, two of them are focused on indigenous communities in North America, their traits of Indian character and Philip of Pokanoket. The first is a general discussion of North America's indigenous peoples, especially especially in New England. And the second is a narrative of King Philip's war, which took place in the 1670s and which we've covered on the show before.
- [14:10]
Holly Frey
In terms of Irving's racial attitudes, both of these writings are just a tangle. Traits of Indian character, for example, starts off by saying that, quote, it has been the lot of the unfortunate aborigines of America in the early periods of colonization to be doubly wronged by the white men. They have been dispossessed of their hereditary possessions by mercenary and frequently wanton warfare, and their characters have been traduced by bigoted and interested writers. The colonists often treated them like beasts of the forest, and the author has endeavored to justify him in his outrages. The former found it easier to exterminate than to civilize, the latter to vilify than to discriminate. The appellations of savage and pagan were deemed sufficient for to sanction the hostilities of both. And thus the poor wanderers of the forest were persecuted and defamed not because they were guilty, but because they were ignorant.
- [15:07]
Tracy V. Wilson
Irving's criticisms of Europeans treatment of indigenous people in North America, particularly during the colonial period, are very pointed and often perceptive and astute. But then threaded through that are racist language and stereotypes, both reflecting the language that was commonly used at the time and reflecting Irving's own paternal attitudes. Sometimes it is almost whiplash inducing to read like I was trying to find a quote to read as an example. And I was like, man, I just don't even want to repeat this insulting part on the show for the sake of illustration.
- [15:43]
Holly Frey
Irving's descriptions of the state of things as he was writing are also obliviously optimistic at best. While he acknowledges that the same prejudices against indigenous peoples all still exist, he frames the federal government's relationship to them as basically fine. Now here's a quote. American government too has wisely and humanely exerted itself to inculcate a friendly and forbearing spirit towards them and to protect them from fraud and injustice. That's whiplashy in and of itself.
- [16:18]
Tracy V. Wilson
So Philip of Poconoket is similarly striking. Irving's treatment of Metacom, who English colonists could called King Philip, has been described as groundbreaking and even radical because it was way, way more sympathetic to Metacom and to the Wampanoag Confederacy than the historical sources that he would have been using for his research. His approach was probably influenced by the idea of the noble savage which had come to prominence among Europeans in the 18th century and beyond. But his treatment of Metacom seems to really go beyond that and into a more nuanced view of the war than would really be expected, with a lot more empathy toward the Wampanoag and more acknowledgment of all the context that was involved.
- [17:04]
Holly Frey
And we should also take a moment here to say that Irving's writing related to people of African descent is similarly tangled. When Irving was growing up, New York City was at the heart of the largest slaveholding region of the north, and it had an established community of free black people as well. The Dutch communities that Irving was so fond of in the Hudson Valley were also home to both enslaved and free black people, who were known as the Black Dutch, which is one of several meanings that term has carried. Irving clearly thought their folklore and traditions were as worthy of documentation as those of white people, and he wrote about holidays like Pinkster, which was celebrated by the black community and grew out of Dutch celebrations surrounding Pentecost. But at the same time, Irving wrote about black people in a negatively stereotyped and sometimes even fetishizing way.
- [17:55]
Tracy V. Wilson
Irving had essays from the sketchbook printed in the US at about the same time as the whole collection was coming out in the UK to try to protect himself and his profits from plagiarists. Its contents were printed on both sides of The Atlantic between 1819 and 1823 was generally well received, especially the short stories, with later critics describing Irving as the first American short story writer. It also sold well enough that he was able to support himself.
- [18:25]
Holly Frey
In 1822, Irving was paid 1000 guineas to write a sequel, Bracebridge hall, or the A Medley, also under the Jeffrey Crayon pseudonym. Then Tales of a Traveler followed in 1824. Tales of a Traveler contains another story attributed to Knickerbocker, and that is the Devil and Tom Walker. Critics mostly panned Tales of a Traveler, and Irving seems to have stopped writing for a while.
