deepstash
Beta
Deepstash brings you key ideas from the most inspiring articles like this one:
Read more efficiently
Save what inspires you
Remember anything
The Railroads That Created Christmas
3
Key Ideas
Save all ideas
The Christmas evolution
Santa and his reindeer, the carols, the lights, and the massive consumer spending on gifts did not happen immediately upon the birth of Christ.
By the mid-1800s, the holiday had picked up various elements of European religious and pagan traditions but wasn't popular in the United States. Much of the holiday's evolution is attributable to the steel rails in America.
8 SAVES
51 READS
The creators of the modern American Christmas
Thomas Nast gave us our image of Santa, but Henry Bessemer figured out how to make steel rapidly, cheaply, and abundantly. He completely revolutionized some of the greatest of human industries.
His rails connected almost every corner of the United States, making it possible to move products and messages of love across the nation.
7 SAVES
26 READS
How the train propelled the idea of Christmas
Society's view was propelled by trains full of Christmas trees, Christmas cards, and Christmas gifts.
The Christmas tree came first as big business in the 19th century. Christmas trees were hauled by train from Maine to New York City. Along with the Christmas tree came the Christmas card. The last piece of the holiday was the tradition of giving gifts. A Times article in 1890 declared "an epidemic in giving and receiving presents".
6 SAVES
31 READS
SIMILAR ARTICLES & IDEAS:
6
Key Ideas
Christmas Gifting To Children: The Tradition
Every year, many families across the world celebrate Christmas and have a tradition of giving children with special Christmas gifts.
Critics have decried the commercialization of the Christ...
The Holidays Mean Gifts For Children
Donating gifts to poor children as Christmas charity started only after gift-giving to the children of one’s own family and friends became a common ritual.
Gifting in general is not according to ‘good behaviour’ and does not have an exclusive link to the Christian faith.
Christmas Gifting To Children: The Origin
Gift giving for children during Christmas started in New York City in the 1800s when the holiday was ‘reinvented’ as a family bonding time that integrated the various home decoration and shopping rituals.
When the city’s population grew ten times from 1800 to 1850, city planners and the elites feared that the street revelry done by ‘commoners’ would be a problem for them during the holidays, and started to focus the celebrations to be done at homes only.
7
Key Ideas
Considering risk
But those who routinely examine the way risks propagate across the entir...
Risk along the value chain
Most companies only examine the most direct risks facing a company and tend to neglect secondary risks that can have an even greater impact.
Companies need to learn to evaluate aftereffects that could weaken whole value chains.
Competitors
All differences in business models can create the potential for competitive risk exposure. This does not mean that a company should imitate its competitors, but that it should consider the risk when they have different strategies.
7
Key Ideas
Why Black Friday Is So Popular
Black Friday is the conventional starting day for the holiday shopping season.
Historically, it’s also been the best day to find great deals on the year’s hottest toys, gam...
The 20th Century: The Parade of Sponsors
- In the middle of the 20th century, Thanksgiving parades drew crowds in most major cities and in some of the smaller towns too. Many were sponsored by local or national retailers. Back in the day, that meant mostly department stores.
- By attaching their names to the most visible events on the preholiday calendar, department stores reminded their customers that they were open for business in the coming holiday shopping season.
- Over time, Thanksgiving parades came to mark the unofficial start of that season.
The Modern Holiday Shopping Calendar
- Thanksgiving fell on the last Thursday of November since 1863 until 1939, when President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday of November (starting with 1941), influenced by the request of a powerful coalition of retailers.
- When Thanksgiving fell on November 30, it left only 24 holiday shopping days and this worried retailers who reasoned that busy holiday shoppers would simply shop less in a shorter season.
- They promoted the idea that a longer holiday shopping season would be good for the American economy.