- [18:53]
Tracy V. Wilson
He remained in Europe, though, and Alexander Hill Everett, the US Minister to Spain, invited him to Madrid. Spain had just released archival documents on its colonization of the Americas, and Everett wanted Irving to translate them for American use. Irving may have started out following that instruction, but soon he was using these documents not to translate them, but to do research on his own work.
- [19:17]
Holly Frey
The result was A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, which was published in 1828. This was a fictionalized biography of Columbus, sometimes described as a romantic biography. This work is extremely favorable in its embellished treatment of Columbus making him almost a mythic figure. The book also put forth the fiction that one of the reasons for Columbus's 1492 voyage was to prove that the world was not flat, an idea that has persisted until today, even though people around the world have known the planet was roughly spherical for literally thousands of years.
- [19:54]
Tracy V. Wilson
Other work related to Spain followed the Columbus biography, including a chronicle of the conquest of Granada from the manuscripts of Fray Antonio Agapita. That being yet another pseudonym, this work is described as having a, quote, comically biased narrator.
- [20:12]
Holly Frey
Irving had to leave Spain in 1829 after he was appointed secretary to the American Legation in London. He worked at the American Embassy in London until 1832 and then finally returned to the United States. Irving had become famous while he was away, and he returned to find that New York City had grown tremendously in his absence.
- [20:33]
Tracy V. Wilson
In the fall of 1832, Irving joined Henry Levitt Ellsworth on an expedition to what's now Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas. President Andrew Jackson had tasked Ellsworth with inspecting land that was going to be used for the forced relocation of indigenous peoples under the Indian removal Act of 1830. This relocation later became known as the Trail of Tears, and. And it forced tens of thousands of indigenous people to leave their homes and move west, including citizens of the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Seminole, Creek and Cherokee nations, among others.
- [21:08]
Holly Frey
Irving was invited to accompany this expedition, and he saw it as, quote, an opportunity of seeing the remnants of those great Indian tribes which are now about to disappear as independent nations or to be amalgamated under some new form of government. While on this expedition, Irving visited Sauk leader Black Hawk, who at the time was imprisoned for his role in the Black Hawk War, which had taken place earlier in 1832. In a letter to a sister, Irving said of this meeting, quote, I find it extremely difficult, even when so near the seat of action, to get at the right story of these feuds between the white and the red man. And my sympathies go strongly with the latter.
- [21:49]
Tracy V. Wilson
At the same time, though, Irving does not seem particularly critical of Jackson's removal policy. And that was something that directly led to the deaths of thousands of people, the loss of ancestral homelands, and the total upheaval of families and social structures. Irving wrote several books drawn from this experience, including Tour on the Prairies, which came out in 1835, Enterprise beyond the Rocky Mountains in 1836, and Adventures in the Far west in 1837.
- [22:19]
Holly Frey
As these books were published, Irving was living at Sunnyside, which was a farm not far from Tarrytown. That he bought in 1835, and he probably would have been content to live out the rest of his days there. But in 1842, President John Tyler appointed Irving as minister to Spain. He had been recommended by Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State, who was a fan of Irving's writing and also knew of his earlier time and experiences in Spain.
- [22:47]
Tracy V. Wilson
This is a precarious time for Spain and for the United States relations with it. Queen Isabella II was only 12, and there were multiple factions wrestling for control of the Spanish government. Meanwhile, the United States was in the process of annexing Texas, which would ultimately lead it to war with Mexico. And that was something that the United States really wanted Spain to stay out of, meaning they wanted Irving to make sure that Spain just stayed. Stayed put.
- [23:18]
Holly Frey
Unsurprisingly, Washington Irving found this position extremely stressful and it aggravated various chronic health conditions. But he held out until James K. Polk took office and then he resigned when it just didn't seem like Polk was going to name a replacement anytime soon.
- [23:34]
Tracy V. Wilson
Irving was back at home in Sunnyside. In 1846, he published the Life of Muhammad and Muhammad and his successors in 1849 and 1850. These were books that he had started working on while living in Spain. This has been described as the first sympathetic biography of the Prophet Muhammad to be published in North America. I haven't personally read it. I did read articles about it by Muslim people and that was the description was that they found a treatment of Muhammad to be generally sympathetic and that that was groundbreaking, given the time.
- [24:08]
Holly Frey
Irving spent most of his last years working on a biography of George Washington that was published in five volumes between 1855 and 1859. This is both a favorable treatment of Washington and one that humanized him. Focusing primarily on his military career and his personal life.
- [24:27]
Tracy V. Wilson
Irving experienced a series of illnesses as he was finishing this biography. His health is described as declining throughout the whole process. He died on November 28, 1859 at the age of 76 after having had a heart attack in his bedroom at Sunnyside.
- [24:43]
Holly Frey
Washington. Irving is considered to be the first American man of letters. His work also helped establish American literature as worthwhile in its own right, rather than simply being a minor offshoot of British literature. Because some of his work has preserved Dutch oral traditions in the Hudson Valley region, he has also been described as the first folklorist in the U.S. his home in Tarrytown still stands today and it is a National Historic Landmark.
- [25:11]
Tracy V. Wilson
Especially around November and December. Christmas can seem so ubiquitous in the United States that it feels almost like it Must have always been this way. But when Washington Irving was growing up, Christmas really wasn't established as a holiday. Especially not as a holiday that involved lots of feasting and merriment and presents and songs. Puritans in New England outlawed Christmas in 1659, and that followed a series of laws that had been passed in England starting in the 1640s. These laws in England had designated the Christmas season as a time for fasting and humiliation. That effectively outlawed Christmas celebrations in England until the restoration of Charles II in 1660.
- [25:56]
Holly Frey
By the time Irving was born, laws outlawing Christmas in the British colonies had been repealed. But many denominations and sects still viewed it with a lot of suspicion. In many places, Christmas was a day for hard work and penitence, not for revelry. This led to strife between denominations that opposed Christmas and those like Anglicans, who were more likely to celebrate it.
- [26:20]
Tracy V. Wilson
Dutch colonists in the Hudson River Valley had brought the tradition of Sinterklaas, or St. Nicholas, who brought presents to good children on St. Nicholas Day or Dec. 6. Irving mentions St. Nicholas more than 40 times in his history of New York. This includes attributing Dutch colonists decision to settle on Manhattan to St. Nicholas. Irving relates a tale in which Olaf van Cortland has a dream in which, quote, St. Nicholas came riding over the tops of the trees in that self same wagon wherein he brings his yearly presents to children.
- [26:56]
Holly Frey
In this dream, St. Nicholas smokes a pipe with the smoke from his pipe, assuming, quote, a variety of marvelous forms. Those forms include palaces, domes and spires. And then, quote, when St. Nicholas had smoked his pipe, he twisted it in his hat band and laying his finger beside his nose, gave the astonished Van Cortland a very significant look. Then, mounting his wagon, he returned over the treetops and disappeared.
- [27:25]
Tracy V. Wilson
The History of New York came out in 1809, but this passage seems to have been added in an 1812 edition. It may have been an inspiration for the poem a visit from St Nicholas, which is the poem that begins, Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house. That poem was first published in 1823. This poem is often attributed to Clement Clarke Moore, who was friends with Washington Irving, which really makes it seem like the poem's pipe and the flying sleigh and St Nick laying a finger aside his nose. That might all have been inspired by Washington Irving. However, there is a competing claim that Major Henry Livingston Jr. Is the person who wrote this poem and that that happened all the way back in 1808. And if that's the case, obviously Washington Irving could not have been the person who inspired it because it was already written when his book came out. We talked about this authorship dispute in our Christmas triple feature, and that is going to be our Saturday Classic on December 25th.
- [28:25]
Holly Frey
So, as we said earlier, Washington Irving's sketchbook contained five essays based on a Christmas he spent in England. They are titled Christmas the Stagecoach, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the Christmas Dinner.
- [28:39]
Tracy V. Wilson
So Christmas celebrations returned to England far more speedily than they did in North America, and Christmas contains some general observations about the holiday in England. Here's a sample quote of all the old festivals, however, that of Christmas awakens the strongest and most heartfelt associations. There is a tone of solemn and sacred feeling that blends with our conviviality and lifts the spirit to a state of hallowed and elevated enjoyment. The services of the church about this season are extremely tender and inspiring. They dwell on the beautiful story of the origin of our faith and the pastoral scenes that accompanied its announcement. They gradually increase in fervor and pathos during the season of Advent until they break forth in full jubilee on the morning that brought peace and goodwill to men. I do not know a grander effect of music on the moral feelings than to hear the full choir and the peeling organ performing a Christmas anthem in a cathedral and filling every part of the vast pile with triumphant harmony.
- [29:46]
Holly Frey
He also repeatedly stresses the idea that this is a time to be happy and merry. He talks about being a stranger, no friends around him, quote, yet I feel the influence of the season beaming into my soul from the happy looks of those around me. He goes on to say, quote, he who can turn churlishly away from contemplating the felicity of his fellow beings and can sit down darkling and repining in his loneliness when all around is joyful, may have his moments of strong excitement and selfish gratification, but he wants the genial and social sympathies which constitute the charm of a Merry Christmas.
- [30:25]
Tracy V. Wilson
In the stagecoach, Irving describes traveling by coach on a tour of Yorkshire on the day before Christmas and seeing other passengers all bound for holiday visits laden with hampers full of delicious foods. He winds up at an inn that's, quote, decorated here and there with a Christmas green. He runs into a friend who invites him to stay for a few days. Staying with friends being better than having Christmas dinner alone at an inn.
- [30:52]
Holly Frey
So for Christmas Eve, Irving winds up at the Bracebridges estate. He hears lots of merriment coming from the servants quarters. They are playing lots of games, some of which sound familiar today and some which do not. Quote here were kept up. The old games of Hoodman, Blind Shoe, the Wild Mare, Hot Cockles Steal, the White Loaf, Bob Apple and Snapdragon. The Yule clog and Christmas Candle were regularly burnt and the mistletoe with its white berries hung up to the imminent peril of all the pretty housemaids. A footnote explains that young men get to kiss young women under the mistletoe, removing a berry from the sprig, and each time, and when the berries are gone, quote, the privilege ceases.
- [31:36]
Tracy V. Wilson
Irving describes the Yule clog, which is an enormous log burned during the holiday, with a bit of it saved to light the next year's log, as well as a range of superstitions associated with it. He also talks about Christmas candles being wreathed in greens and lots of singing and dancing in general gaiety.
- [31:55]
Holly Frey
His Christmas Day account begins with the household's children going door to door through the house, singing a Christmas carol to wake everyone up. Then there are family prayers followed by another carol, and then a church service later in the day, and distribution of beef, bread and ale to the poor.
- [32:13]
Tracy V. Wilson
On arrival at the church, Irving writes, quote, on reaching the church porch, we found the parson rebuking the gray headed sexton for having used mistletoe among the greens with which the church was decorated. It was, he observed, an unholy plant profaned by having been used by the Druids in their mystic ceremonies. And though it might be innocently employed in the festive ornamenting of halls and kitchens, yet it had been deemed by the fathers of the church as unhallowed and totally unfit for sacred purposes in Christmas dinner.
- [32:47]
Holly Frey
Irving is at first perplexed when a pig's head is brought out on a platter until his host explains that it's meant to represent a boar's head, something that had traditionally been served at Christmas in earlier years, including at the Oxford College that he had attended. The family's Christmas dinner also includes turkey, pheasant pie and a wassail bowl.
- [33:09]
Tracy V. Wilson
After dinner, the family gathers for the telling of Christmas ghost stories and a quote, Christmas mummery or masking. This has another footnote quote. Maskings or mummeries were favorite sports at Christmas in old times, and the wardrobes at halls and manor houses were often laid under contribution to furnish dresses and fantastic disguisings. I strongly suspect Master Simon to have taken the idea of his from Ben Johnson's Mask of Christmas to someone living.
- [33:40]
Holly Frey
In the US Today, where Christmas can feel like a giant commercial juggernaut. None of this really Sounds all that dramatic. More like a quaint old fashioned English Christmas. But again, the holiday really wasn't established in much of the US at that point. Irving's writing about it comes across as somewhat nostalgic, emphasizing that he thinks these kinds of traditions should be preserved.
- [34:03]
Tracy V. Wilson
And as we said earlier, the sketchbook was really popular. So Irving's fond descriptions of this English holiday spread across his reading audience in the US and it also had an impact on another writer whose work has been credited with influencing the way Christmas is thought about and celebrated, and that is Charles Dickens.
- [34:24]
Holly Frey
Charles Dickens was kind of a Washington Irving superfan. The Sketchbook was published when he was about 8 and he read it over and over. It is likely that Dickens named his own sketches by Boz after Irving's Sketchbook. And the sketchbook influenced Dickens's 1835 A Christmas Dinner as well as Christmas scenes in Pickwick Papers in 1836.
- [34:47]
Tracy V. Wilson
Irving wrote to Dickens in 1841 complimenting him on his work and Dickens reply is effusive. Here is a sample quote. I have been so accustomed to associate you with my pleasantest and happiest thoughts and with my leisure hours that I rush at once into full confidence with you and fall, as it were, naturally and by the very laws of gravity into your open arms. Questions come thronging to my pen as to the lips of people who meet after long hoping to do so. I don't know what to say first or what to leave unsaid, and am constantly disposed to break off and tell you again how glad I am this moment has arrived. I don't know if Charles Dickens meant this to sound a little suggestive.
- [35:41]
Holly Frey
It's very romantic.
- [35:43]
Tracy V. Wilson
It is extremely romantic.
- [35:47]
Holly Frey
Irving and Dickens exchanged flattering letters back and forth until meeting during Dickens tour of the US in 1842. In 1843, Dickens published a Christmas Carol, again influenced by Irving and whose influence on Christmas time we have previously discussed on the show.
- [36:05]
Tracy V. Wilson
Their friendship might not have lasted beyond that tour, though, if they corresponded after Irving left for that appointment as minister to Spain. Those letters have not survived and there's also a secondhand report that Irving had found Dickens to be, quote, outrageously vulgar.
- [36:23]
Holly Frey
Regardless, Christmas became more of an established and public holiday in the US over the course of the 19th century, and it became a federal holiday in the US on June 26, 1870.
- [36:35]
Tracy V. Wilson
And that's a bit about Washington Irving.
- [36:38]
Holly Frey
And his influence on the Christmas season.
- [36:41]
Tracy V. Wilson
On the season of holiday cheer and greenery.
- [36:45]
Holly Frey
And I feel like he would have an aneurysm if he walked into like a big box store and saw like the assault of Christmas everything. Which I'm not complaining about, by the way, but to him it would feel that way. 100%.
- [37:00]
Tracy V. Wilson
I bet. So. Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is historypodcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show.
- [37:30]
Shaquille O'Neal (Shaq)
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- [38:29]
Holly Frey
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Tracy V. Wilson
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- [38:39]
Holly Frey
Fascinating. It's accompanied by his natural ally, Doug.
- [38:44]
Shaquille O'Neal (Shaq)
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- [38:46]
Holly Frey
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- [38:51]
Tracy V. Wilson
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